Please read this article if you’re not familiar with Keep Network and have plans to stake on mainnet. Here will be described the basics you need to know and ideas that will help you to make a right choice of how to participate in the Stakedrop event.
Hello folks! This is an introduction to Keep Network mainnet staking. We will not go into the technical aspects and details here, they all are perfectly described in the articles of @chandru (one of the community members), as well as in official Keep Gitbook. All the necessary links you need to read are listed in the end of this article.
Instead, I’ve created a little cheat sheet for absolute newcomers, by which you can roughly understand your initial steps in the right direction. And I will focus on those things that you should think about. You can test yourself below.
Cheat sheet for newcomers
ETH-only staking is not started yet, so let’s discuss the KEEP-only and KEEP+ETH options.
The minimal stake to the date (October 2020) is 80,000 KEEP tokens. The minimal amount will decrease over time.
For now, if you don’t have enough KEEP, you can earn it with Playing for Keeps (it is planned that it will be held before the end of the 2020 year), more information provided here: https://blog.keep.network/how-to-play-for-keeps-297f246455d4
Another option is to buy KEEP tokens on markets, list of which you can see here: https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/keep-network#markets (most popular ones are UniSwap and Balancer).
Once you have a necessary amount of KEEP and presumably the best option for staking (KEEP-only or KEEP+ETH), you need to decide who will run the nodes.
Staking by yourself
First of all I strongly recommend that you try to stake in testnet, if you haven’t done this already. Otherwise without such experience staking in mainnet is just really dangerous for your funds.
There are many guides on running nodes in testnet, one of which is mine: https://nickgrego.medium.com/step-by-step-guide-for-installing-both-ecdsa-beacon-nodes-on-vps-with-100-voucher-db930ab2a667
If you have any issues with nodes, you can send me a DM anytime. Also many of the community members are ready to help you 24/7 in the official Keep Discord.
If you’re already an experienced node runner of Beacon and ECDSA nodes, the main things you should be concerned about in mainnet are: necessity of full Ethereum node (free Infura will not do the thing) and slashing policy (check list of must-reads in the end of this article). If you completely understand all the risks and how to avoid them, have a successful experience of running nodes without slashing in testnet, you’re free to go!
Staking with a provider
Official Keep partners for staking are:
- Bison Trails, Viktor Bunin (viktor@bisontrails.co)
- Staked, Tim Ogilvie (togilvie@staked.us)
- Figment Networks, Yannik Folla (yannick@figment.network)
- Blockdaemon, Konstantin Richter (konstantin@blockdaemon.com)
- Boar, Piotr Dyraga (hello@boar.network)
As you understand these are top-notch companies, so mainly they work with large clients. I’ve contacted most all of them and the conditions are about the same everywhere. I will try to avoid the details, as this information is kind of personal, but general rules are:
- They are all interested only in KEEP+ETH option
- Minimal ETH amount for staking is 100+
- They charge % of the rewards earned
- None of them will guarantee you to avoid slashing. YES they all have a great experience in running nodes, but NO they won’t write this clause in the contract.
It seems to me the most flexible provider is Bison Trails, no wonder Viktor Bunin was one of the kindest and generous judges of Playing for Keeps. They offer personal terms (more user-friendly than provided above), so if you are interested in staking through a provider, I suggest you go with them and drop a message via their website here: https://bisontrails.co/contact/
Best resources to read:
Thanks for your attention, I hope this article was useful to you for understanding the general basics of Stakedrop and in deciding which of the options suits you best for participation.
In conclusion, here is the list of must-reads, before you decide to stake. I will strongly suggest to read them all, to understand the details and be prepared for smooth staking without any issues.
- Official Keep documentation on staking: https://keep-network.gitbook.io/staking-documentation/
- Bison Trails article about Stakedrop: https://bisontrails.co/keep-stake-drop/
- Keep’s Messari report: https://messari.io/asset/keep-network
- Keep’s Discord
Additional resources:
- Keep’s GitHub
