【Dapp Pocket】Is Keep3r the final step towards complete decentralization in DeFi?

2020/11/3

Dear DeFi enthusiasts,

This week, YFI founder Andre Cronje has launched a new product Keep3r. Will he become as popular as Yearn again? What is his idea? Let's discuss our views on this project designed for developers.

Other headlines this week include: PoolTogether V3's additional rewards are unexpectedly more valuable than the prize money?; Aave officially hands over protocol management keys to the community; and Harvest Finance compensates for voting to create tradable IOU tokens, and more.

Advertisement - Please scroll down for more content

This week, a selection of insights from industry leaders featured an article claiming that the biggest problem in DeFi is transparency by Coindesk. The report immediately triggered responses from DeFi founders such as Nextual Mutual, Uniswap, and Compound, which was very exciting.

Table of Contents

1. Our Perspective

Is Keep3r the Final Step to Fully Decentralized DeFi?

What is Keep3r?

This week, Keep3r launched, a new DeFi project released by yearn.finance founder Andre Cronje. Unlike most DeFi projects, it is a platform that serves DeFi developers. AC realized that some smart contracts require external "work" such as reporting transaction information. Keep3r is not responsible for executing the work but provides a platform for projects needing external work to register "Jobs" tasks, and individuals capable of performing actions to register as "Keepers" to match supply and demand. In other words, it decentralizes these originally difficult-to-decentralize "actions" to be executed by various Keepers.

How Does Keep3r Work?

1. Project Owners: Register Jobs, Provide Rewards

Project owners needing outsourcing tasks can register tasks on the official website or through calling Keep3r contracts. They can choose Keepers based on their security requirements, such as the required amount of Keeper's bond, completion of tasks, duration of being a Keeper, and the amount of tokens related to Keeper's staking.

2. Job Executors: Register as Keepers, Stake Bond, Execute Jobs

Any user can register as a Keeper and stake a bond ($KP3R, the token issued by Keep3r) through the website or contract. Registering as a Keeper takes about three days, after which they can execute Jobs and receive rewards.

3. Community Governance: Review Jobs and Keepers

Keep3r has a governance token $KP3R, which allows participation in community governance. $KP3R can be used for Keepers to stake bonds or for project owners to provide rewards. If the project owner provides rewards in $ETH, Keep3r will charge a 0.3% fee.

Which Jobs Can Be Completed Through Keep3r?

Tasks in smart contracts that require external instructions to trigger operations, such as debt settlement on lending platforms, updating oracle base values, switching fund strategies on aggregation platforms, cache updates on Synthetix, mining on YFI, etc. Currently registered Jobs include Uniswap V2 oracle and Aave liquidation, among others.

Conclusion: The Final Step to Full Decentralization?

While DeFi seems to be eroded by profit-driven speculators, don't worry, Andre Cronje and a group of experts are still striving to improve DeFi services. The current DeFi ecosystem has achieved a high level of decentralization through mechanisms like blockchain, smart contracts, and community governance. Keep3r takes it a step further, aiming to eliminate the remaining third-party needs in smart contracts. If DeFi is the industrial revolution of the financial world - replacing human labor with smart contracts, then Keep3r is like further delegating the authority of factory managers and foremen to the community, achieving the final step of full decentralization.

2. This Week's Highlights

✨ Top Headlines of the Week

Andre Cronje's New DeFi Project Keep3r Network Releases v1 Beta

Founder of yearn.finance, Andre Cronje, released the v1 beta of the decentralized on-chain service outsourcing network Keep3r Network, with the token named KP3R. AC mentioned that Keep3r Network is still under audit, although the contracts have been audited and reviewed, which does not mean errors are impossible. In this project, Keepers are external individuals responsible for executing tasks, and Jobs are smart contracts that require external entities to perform specific operations.

PoolTogether V3 Offers Extra Rewards Worth More than the Prize Pool!

In the first round draw of no-loss lottery PoolTogether V3, the prize pool is currently around 1,607, while the value of additional rewards sponsored by the community exceeds $7,100. This makes the total prize worth $8,700. The additional rewards include 26 ERC20 tokens, NFT rewards, digital collectibles platform Rarible's token RARI, and a one-month membership for MyCrypto, among others. Interestingly, the lowest ticket holder in this round spent 20 DAI, with odds of winning at approximately 1/50000, much higher than traditional lottery odds.

Aave Officially Hands Over Protocol Admin Key to the Community

DeFi lending protocol Aave announced the official transfer of the protocol admin key to the community. Aave stated that this is a significant step towards decentralization. As part of this, Aave will set the "Aave Governance" contract to be able to change protocol contract parameters as the "Lending Pool Manager," and grant ownership of the "LendingPoolAddressProvider" contract and "TokenDistributor" contract to Aave Governance, giving the AAVE community full control over the protocol.

Harvest Finance Compensates Voters Supporting Creation of Tradable IOU Tokens for Compensation

DeFi protocol Harvest Finance announced that the vote for compensating USDC/USDT depositors has ended, with 71.93% of voters supporting the creation of a tradable IOU token for compensation, with its own Uniswap market. The next vote will focus on the Uniswap market for IOU tokens (IOU/FARM or IOU/USDC).

Nexus Mutual Founder Proposes MakerDAO Use Nexus Mutual to Balance Debt Risk

DeFi insurance provider Nexus Mutual founder Hugh Karp proposed an improvement to the MakerDAO community, suggesting the use of customized insurance from Nexus Mutual to transfer some of the asset-liability imbalance risk on MakerDAO's balance sheet. The proposal states that Nexus Mutual can provide two types of insurance to MakerDAO, one based on threshold DAI debt, where if the generated debt exceeds 500,000 DAI, a compensation of 3 million DAI will be paid; the other is for payouts in case of emergency shutdown covering all claims batches.

Responses from...

Nextual Mutual Founder Hugh Karp: Makes no sense. Traditional insurance has at least a three-month information lag, while DeFi has real-time reporting

Uniswap Founder Hayden Adams: DeFi has about seven or eight pain points, but transparency is definitely not one of them

Compound Founder Robert Leshner: Ironically, Celsius itself is not DeFi; they just want to ride the trend by using that term

4. Data Indicators

This week's data covers from 2020/10/27 to 11/02. TVL (Total Value Locked) indicates how many assets are stored on the platform; IPY (Interest Per Year) is the current lent funds * annual interest rate, representing the platform's annual interest revenue. Data source: DeFi Pulse. (Unit: million USD)

5. Memes

https://twitter.com/lemiscate/status/1322092527701401600

About the Authors

Raizel / Economics major at NCCU, trapped by Bitcoin and turned to focus on DeFi
Thomas / DeFi enthusiast in Boston working in chip design
Anderson / Founder of Dapp Pocket, DeFi deposits > bank deposits

DEFI DEVELOPMENT