Great news - EIP-152 and EIP-1108, both of which the Keep team has been working on, were now accepted into Istanbul, the next Ethereum hard fork!

In this blog post our Engineering Lead Antonio expands on the benefits of those for the ecosystem.

"One of the most prohibitive aspects with respect to privacy on Ethereum is the high cost of certain encryption operations, and both EIPs took direct aim at reducing this cost. With these changes, Ethereum will unlock new possibilities around random beacons, private token transfers, private computations, and cross-chain interoperability with Zcash, the foremost privacy-protecting digital currency."

Give it a read and let us know what you think!

https://blog.keep.network/privacy-and-scaling-focused-eips-accepted-for-ethereum-istanbul-hard-fork-1a75fe0c4e4a

Fresh monthly roundup, folks!
Read about all our latest efforts here:
https://blog.keep.network/keep-network-august-roundup-dbed7dcbca49

New blog post is out! All about Keep’s Berlin adventures!

Interoperability Summit, tBTC presentation, panel at dAppcon, oracle design session, ChorusOne podcast, hackathon, afterparty cruise and more! First blog post from Jarrell James, our Ecosystem Growth Lead!


https://blog.keep.network/a-look-back-at-berlin-blockchain-week-fc41400847af

We are continuing to discuss tBTC, and over the past month we’ve held several formal and informal price oracle design sessions, which has been a great collaborative community effort and fun times.

We're working diligently on getting the random beacon to public testnet. We also attended a number of key events in September, including Eth Boston and Crypto Springs. This week we’re at DevCon5, and later in October you can meet us at San Francisco Blockchain Week.

Read our monthly update here!

https://blog.keep.network/keep-network-september-roundup-161d728b273f

Thrilled to see our Head of Business Strategy Carolyn Reckhow amongst "11 most influential women in crypto”

https://decrypt.co/6418/the-11-most-influential-women-in-crypto

Latest updates from the Keep team!
Busy November, wrapping things up before the public testnet. Read on! https://blog.keep.network/november-roundup-83d189e17695

Matt was recently interviewed by David Nage on the Base Layer podcast! Matt discusses several projects and approaches to getting BTC into DeFi, and the goal of tBTC to retain as many of bitcoin’s properties as possible. Check it out at either of the links below:

Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/sx7jlul

Stitcher: https://tinyurl.com/ulm2n39

And in case you missed it, Matt wrote a thing!

"Finance is a human right. And like free speech, it is an individual right that must be protected against collectivist forces."

This and other gems of wisdom were dropped in Matt Luongo’s crypto thesis “Reflections of a Monetary Maximalist”. The post covers Matt’s journey from Bitcoin to the development of tBTC. What was your favorite quote from the piece?

http://thesis.co/reflections-of-a-monetary-maximalist.html

Great news! @mhluongo’s episode on Pomp is now available. Matt and @APompliano discuss the upcoming launch of #tBTC, shipping during the time of #Covid_19, and letting $BTC holders start earning trustlessly with #DeFi.

Listen here: https://t.co/r9RfEJ7Uvu?amp=1

Hellloooooo Bloomberg! 👀👀

Check out what they had to say about the tBTC project and what it might mean for the future of both the bitcoin and ethereum blockchains and their communities. 👇

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-02/bitcoin-s-ethereum-rivalry-could-be-assuaged-with-tbtc-bridge

Thank you @Forbes for writing about the @keep_network token sale and the journey toward #tBTC 🙇 It was wonderful speaking with @justinofconnell 🎤🎧 looking forward to the podcast dropping soon as well!

https://www.forbes.com/sites/justinoconnell/2020/04/03/coinbase-co-founder-invests-in-project-to-bridge-bitcoin-and-ethereum/#5a3e79c27df4

📣 We've got news! 📣
Starting June 8th, you can stake ETH and get KEEP! The stakedrop will run for 6 months and means the only requirement to become a tBTC signer is to have ETH.
🙌 Help us bring BTC to DeFi🤝

👉 Sign up here to participate

Plus, starting today until the stakedrop, we'll also be running an incentivized testnet called
🏰Playing for Keeps🗡
It’s a chance to learn to stake before the stakedrop, and win KEEP by contributing to the community.

Read more about it on the Keep blog 👀

Make sure to join the conversation and get your testnet node running in #staking in Discord - Join here!

👩‍💻We know you’ve been wanting more details on our incentivized testnet game *Playing for Keeps.* 👀👀

Today we’re giving you that in a blog post where we go over timelines, contributions we’d like to see, and the amount of KEEP you could earn! 🏰
👉Read more here👈

📣The @StakingHub <> Keep AMA is starting *NOW*! 📣

Join here: http://t.me/StakingHub

It’s no surprise that the DeFi space is making a big move to support tBTC, and we’ve now announced the partners supporting tBTC at launch: *over 40 industry leaders representing 75% of Ethereum’s DeFi space.*

We’re pretty proud of the partner community we’ve built up ☺️

Check out the full details here!

TODAY! @ 11:00am EDT 🕚

🎤Check out Keep's CEO @mhluongo talk #tBTC with @twobitidiot on Crypto & COVID Daily from @MessariCrypto 🎧

👉 Link here 👈

🚨New Podcast Alert 🚨

Last week, Laura Shin took the time to sit down with Matt and dig into the Keep and tBTC projects in depth for ⛓Unchained⛓

Matt talks about his aspirations of uniting developer communities & why DeFi is #MillennialFinance (hint: because it’s permissionless finance 💅)

Check out Matt's episode of Unchained with Laura Shin here!

Consensys Diligence audited the Keep and tBTC code 💻 and while they have shared the audit results publicly, we think this is a more valuable read 👇

Wade Alexander details potential technical limitations of SPV proofs on Ethereum, how tBTC addressed these, and considerations for other projects building ⛓cross-chain interaction.

Check out the whole piece here 👀

While the pandemic is forcing many to stay home and causing non-essential businesses to grind to a halt, Keep 🏰 is working remotely as usual and working to push tBTC to mainnet.

There is truly no better time to ship a product pushing a better financial infrastructure, and that’s what we’re working to do. 💪
👇
Read more here

The team has put a great deal of effort into detailing the issue that led to the deposit pause earlier this week. We are working with our audit partners to confirm the issue and resolution, and have outlined steps for improvement and future tBTC deployment.

Thank you all 🙏 for your patience as we work to bring BTC to Ethereum. We hope that this accounting of this event demonstrates our commitment to overall security of funds🔒, and look forward to helping give your BTC additional functionality very soon.

Read the full report on the Keep blog