Tim Galebach: Uqbar – Smart Contracts on Urbit

Building a truly decentralised, peer-to-peer network, based on a built-in identity system, limits the ecosystem’s interoperability with the outside world. Onboarding developers and users to Urbit was only the first hurdle. On-ramping crypto was a whole different & daunting task. Uqbar set out to build an execution layer on top of Urbit, enabling smart contracts, which would ultimately settle, via a ZK rollup, on Starknet.

We were joined by Tim Galebach, founder of Uqbar, to discuss the different design choices involved, from Hoon programming DevEx to a hybrid ZK-optimistic rollup.

Topics covered in this episode:

• Tim’s background
• Urbit explained
• How Uqbar took shape
• Integrating crypto in the Urbit stack
• Hoon’s usability and DevEx
• AI-enabled Uqbar
• Uqbar interoperability
• Rollup vs. L1 approach for Uqbar
• Hybrid ZK-optimistic rollup
• Getting from programming in Hoon to ZK proofs
• Use cases for Uqbar & Urbit

Episode links:

• Tim Galebach on Twitter
• Uqbar on Twitter
• Urbit on Twitter
• Uqbar

This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain & Meher Roy. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/491