Hello Conward, thank you so much for agreeing to an interview with us, It’s always good to see people sharing their insights with the broader community. In this interview we’ll delve into some of the aspects surrounding Cardano, delegation and rewards. In addition, we want to focus on the influence this initiative can have for the broader community.
- First and foremost, what is your background in terms of education, interest, line of work, be as vague or specific as you like.
Hi, thanks for having me on. My non-crypto background could be summed up as having graduated with a dual pharmacy degree and masters in business administration and working in the healthcare field for about 2 years before seriously delving into cryptocurrencies, which is now what I work on full-time. I took an interest in cryptocurrencies back in 2012, but came back to watching it in 2017 when the whole crypto boom was happening. I was finally able to get money together to invest in 2018 & 2019. This is when I found Cardano.
- how did you find out about F2LB and what was your first reaction to it?
I found out about F2LB through a Reddit post on the Cardano subreddit. I read the post, and thought it was a great idea. I love the concept of decentralization, but I had seen many pool operators that had success with one pool decide to open up more. Now I see some pool operators running upwards of 8 pools. F2LB gives small stake pool operators a chance to develop blocks. Taking this small step could help the stake pool draw in more stakers, and in turn, further help decentralize the Cardano Ecosystem.
- What made you decide to join? As it can be perceived by some that you’re joining the underdog, is that how you see it too? Or do you have a different take on it?
I joined because I see Cardano’s development as one of the most important aspects of Cardano. This development includes the amount of stake pool operators and the amount of stake pools they run. I do see F2LB as the underdogs. It is an uphill battle for a lot of stake pool operators to compete against the bigger players. They have had time in the market, and small stake pool operators are all fighting for their piece of the market.
- Can you explain a bit more about your role in this ecosystem, what do you do? Think of investing, operating, delegation etc, do you see a purpose for yourself?
I think I have a couple roles. I started a company, Crypto Loops, where we work to keep people in the loop. Right now, we’re working on a crypto basics video series on YouTube to help educate those who may know nothing about cryptocurrency as well as providing videos for people well-versed in the Cardano space such as Cardano 360 summaries for those who don’t have time for a 2-hour video. I have not only invested monetarily, but I’ve also invested time and energy to help build Crypto Loops as a resource for both the existing Cardano Community and those who want to be involved but aren’t sure what it entails.
- We’re gaining momentum, and having larger contributors such as yourself enables us to explore more options. What would you say to people that have a solid holding in ADA, and might be reluctant to join a smaller pool?
I would want them to know that Cardano can make money, and for some, it already has. I understand that some people want to just have that continuous passive income, but I urge them to give a small pool a chance. Over the long haul, small pools will even out in annual percentage earned. Along with this, if you are not just in it for the money, I would say that the community has an obligation to help decentralize the system. I know Charles Hoskinson, the Cardano Foundation, and others are working towards making it so the system is incentivized to be decentralized, but I would say for those with larger bags, why not split your funds between two wallets? Keep one with the current pool, and move the funds in the other wallet to a smaller pool. Just try it out. You may be surprised.
- As one of our bigger delegators, seeing all the pools that struggle to get on the radar, has the thought crossed your mind to start your own pool? If so, how would you set that up and what would your take look like?
It has definitely crossed my mind, and I am, in fact, currently working on getting a pool up and running. It is coming soon because I wanted to get the LOOPS pool going before the end of March. Like I said, I really want to keep the system decentralized, so to set it up, I have bought the hardware to run a bare-metal server, but intend to put together a back-up online. This way if there is an outage in my local area it will not affect my delegators. I would also recommend to people to reach out to those who you may not think know about cryptocurrency or Cardano. Just educate them. You do not have to force them into it. A lot of people have heard about Cardano and want to know more. This is one way to introduce crypto and possibly land yourself some delegators.
- We’ve discussed your proclivity towards supporting smaller pools, and that you see no indirect downsides to it, how do you view the larger clusters of pools and the exchange-related pools?
Balance is key here. In my opinion, it is not wrong to pop up a few more pools to help their increased demand for room to delegate. Look at it this way; a single pool operator marketing his pool successfully can start thinking about opening up a second pool, as he has successfully attracted stake by informing people about setup, goals, rewards, and has guided them towards making a well-balanced decision. If 1PCT pool just doubles the amount of pools they run, then decentralization won’t be hurt, nor helped, as his total stake won’t change. But having loads of stake locked up in exchanges where vital parts of the ecosystem like voting or decentralization are lost actually hurts delegators in two ways. One, they don’t control their stake and are at the mercy of the exchanges rather than the protocol for reward payout AND two, they can’t vote via Catalyst to help push the network in a direction of their choosing.
- Lastly, if people want to follow your work, where can they go?
They can look up Crypto Loops on YouTube, and we are right there, or for new updates, they can follow us on Twitter at @loopscrypto. We also have a website at www.crypto-loops.com, a Facebook group, and those as well as other links are in the description of every video. Again, I want to thank you for having me as a guest, and I love what F2LB is doing!
Conward, thanks so much for your time, I’ve really enjoyed the discussion and sharing insights on these wildly interesting subjects, maybe there is a podcast in there somewhere!
If you enjoyed reading this, and want to know more about Conward and his goals, check out his Youtube Channel. Leave a comment if you missed something and don’t forget to look out for STAYK the next time your pool is becoming too full 😉
Thanks for reading, and have a great day!
Bas @ Stayk