Today we are excited to announce the ZEP Token Private Beta for Open Zeppelin — a network that uses economic incentives to maintain a healthy ecosystem of secure smart contract applications. Starting with an initial group of projects, we are opening applications today for new projects and developers to join the Private Beta.
How the ZEP Token Private Beta works
We believe that the next step in making smart contract code development easier and more accessible for developers is through the use of EVM packages—pieces of reviewed, reusable code deployed to the blockchain. EVM packages provide projects with instant access to hundreds of standard implementations without having to deploy any code, thus helping projects save costs and giving them greater flexibility with their applications.
Participants of the ZEP Token Private Beta includes projects like Adex, CanYa, Centre, Centrifuge, CoinFund, Decentraland, Dharma, District0x, Gnosis, LevelK, Livepeer, OpenZeppelin, Paxos Standard, Props, RCN, Set Protocol, Status and TPL.
The Private Beta encourages the creation and deployment of EVM packages by providing a share of ZEP tokens to projects that deploy an EVM package. Once a project publishes their package on ZeppelinOS, they must signal support for their package by staking an amount of ZEP tokens (i.e., vouching) to it. Participants can also choose to vouch for other projects’ packages.
While ZeppelinOS is open and free for anyone to use or publish an EVM package, only beta participants will be able to use or hold ZEP in order to vouch and indicate support for packages.
The ZEP Token
The ZEP Token is used as the native token on ZeppelinOS to streamline the developer experience, facilitating smart contract interoperability and decentralizing the governance of the platform.
It plays a central role in the Private Beta by functioning as the currency to vouch for effective EVM packages and to incentivize participants to deploy their own. More information about the vouching mechanics can be found in our ZEP Token Mechanics summary.
Please note that current version of Open Zeppelinimplements only an initial and limited version of the token mechanics described in the summary document. We’ll experiment with the full spectrum of mechanics as the beta progresses.
Initially, ZEP tokens will only be transferable between Private Beta participants and used in the system. To do so, we’re using the Transaction Permission Layer (TPL) protocol, a method for controlling the ways in which native digital assets are transferred.
The objective of the Private Beta is to foster the development of quality EVM packages and experiment with the ZEP Token dynamics in a controlled environment, with the ultimate goal of opening it up to the greater blockchain community in 2019.
Get Access to the ZEP Token Private Beta
The Private Beta has a limited number of spots, to ensure that we can successfully respond to feedback and test ZEP token mechanics in a controlled environment.
If you think your project would benefit from participating in the Private Beta or if you’re curious to try early versions of the ZEP token mechanics, apply to get into the Private Beta.
Registrations are open starting today until November 16, 2018. We’ll carefully review applications and prioritize them according to how valuable their contributions are for the ecosystem. Apply to ZEP Token Private Beta.
