What is a keeper network?
- Author
- CRYPTO PORT Editorial
- Published
- Updated
- Reading time
- 5 min
In short
A keeper network supplies the outside callers that trigger work a contract is supposed to do once a condition is met. Contracts cannot act on their own, so liquidations and scheduled updates always need somebody to make the call. Keepers are paid a fee or reward for making it.
Key points
- Contracts cannot self-trigger; a call must come from outside
- Keepers watch conditions and make that call
- They are rewarded for executing the work
- If the reward is too small, execution can lag
Definition
The external actors — keepers — and the networks coordinating them, which monitor for conditions and call contract functions such as liquidations or scheduled updates in exchange for a reward.
A smart contract has no timer. It may say a position should be liquidated once it falls below its collateral ratio, but nothing happens until someone calls that function — and calling costs gas, so nobody calls for free. The answer is to pay whoever does.
How the payment is funded varies. Liquidations typically hand the caller a slice of the seized collateral; routine tasks such as reinvesting yield often take a cut of the amount processed. Either way the point is to make calling profitable so that callers show up.
Keeper networks package this so anyone can take the role: register the condition to watch and the function to call, and participating keepers make the call for you. The caveat stands, though — when congestion pushes gas above the reward, nobody calls.
Watch out for
- · When gas exceeds the reward, execution can be delayed or skipped entirely
- · Timing is at the keeper's discretion and is not guaranteed to be immediate
- · Liquidation keepers profit from executing, so expect an unfavourable price