This week’s guest on the Cardano SPO Column is a stake pool contributing to the decentralization of the blockchain and giving back to the community by educating and helping stakes grow: ADA Coinz [COINZ].
Last week’s guest was a stake pool aiming to provide education for the entire public blockchain space.
This initiative is a point of reference for everything Cardano and every week or two we will invite a Stake Pool Operator (SPO) to answer some questions and give us an update directly from within the Cardano community.
Considering that many of our readers are new to the crypto space, we will have a mix of simple and technical questions.
Cardano SPO: interview with ADA Coinz [COINZ]
Hi there. Please tell us something about yourself, where are you based and what is your background?
I am an IT professional of 21 years. I really enjoy what I do, and I am hoping that I can be a positive force in the Cardano Community. I am also an immigrant from El Salvador, and left my home country because of the civil war. I grew up in what used to be called South Central Los Angeles. Education for me at some point became my freedom light, and I enjoy figuring things out. I am based in Los Angeles at the moment, but my systems are in Virginia and Los Angeles.
What has led you to Cardano and what motivated you to become a Stake Pool Operator (SPO)?
Well in 2017 there was a run up and bitcoin hit $1000+, everyone was talking about it. I bought Litecoin and Ethereum, Bitcoin seemed out of reach. I bought it in June and did not look till December and was shocked. I became a miner, and researched many coins. I started looking at CoinMarketCap all the time. I started looking at YouTube videos, and I believe it was Crypto Crow or Suppoman that mentioned Cardano. I took a look and I really liked the ideas. I made some trades in favor of Cardano.
When I heard about the concept of being a stake pool operator I was excited but also had no idea how that would go or what I would do. So I bought the domain name but did not do anything with it, and I was busy with a masters program so I did not do anything till I finished. I wanted to be more than a holder, I had the technical chops, I heard though that the technical aspects were not the hardest parts, and I can attest to that, but I figured that running a stake pool on mainnet is not even a year old, there is still lots of opportunities even if I have to struggle for a while. I jumped in head first and it has been a whirlwind.
You’ve been in the tech industry for about 20 years, can you illustrate the similarities between the blockchain world and the Internet back in the day? Do you think it will be as successful?
First off I want to say I started in tech in 2000 so as the dot com craze was happening I was just learning. The similarities of what I saw then and what is happening now is a lot of money was pouring into technology and anything with a “.com” or something about computer or technology in your business name and you could start receiving lots of money. People would buy those stocks and hope for the best.
Today and in the past recent years we saw a similar reaction to blockchain and a more dramatic vehicle called Initial Coin Offering (ICO), which involved a lot of risk but undoubtedly made lots of money. So money started to pour into blockchain related companies, and now coins.
Another similarity more on the positive side is that there was opportunity, and some people jumped in and created their huge billion dollar companies that we see today, but they had to believe and create while others could not see the vision. I believe that is what is happening nowadays with the revolution of the financial systems and what Cardano is doing along with other protocols/blockchains. Many people believe and are creating, and these people will help shape big changes to finance and the way we live. I am wiser and have jumped in to take an active role in shaping that future.
What advice do you have for the younger generations, especially those emigrating to other countries in search of a better life?
Education is key, your advantage will be that those that have it easy often forget to work hard to achieve their goals. You will have to work hard, learn quickly, and look for opportunities for how you can contribute to others. The more you can do that the closer you can be to fulfilling your own goals. Sometimes the legal process can take longer especially when you think your parents will take care of it, and then you come of age and you have to deal with it. Do not give up, things tend to fall into place at the perfect moment, and many times someone will give you an opportunity because you demonstrate ability rather than having a degree. A degree is a valid avenue and it is what I did for my confidence, but I have met many in the tech industry that taught themselves and were some of the best in the field I have met. Plan ahead and invest in yourself constantly, as you advance invest a little more. If you happen to get into some trouble, it is not the end of the world one hopes, learn from errors, reflect, and take massive action to not allow yourself to be in a similar situation. Life is precious and all the time we spend going down the wrong path is time taken away from pushing further on our true life fulfilling goals.
I appreciate your time, do you have any final words? Where can people follow you?
It has been a pleasure to be a Stake Pool Operator and see some of the community dynamics. I think I would have never really been a part of the interactions and dialog if I would have not dove in. I feel blessed to have some support and some delegators that are starting to notice my pool. I hope I can serve for a long time, and make a difference in my community and anywhere else I may find myself.
One promotional piece of information is that my pool along with 25 other pools are participating in what is called a FISO. Fair Initial Stake Offering is something Minswap has started after it saw some backlash from other ISO models. This way it is community focused and helps these pools grow and they distribute their token in a fair manner. So consider staking with COINZ :).
I thank you for this interview and I have set up a linktree for this, https://linktr.ee/adacoinz, there you will find my various channels that I have made available to the community.
Disclaimer: The opinions and views of the SPOs are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Cardano Foundation or IOHK.
