This week’s guest on the Cardano SPO Column is a stake pool operated by the host of the YouTube series Crypto Over Coffee: Hashoshi [H4SH].
Last week’s guest was a stake pool aiming to reforest the city of Milan and its region.
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.
Summary
Cardano SPO, interview with Hashoshi [H4SH]
Hi Hashoshi, it’s a pleasure to have you here. For the few who don’t know who you are, can you introduce yourself? Where are you based and what’s your background?
I appreciate you having me on the column! I am Hashoshi and I create educational content about blockchain, cryptocurrency and innovative technology on YouTube. Of course, Cardano is often a subject of my videos! I’m based in the USA, and have studied blockchain/cryptocurrency since I quite literally stumbled upon the Bitcoin whitepaper ~11 years ago.
I have a background in technology with programming and hardware experience, but am also an avid reader and learner in the areas of economics, game theory, sociology, psychology and more. This space gives me the perfect opportunity to blend all the areas of study that I love!
You have been creating crypto-related content for a long time, can you tell us the story of how you ended up in this nascent space?
As I alluded to above, I ended up stumbling upon the Bitcoin whitepaper over a decade ago on “StumbleUpon”, which was a service that let you find curated content on the web. Reading that paper made me realize that I didn’t have to compromise on what I wanted to do for a living and choose one area of study, I could merge all my interests into one by studying and working with blockchain technology and its derivatives.
When Ethereum came into the world in 2015 and subsequently brought the idea of smart contracts written in Solidity, I taught myself the language and began to experiment with it. With that I fell further into the rabbit hole. I managed to parlay that experience into a full time job consulting and building dApps, and from there I decided that I wanted to help scale my knowledge by creating videos about the basics of blockchain to share with family, friends and clients. Against my introverted nature, I filmed a few videos and put them online. To my surprise, people seemed to be taking well to those videos, so I decided to give YouTube a try in earnest. I can only express gratitude for every person who has watched these videos, because what started as a nervey attempt to come out of my shell has become a really amazing place for me to be creative and share my knowledge. I look back and acknowledge that back in 2010 I didn’t know the gravity of what I’d discovered in Bitcoin, and I remain in awe of what I learn daily in my pursuit to understand the many projects in the cryptocurrency space today.
How has Cardano captivated your attention and why did you decide to start operating a stake pool?
When I initially heard about Cardano during its very hype-fueled ICO, I felt that the vision for the project was unique and the nomenclature of the project alone was well thought out and intriguing. As time wore on, I kept up with the papers and research that came out of the Cardano camp and eventually made a deep dive video explaining Cardano in its entirety on my YouTube channel shortly thereafter. Of course, the formally verified approach to building a protocol appealed to me, but more so it was the merger of the UTXO model with smart contracts and the way that the Proof-of-Stake mechanism was constructed that gave me confidence that there was something special being built here.
When the Shelley hard fork was finally consummated, I knew that I wanted to create a stake pool to participate in the core blockmaking responsibilities of the network but it took me a while to get organized and do it! Ultimately, it was important to me to continue to be more involved in the actual mainnet blockchains for projects that I believe in, Cardano being one of them. It’s an honor to mint blocks on the Cardano mainnet!
What are your thoughts on SPOs opening multiple pools? This is often done by influencers who have significant amounts of followers. Will we ever see [H4SH1]?
This is one of those highly divisive subjects that I can see both sides of. On one hand, it is irrefutable that one person or group creating multiple pools that they control and market introduces centralizing forces and takes delegation from other small pools who deserve delegation but don’t have the reach to garner it.
On the other hand, the network itself is designed to be resistant to these centralizing forces and delegators have freedom to delegate to whichever pool that they would like if this centralization concerns them. From my perspective, I won’t be creating a second pool and will focus on my existing one. That said, I don’t support the denigration and personal attacks levied towards those who do choose to do so.
The Cardano network will keep chugging along with or without multi-pool owners, and those who wish to dissuade delegators from delegating to multi-pool owners should do so in a respectful and fact-based manner.
Thank you kindly for your time. Any closing remarks? Where can people find you?
Thanks again for having me on the column, it’s an honor! What I believe wholeheartedly is that in the future, many of the layer-1 blockchain networks will interoperate with one another in a true ‘internet of blockchains’. Therefore, protocol maximalism is a fool’s exercise and only distracts from what is being built and the shared goals we have in the space as a community.
Cardano users, Ethereum users, Solana users, etc. have far more to gain in collaboration than they do in tribal battle. I ponder this daily. If philosophical musings like this interest you, or you simply like to learn about cryptocurrency and Cardano, you can find me on YouTube by searching “Hashoshi” or follow me on Twitter.
Disclaimer: The opinions and views of the SPOs are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Cardano Foundation or IOHK.
