Keep: Enabling Privacy Through Randomness

Keep Network: Designed as a Privacy Solution

One of the primary rationales for building a decentralized economy is that centralized systems — which can be opaque, inefficient, and prone to insiderism — may not offer equal access or sufficiently serve the interests of the people who use them. Providing a reliable and credible blockchain-based alternative that focuses on transparency, safety, and fairness was the rationale for building the Keep Network.

At the core of the project is the ability to keep private information — such as a private key — in small off-chain containers called “Keeps” that are both decentralized and off-limits to Keep team members. Keeps allow contracts to manage and use private data without exposing it to the public blockchain via a threshold elliptical curve digital signature algorithm (ECDSA), which is audited and used by top crypto wallets and exchanges.

Keep is the builder of tBTC, a safe and permissionless bridge between Bitcoin and Ethereum. The tBTC project is the only decentralized solution for BTC on Ethereum and is fully audited and insured. Users deposit their BTC in exchange for tBTC, an ERC-20 token that is fully backed at a ratio of 1:1. The keys to the bitcoin in tBTC are stored in Keeps, where they can’t be exposed to the public blockchain.

Keep Uses a Random Method to Choose Signers on tBTC

Keep Network’s random beacon is a mechanism that selects signers for deposits on tBTC. Because selection is random (though weighted based on the amount a user has staked), all parties would need to collude in order to discover how much tBTC signers are minting and the identity of the depositor. Signing groups can't operate unless they’re signing from a key that nobody knows. The idea is that no one knows who the signers will be — including the signers themselves — until the moment they are selected by the random beacon. This randomness ensures that signers are not able to collude to steal funds or attack the network.

KEEP Crypto Token Benefits

The KEEP crypto token provides sybil resistance that allows tBTC to be censorship resistant and permissionless. KEEP crypto holders can run tBTC, similar to running a full node. KEEP stakers play an even larger role as tBTC signers, who stake both KEEP and ETH to perform their tasks. When tBTC signers perform their functions properly, they receive fees in the form of KEEP crypto tokens. KEEP offers dividends on the network using a “burn” model.

Keep Network is designed to ensure privacy and security by keeping private data private. By using randomness to facilitate security and trustlessness, Keep Network is built to help further the vision of a secure, global, decentralized economy.