The communities of crypto projects Keep and NuCypher are proposing a "hard merge," with onlookers claiming that the move is "the globe's first decentralized protocol merger."

Proposals were published to the respective forums of Continue and NuCypher'south DAO on March viii, revealing discussions take been underway betwixt the two projects for several weeks. If passed, the merger is expected to see the two projects integrated into a new interoperable network dubbed "Keanu."

The Continue Network is a protocol allowing blockchain users to privately shop and transfer data off-concatenation, with the squad using its tech to build the decentralized Bitcoin tokenization protocol, tBTC. NuCypher similarly offers a decentralized data encryption and protection layer for Ethereum-based decentralized applications.

The post written by NuCypher CEO MacLane Wilkison to his project'due south DAO notes that NuCypher's 2,000 nodes would get signers to tBTC, increasing its node-count past 1,000% and providing a robust foundation for tBTC'south coming v2 overhaul.

The proposals recommend a phased roll-out for the integration. A new staking contract would first be launching, maintaining back up for both NU and Keep as work tokens. Each community will be granted a combined 50% stake in Keanu.

A decentralized autonomous system, or DAO, managed by the new contracts would shortly follow, followed by tBTC v2'southward deployment and integration of the respective client networks.

Despite the networks planning to integrate, development will be driven by ii contained teams working toward shared objectives. Keep project lead Matt Luongo wrote:

"The Proceed and NuCypher networks have built similar technology with similar goals. Rather than continuing to split the market, we call up we can accomplish significantly more than together. And while both dev teams will remain independent, we'll all be focused on a single protocol."

On Twitter, Luongo likewise predicted the integration volition pave the way for layer-2 integrations, suggesting users volition soon exist able to mint tBTC on Optimism, Arbitrum, Polygon, or zkSync.

Viktor Bunin of blockchain infrastructure provider Bison Trails noted that Keanu would offer the projects' existing stakers greater modularity, tweeting:

"Proceed and NuCypher are both modular. They can add support for new use cases, which stakers tin opt into supporting. Stakers on the new network will take a greater option of modular components [...] via which they tin earn fees."

Bunin added that Keanu will diminish each network's "reliance on inflationary incentives," allowing the new network to become "sustainable off of fees lone much faster."

In calorie-free of the declaration, it'southward worth mentioning that some other decentralized M&A deal, that was reported on February. iii, took place between FreeTON and Dune.

Article was updated at five.30am ET on March 10.