Dheeraj Borra is a software engineer and co-founder of the Kelp DAO, a multi-chain liquid staking platform for Ethereum and Eigenlayer. ^[1]

Education

Borra graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, with a Bachelor of Technology in Computer Science and Engineering. He also earned a Master of Science in Computer Science from The University of Texas at Austin. ^[1]

Career

Borra started his tech career as a software engineer at Deloitte, a business consulting firm, in 2012. He became a software developer and engineer for Facebook and Azul Mobile in 2014. He later worked as a software engineer for PayPal until 2016. ^[1]

In July 2016, Borra joined Blend Labs, a digital finance platform, where he worked until 2018. He then worked as an engineer for LinkedIn until October 2021. He also became a fellow at On Deck, a company that helps entrepreneurs with their startups. In April 2021, he and Amitej Gajjala co-founded Stader Labs, a liquid staking platform for earning liquid staking rewards across crypto tokens. They later co-founded Kelp DAO in November 2023. ^[1][3][4][5]

Interviews

Kelp DAO rsETH

On the 4RC podcast, DeFi Dad interviewed Borra and Gajjala about Kelp DAO Restaked ETH (rsETH), liquid staking, and EigenLayer’s caps. During the interview, Borra explained the architecture of rsETH: ^[2]

“The architecture of rsETH is pretty interesting. We design most of our contracts so information flows in one direction, which is best for security. A great analogy is airport security; that's how we think about complexity for the most part. We have a deposit pool that accesses different lists, and this pool has no functionality to withdraw funds. Then, we have a set of NDC contracts, or no-delegated contracts, which take in funds from the deposit pool. Each NDC is fully autonomous in terms of interacting with it. Currently, only deposits are supported with NS, so each NC can effectively move any LSD from the deposit pool into our strategies. We have multiple NDCs deployed, and in the future, each will correspond to operators when they go live on I. When withdrawals are implemented, they will be another set of contracts that communicate with EigenLayer through NDCs, and the funds will go out through the withdrawal contract.”

“The information flow within the contract architecture is unidirectional. Regarding the security of these contracts, we had them ready by early to mid-October. Despite their limited functionality, we spent about a month and a half thoroughly testing them. We achieved 99% to 100% code coverage on the contracts. Additionally, we proceeded with audits from Sigma Prime and Code for Arena, which are among the top auditors we've collaborated with in the past on our other protocols. We are pleased with the results they provided. We are also considering launching a bug bounty program in the next week or two.”

He also discussed the various rewards users could earn on Kelp DAO: ^[2]

“Users who deposit their ETH in Kelp earn EigenLayer (EL) points. For every ETH deposited into EigenLayer through Kelp, users earn 24 points daily. On the Kelp side, each ETH is equivalent to 10,000 points daily, referred to as Kelp Miles. Early adopters, depositing since the launch until now and possibly in the near future, receive a 25% boost on these Kelp Miles as a reward for their trust in the new protocol. Consequently, they earn 1.25 times 10,000 miles daily per ETH deposited.”

“Additionally, while there have been no rewards on the Stader side, which also accepts ETH as collateral, Stader's ETHx offers a 30% yield boost on Ethereum staking rewards. Furthermore, Stader announced that they are integrating part of their treasury into EigenLayer. As a result, all EigenLayer points earned by Stader ETHx position on EigenLayer will be distributed to Stader ETHx holders on Kelp. Essentially, this makes ETH the only collateral accepted where users can earn more points.”