On Monday, we officially kicked off Keep and tBTC’s stakedrop with a public Crowdcast event. The livestream included a keynote from project lead Matt Luongo, a walkthrough, and an overview of next steps. Over the coming weeks there will be additional updates as the stakedrop progresses, including the release of the tBTC dashboard. Ultimately, the event will let people stake ETH to earn KEEP.

If you were unable to attend — or simply want to see it again — the Crowdcast is available to re-watch here.

Keep has collaborated with Summa and the Cross-Chain Group to develop tBTC. Its trust-minimized design uses a system of random signing groups to process transactions. These groups are selected by a random beacon, minimizing counterparty risk. tBTC uses threshold ECDSA, which is audited and used by major crypto wallets and exchanges including Binance. Users can track their BTC at all times. And because tBTC is open source, the code and fee structure are transparent.

Since Keep handles custodianship for tBTC, those acting as signers normally need to stake both KEEP and ETH to perform their tasks. The stakedrop will allow people with no KEEP to act as tBTC signers using only their ETH, with the corresponding KEEP tokens “dropped” to them as a reward over time. The next several months of the stakedrop will see additional milestones including the release of the tBTC dashboard later this month. Ultimately, the stakedrop will let people stake ETH to earn KEEP.

Playing for Keeps Update

Last week we wrapped up the first month of Playing for Keeps, which allows people to earn KEEP tokens for contributing to the Network. May’s judge was Cosmos’s Zaki Manian, who awarded 1 million KEEP in total. Top prize went to Danil Ushakov for contributions around hardware experimentation, github PRs, and bug reports..

This month our judge is Spencer Noon, who will be looking for contributions with a focus on successful ECDSA client staking. Once again, 1 million KEEP are up for grabs.

Join our Discord: In order to qualify your submission for Playing for Keeps prizes, you must join our Discord server and give us a quick overview of who you are in the introduction message. We want to get to know everyone and make sure we don’t miss any submissions, so make sure you join the Discord.

Submit a Play for Keeps entry message in #introduce-yourself which includes:

• A name by which to address you in the channel
• Why you’re interested in Keep or tBTC
• What you are submitting for Playing for Keeps prizes — This can be an idea if you aren’t ready with a fully formed idea!
• If you’ve already produced something you want to submit as an entry

More details about entry requirements are available here.

The safe way to earn with your BTC

tBTC is designed as the safe way for people to use their BTC to participate in Ethereum DeFi projects. Over the coming months, we will continue the launch of the dApp through succeeding release candidates. In this way, through real-world testing and refinement, we believe we can ultimately deliver a project that meets the highest standards of safety and performance to bring the three quarters of crypto currently held in Bitcoin off the sidelines and onto exciting DeFi platforms like Compound.

Stay up-to-date on everything related to tBTC and the stakedrop by following the Discord channel.