1/ Next week, we'll finally share the last 3 years of our work with the world. We're taking @keep_project and #tBTC to mainnet.
As we move forward, I wanted to share exactly what that looks like so you'll know what to expect, when.
2/ Tomorow, the @MakerDAO commmunity will vote to finalize the tBTC price feed, an ETHBTC feed they maintain. This is a huge step toward bringing Bitcoin collateral to MCD.
3/ Monday, the @keep_project tokens, grants, and staking will be launched. Custodial partners like @CoinbaseCustody and @Anchorage will begin testing on mainnet. Tokens will be distributed, with vesting grants enforced on-chain.
4/ The following Monday, May 4th, the @keep_project random beacon and dashboard will go live. This timeline gives token holders a week to prepare to stake on mainnet. Once 64 operators are staking, the genesis relay entry of the random beacon will be generated.
5/ On Monday, May 11th, #tBTC will launch using @MakerDAO's ETHBTC feed. At launch the reference dApp will limit deposits- but DEXs, DeFi integrations, and anyone using the contracts directly can mint freely.
6/ Over the following weeks, more integrations will come online, and we'll remove restrictions from the reference dApp. This slow start through May will allow confidence to build, UX issues to be resolved, and more stakers to come online.
7/ On June 8th, anyone will be able to become a tBTC signer by joining the @keep_project stakedrop, fully decentralizing the tBTC bridge.
8/ Want to get involved in the meantime? Join our testnet, Playing for Keeps. Run nodes, improve docs, build dApps, and earn your spot as a signer on mainnet.
So, @MakerDAO is considering delisting WBTC, which makes up ~10% of DAI's backing.
1/
2/ Since 2019, I've been working on a decentralized alternative to WBTC — tBTC.
It's gone through tweaks and improvements over the years, balancing security and flexibility.
3/ Today, tBTC is...
💁♂️ An easy to use, permissionless bridge
🌐 Supported on Ethereum, Arbitrum, Base, Optimism, & Solana, with more to come
🔒 Backed by a decentralized network of custodians @TheTNetwork
1/ Recently, a couple @keep_project and @nucypher community members reached out to broker a call. Two whirlwind weeks later, and the teams are putting a joint proposal in front of our communities.
The proposal? To join forces in the first on-chain protocol hard merge.
2/ What’s a hard merge?
@tbitls coined the term to describe two protocols merging into a third. It’s sort of like a hard spoon, but with multiple protocols coming together.
Both NuCypher and Keep are threshold cryptography networks. Both have off-chain actors that can custody parts of secrets and compute over them, giving on-chain contracts super powers.
Both communities value censorship resistance, privacy, and security — first.
2/ As far as I know, this release is the first permissionless, censorship-resistant Bitcoin bridge on Ethereum. Anyone can mint $tBTC by connecting to the Bitcoin and Ethereum chains, and no one can censor transactions or redemptions.
3/ Of course, censorship-resistance is on a spectrum. Today, there are ~67 signers powering the bridge- not 1000s. That number is increasing every hour, and I hope we'll see 500+ signers online before the end of the year.
What does a "fair launch" mean when the same players are showing up to mine liquidity, over and over? Fair to whom?
If a vanilla SHA-256 coin is launched and it accrues some modest value, it's a freebie for existing Bitcoin miners. The only real cost is the opportunity of the hashpower, but for them it's a drop in the bucket
Fair launches today in DeFi are a subsidy for whale LPs. A strong launch should bootstrap a new community or extend an existing one, not enrich the same 5 aggro DeFi hedge funds.
Minting tBTC on Ethereum's mainnet is a gas-heavy process. It involves a BLS-based random beacon 🔀 and cross-chain SPV proofs 🧑🔬 so you don't need to trust a central party for RNG or minting (!!!). Awesome, but expensive in terms of gas / blockspace 💰🔥