I haven't followed them too closely for a while but wasn't the cryptocurrency misstep an answer to critics about the safety of keybase as keeper of the database[0]?

Now that I'm looking it although their docs don't mention anything[1] I'd assume it's related to their funding[2].

[0]: https://keybase.io/docs/server_security/merkle_root_in_stell...

[1]: https://keybase.io/docs/server_security/merkle_root_in_stell...

[2]: https://keybase.io/blog/keybase-stellar