The Keep Network is a software aiming to incentivize a global network of computers to store private information that can be deployed on public blockchains via smart contracts.
Many decentralized applications (dapps) running on public blockchains, like Ethereum, require the use of private data (such as health records, credit scores and financial information) to operate.
To protect individual user’s privacy, the Keep Network enables private data to be stored outside the blockchain in “keeps”, which are containers that allow smart contracts to manage and use pieces of the stored data without exposing it to the public blockchain.
In order to operate a keep, nodes must stake KEEP tokens, Keep Network’s native cryptocurrency, to be selected by the Keep Network. These nodes are awarded KEEP for successfully maintaining keeps.
The first application built on the Keep Network is tBTC, which serves as a bridge between Bitcoin and Ethereum. Bitcoin holders deposit their BTC funds to a smart contract and receive tBTC, an Ethereum token of equivalent BTC value, used to access various dapps on the Ethereum blockchain.
Users seeking to stay up-to-date with the Keep Network’s progress can bookmark its blog. For more information on tBTC, you can read our “What is tBTC?” guide located in our Learn Center.
Who Created Keep Network?
Keep Network was founded by Matt Luongo and Corbin Pon in 2017. They previously co-founded Fold, a bitcoin shopping app, in 2014.
Keep Network sold $20 million worth of KEEP tokens in two rounds in private sales to investors, which include noted venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, and noted cryptocurrency investors Polychain Capital, Fenbushi Capital and Paradigm.
How Does the Keep Network Work?
Keep Network’s key feature is its ability to store private data, called secrets, outside the blockchain systems in keeps.
Keeps allow blockchain-based applications to interact with secrets without fully exposing their contents through the use of smart contracts, who, when a specific criteria is met, can provide data, encrypted files or verification of a user’s identity to the application.
Computers, or nodes, who maintain keeps are known as keep providers and are assigned fractions of a secret using the random beacon protocol, an advanced cryptography technique for trustless randomization.
When a user wishes to purchase a keep, they publish a request to the Keep Network, who, in turn, divides and mixes their secrets, sends shares of them to different keep providers, and returns keys to the users to access the content of their keeps when needed.
Keep providers must stake a certain amount of KEEP that can be retrieved by the protocol should they be unreliable or negligent with the keeps. However, providers incentivized through KEEP rewards for their services, including providing encryption, computation and storage services.
What products support KEEP?
| Send/Receive | Trading | |
|---|---|---|
| Coinbase | ✔ | ✔ |
| Pro | ✔ | ✔ |
What regions support KEEP?
| US | NY | EU | UK | CA | SG | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coinbase | ✖️ | ✖️ | ✖️ | ✖️ | ✖️ | ✖️ |
| Pro | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✖️ |
Crypto to fiat trading pairs
| US | UK | EU | |
|---|---|---|---|
| USD | ✔ | ✖️ | ✖️ |
| GBP | ✖️ | ✔ | ✖️ |
| EUR | ✖️ | ✔ | ✔ |
Crypto to crypto trading pairs
| USDC | USDT | BTC | ETH | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CHZ | ✖️ | ✔ | ✖️ | ✖️ |
See the full list of countries that Coinbase supports for crypto-to-crypto trading.
How many confirmations are needed for KEEP?
KEEP requires 35 network confirmations. Learn about transaction confirmations.
Which blockchain network hosts KEEP?
KEEP is hosted on the Ethereum.
What are the minimum and maximum withdrawal amounts?
Coinbase has implemented safeguards to ensure a healthy and efficient network both on-chain and through our platform.
These safeguards include both minimum and maximum amounts for each cryptocurrency we allow customers to send through the blockchain.
Minimum: 0.000000000000000001
Maximum: 68,750