Cardano SPO: Envy Stake Pool [ENVY]

Dësen Invité vun der Woch op der Cardano SPO Kolonn ass e stake pool operated by two brothers that support charities helping foster children find a loving home: Envy Stake Pool [ENVY].

Gast vun der leschter Woch was a stake pool that is operated by Rick, who is a solo operator originally from South Africa now living in London.

Dës Initiativ ass e Referenzpunkt fir alles Cardano an all Woch oder zwou wäerte mir a Aktionär Pool Bedreiwer (SPO) fir e puer Froen ze beäntweren an eis eng Update direkt vu bannent der Cardano Gemeinschaft.

Bedenkt datt vill vun eise Lieser nei am Krypto-Raum sinn, mir wäerten eng Mix vun einfachen an technesche Froen.

Cardano SPO Column, interview with Envy Stake Pool [ENVY]

Salut, Merci fir Är Zäit. Sot eis eppes iwwer Är Equipe, wou sidd Dir baséiert a wat sinn Är Hannergrënn?

ENVY Stake Pool is a team of two brothers who own and operate the stake pool together. Sean, the older brother, has a PhD am Chemeschen Ingenieur an Thomas, the younger brother, as a degree in Economics. 

We came into this space in January of 2021 after having received $100 worth of Bitcoin and started investigating Beweis vun der Aarbecht vs. blockchains and that eventually led us to Kardan!

Wat ass de Wee deen Iech op Cardano gefouert huet a Stake Pool Operators (SPO) ze ginn?

Initially, we wanted to dive into the nuances of each of the various Proof of Work vs. Proof of Stake blockchains and assumed that to become a Bitcoin or Ethereum miner was too cost prohibitive.

So when we discovered how much more accessible being a Cardano SPO was compared to the other blockchains, we jumped right in! It was a fairly straightforward process learning how to set up a stake pool, and we really enjoyed learning about how to maintain all of the various keys as well as part of stake pool operation.

However, we quickly learned that being a Cardano SPO is not simply about knowing how to set up and maintain nodes am Cardano Netzwierk. Marketing is a large part of it too!

What is your pool’s mission? Why is it important to you?

We started ENVY Stake Pool thinking that it would be a really nice way to make passive income during the pandemic. However, once the stake pool was set up, we realized we needed to find ways to attract delegators. 

This led us to discovering Twitter and the vibrant Cardano Community there. Once we set up a Twitter account, we observed that there were a few stake pool operators that were doing this radical thing that we hadn’t considered, like taking part or all of their operator rewards and donating them to charity, wéi wuessen pool, WHITE pool, Lighthouse Stake Pool, and ANEW pool. 

This blew our minds and changed our hearts, so we sought to find a mission to support. A friend of Sean’s has a sister who fosters multiple children and has adopted as well, and Sean wanted to support these efforts because of the incredible need that exists to give these children a loving home. Sean also wants to adopt some day so this seemed like the perfect fit for a mission to support!

Besides running the stake pool, are you involved in any other projects? Tell us more

Yes we are! We are involved actively in the Extra Small Stake Pool Alliance (xSPO). We love that community because it gives us a great community of other stake pool operators to support each other through marketing, technical aspects of running and maintaining a stake pool, and to enjoy talking too as we all experience this fun and crazy ride in the crypto space!

Mir sinn och e Core Member of FreeLoaderz, which is a coalition of stake pool operators and Cardano Community members who are trying to develop goods and services that bring value to the Cardano Community. We recently developed the SmartClaimz platform in collaboration with Drasil, who provides the backend services that power SmartClaimz, so we hope that will be a useful service to the Cardano Community!

We are also part of Mehen Finance, eng fiat-backed stablecoin coming to Cardano, and are helping with some of the backend development and Systems Requirements documentation for that platform. It’s a great team with many qualified individuals from FreeLoaderz and Drasil who helped build SmartClaimz so we’re excited to see where that project will go!

Grousse Bäitrag. All lescht Gedanken? Wou kënne Leit a Kontakt bleiwen?

We just want to spread the importance of decentralization. An important aspect of security of the blockchain relies on having a large number of independent nodes that build in redundancy and reliability into the network in the event that a large number of nodes goes down. So please support and delegate to single stake pools. 

Et ginn eng Rei vun great pools that vow to operate a single pool (Single Pool Alliance), are small and need support (xSPO Alliance), are mission-driven, operate plakeg Metal (Bare Metal Alliance), and/or operate energy efficiently (Armada Alliance). So please support these communities! ENVY is a small pool that operates as a single pool, has mixed bare metal and cloud-based nodes, and has ARM-based nodes, so we’re trying it all out and moving in the right direction (haha)!

It’s best to stay in touch with us on our Schwaarz or Twitter. You can find all of our socials on our Websäit. Thank you very much for this opportunity to be interviewed by you!

Verzichterklärung: D'Meenungen an d'Meenungen vun de SPOs sinn hir eege a reflektéieren net onbedéngt déi vun der Cardano Foundation oder IOG.