How to get KEEP — Stake ETH

Our June 8th, 2020 public stakedrop lets ETH holders earn KEEP by securing the Keep network. Sign up for the stakedrop here.

Until recently, the Keep network has been built and supported primarily by employees, advisors, and private purchasers, who are all required to stake KEEP, and are incentivized to act in the best long-term interest of the network.

A truly resilient network requires more though — a broad set of token holders who can secure the network across different regions. For that reason, on June 8th, we’ll be launching the KEEP public stakedrop. The stakedrop will allow ETH holders to earn KEEP by proving their ability to secure the Keep network.

The KEEP token is a work token. A great analogy for KEEP is a taxi medallion, or maybe a restaurant franchise- owning either gives you an opportunity to make money, though neither guarantees financial return without your own labor.

The Keep network uses the amount of KEEP staked by a user to power the random beacon, choosing random nodes to join new keeps, or small off-chain data containers. As nodes operate keeps, they earn fees for providing secure, private computation to the Ethereum network.

By opening up staking to any ETH holder for 6 months, KEEP can be distributed to the best candidate stakers. And, while running the random beacon on ETH stakers would be risky, the first app built atop the Keep network is a perfect fit for ETH.

tBTC — Use your ETH to bring Bitcoin to Ethereum

ETH-only staking means *permissionless signing* for tBTC. Normally, tBTC signers need to stake both KEEP and ETH. But the stakedrop allows people with no KEEP to act as signers using only their ETH, with the corresponding KEEP tokens earned over time. Anyone will be able to put their ETH to work bringing Bitcoin to Ethereum, and earning fees and KEEP doing so.

As a community, we can make tBTC the first permissionless Bitcoin sidechain in production — anyone will be able to deposit their BTC to take full advantage of Ethereum, and anyone with the capital and know-how will be able to earn fees staking and support the bridge.

In the future, as the requirement for ETH as an additional safety margin in tBTC lessens, the signers who have earned KEEP will earn even more fees with less capital at risk.

Join the stakedrop on June 8th, 2020.

Want to get involved in the meantime, and maybe win some KEEP?

Playing for Keeps

Until the stakedrop, we’ll be running an incentivized testnet called Playing for Keeps. Playing for Keeps is a chance for people to learn to stake before the stakedrop, and win themselves KEEP by contributing to the community.

We’re gathering on Discord to stake on testnet, kick the tires, improve the docs, and learn from one another.

Join Discord to start Playing for Keeps

While the game is on, contributions will be recognized bi-weekly by a panel of community judges, and be eligible to receive KEEP. There’s no contribution too small, as long as it supports the network.

Here are some projects we would love to see:

• Documentation “for humans”. Help more people stake
• Staking guides for different kinds of hardware
• Bug & security reports
• Improvements to the Keep client & contracts and the tBTC system
• Translations of documentation and websites
• Extensions to the Keep token dashboard
• a tBTC deposit explorer
• a tBTC liquidation auction dApp
• tBTC on Tornado Cash
• tBTC on DEXs, especially newer DEXs like Loopring
• a tBTC deposit widget based on tbtc.js, simplifying integration for new devs

While the above is all great, it’s certainly not an exclusive list! Ultimately, the judges will be the ones deciding which contributions are valuable. Later this week, we’ll announce the panel of community judges. The panel will meet bi-weekly, and decide which participants they believe should be granted KEEP. They’ll also decide the value- 1,000, 10,000, or even 100,000 KEEP — enough to participate as a full staker / signer at mainnet. Each will make their decision based on what they think is good for the network, as well as their own particular interests.

Playing for Keeps will continue on testnet through tBTC’s mainnet launch on April 27th and until the stakedrop on June 8th. As the game continues, more participants will be able to join as stakers on mainnet.

Our overall goal is to ensure a resilient network with a broad group of token holders who secure the network across different regions. We are excited to see the community achieve this goal — and earn KEEP along the way.

Let’s play for keeps!

Join the tBTC mailing list for updates.

Additional resources:

• Keep’s GitHub
• The tBTC Technical spec
• tbtc.js
• The Keep #tbtc channel on Discord