[jlehman]

A significant aspect of Urbit is its use of the Ethereum blockchain (called UrbitID), but not to produce any form of cryptocurrency—it's used to produce a form of cryptographic asset that more closely resembles property, since ownership of that asset (called a ship) confers value in the form of an identity within a network. DNS is to ICANN as UrbitID is to Ethereum. The regulatory aspect of who's who is decentralized rather than centralized.

Business models on Urbit don't really have to do with sale of ships though—they're finite and not meant for high-frequency trading. Business models that are emerging are more likely to involve providing services to users of the network, just as domain sales are a small fraction of the "business model" for the internet.