Keep is a flexible governance system represented as an ERC1155 collection of NFTs. All stakeholders are tokenized, and group decisionmaking includes multi-sig and DAO voting features. Keep NFTs are semi-fungible. This means in some cases, they represent 1:1 rights, such as multi-sig and minting roles. Otherwise, they might be DAO voting balances or assets, such as Moloch-style loot shares. Ultimately Keep anticipates and maximixes a token-and-balance-centric approach to DAO interfaces, roles and permissions using the ERC1155 standard.
In addition to the core multi-sig feature, where decisions can be executed quickly after a signature threshold of quorum is met, balances associated with Keep token IDs all have Compound-style delegation and checkpointing. This means they can be easily integrated into on-chain voting and treasury systems regardless of their transferability, such as Kali.
The use of the ERC1155 standard further allows DAOs to all be located within a given public key address, across different networks, but grow at their own pace with specialized subgroups with their own related tokens and NFT branding. The shared address simplifies accounting, development of related applications, and demonstrates a cohesive brand and identity, as DAOs can be found on NFT galleries under the same URL.
Keep is therefore designed with the special lifecycle, memes and iteration of internet organizations in mind.
Startup founders might deploy a Keep Co. to hold runway in digital currency and represent their cap table with tokens. The founders and/or board members of the startup legal entity (which may be attached to the Keep as a Wrappr NFT) would likely be the multi-sig managers of the Keep treasury. Associated agreements, such as SAFE/T, token warrants, and equity shares can be issued at the deployment stage of the Keep Co., or as periodically decided by managers voting through the Keep app, as their own NFTs. These NFTs and related balances can be distributed while still being nontransferable. Likewise, whitelisting can be managed so tokens can only be transferred between certain accounts or exchanges, allowing liquidity and security-token features.
Close membership associations, such as guilds and professional groups, can represent each member, 1:1, as a Keep multi-sig token holder. Larger cooperatives might engage a board of managers as the Keep multi-sig feature, while representing membership in related Keep tokens. Group decisions can be polled through snapshot-style proposals, and activated once a quorum is met in a single transaction, without the need for on-chain voting. This provides a premium cooperative experience as there is true membership control over their dues and related expenditures, minimal blockchain interaction (i.e., good UX), while having the natural finance of smart contracts. Capital might be contributed through the tribute extension as a form of association dues, or in more business-like groups, capital contribution to an investment club or company.
Software might be distributed and give governance over its development and establish decision hiearchy through Keep tokens. A multi-sig can rotate among popular delegates of Keep tokens, keeping management efficient while distributed. Material decisions, such as minting tokens, moving assets or upgrading protocol contracts might be given over to large, slow on-chain voting. These might be settled through a single, or multiple protocol DAO tokens associated with the Keep.
Keep is designed to be minimalist, easy to build with, and rests on well-documented, gas-optimized snippets from Solady, Solmate, Zolidity and OpenZeppelin.
| Transaction | Safe | Keep |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy | 263k | 178k |
| Dai transfer | 88k | 57k |
Sources:
Each Keep has its name stored on-chain. These names are unique and reserved by the Keep create2 factory — names are the "salt" that generates each Keep address location.
All contracts and tests are written in Solidity and can be run using forge commands.
Several rounds of audits and security consultations were engaged in the development of Keep. Careful consideration was put into keeping the code as lean as possible and commenting around optimization choices. Solidity Finance completed two audit reports on the Keep core contracts, Alcibiades Capital contributed to additional design and implemented the contract testing suite, with an additional published review, Kyaa assisted with gas optimizations, and a bug bounty/optimization contest was completed with the wider security community. The Kali DAO development team, which led the implementation of Keep in collaboration with 12 community contributors, keeps its digital assets in Keep.
lib
├─ forge-std — https://github.com/brockelmore/forge-std
├─ solbase — https://github.com/Sol-DAO/solbase
src
│ └─ extensions
│ └─ metadata
│ └─ ...
│ └─ URIFetcher - "Open-ended metadata fetcher for ERC1155"
├─ KeepToken — "Modern, minimalist, and gas-optimized ERC1155 implementation with Compound-style voting and flexible permissioning scheme"
├─ Keep — "Tokenized multisig wallet"
└─ KeepFactory — "Keep Factory"
├─ tests
│ └─ ...Keep is deployed to the Ethereum, Arbitrum, Optimism, Polygon, Gnosis and Canto blockchains at the following verified addresses:
KeepFactory: 0x00000000008dd7888459CaeB062eF9eCc1E27301
Keep: 0x00000000000058018B54c271615d94645b9aAb81
URIfetcher: 0x72aa21a1b5a4719bf4c6ebb2fbad2db761d59a60
URIRemoteFetcher: 0x1C51Ae918F1487Ac7fb254b170ee4fbC4641faf7
URIRemoteFetcherV2: 0xAb906B8EA37f4291d40039112e3936a522Def250
KaliFactory: 0xd353fB1c33202441373524d3Cc5d94cd74113e25
Kali: 0x000000000000b6a5Ca118D41a571041f329C4c64
Setup
forge installBuilding
forge buildTesting
forge testConfigure Foundry
Using foundry.toml, Foundry is easily configurable.
For a full list of configuration options, see the Foundry configuration documentation.
You can find the docs for Keep contracts here.