Cardano SPO: ADA Australia (ADAOZ)

This week’s guest on the Cardano SPO Column is ADA Australia [ADAOZ] , a stake pool from the so-called “Down Under”. One of the operators is also the host of the YouTube channel and the podcast called “ Learn Cardano “.

Last week’s guest was a made-in-Italy stake pool from beautiful South Tyrol . They are currently providing extra incentives in ADA in addition to regular staking rewards.

This initiative is a point of reference for everything related to Cardano and every week or two we will invite a Stake Pool Operator (SPO) to answer a few 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.

Hi, it’s a pleasure to have you here. Introduce yourself, where do you come from and what is your background?

I live on the sunny Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia. If you’ve ever watched Australian TV shows featuring long white sand beaches, surfers’ lifestyles and relaxed outdoor living, this is it. Your perception of what Australia could be is where I live.

My background is in web design and development. I own a web development company that specializes in niche WordPress development, where we design and build customer facing websites that integrate with third party APIs. We combine them to create solutions for our customers. 

How did you discover Cardano and what inspired you to become a Stake Pool Operator (SPO)?

I discovered Cardano in 2017 when a friend introduced me to the white paper. Cardano was priced at 3 cents per ADA. I didn’t pay much attention to it and the white paper was too much to read. However, I decided to buy a share and watched the price rise high in the bull run period and collapse in early 2018. After that, I essentially lost all interest in cryptocurrencies. At the time, I had no idea about Cardano’s technology or mission.

In late 2020, after hearing staking was possible, I started delegating what I had to a pool. I thought I’d give it a try and see what kind of rewards I would get. I checked my portfolio to see what earnings I was making, and that’s when I started wondering how it all worked.

I began to immerse myself in stake pool operations, Charles’ videos, and understand what Cardano was and its potential. At this point I have sold all my digital assets for Cardano. 

As host of the Learn Cardano podcast , you are at the forefront of spreading knowledge related to Cardano, how do you feel about this endeavor?

This podcast is a lot of fun. I had another podcast called The Joomla Beat Podcast that I have been running for three years. I managed to build a large community around it, but I had to close it down. The Learn Cardano podcast was a great way for me to share what I learn, build relationships with others in the community, and educate people entering the industry.

I found that a lot of the cryptocurrency-related material is aimed at experienced people with a technical and previous cryptocurrency background, and there was nothing beginner-friendly in this space. Learn Cardano was my answer to this, and I hope it helps the mass adoption of Cardano and cryptocurrencies.

With over 2800 stake pools and more adding every day, is there realistically a place for all of them?

The network currently has a k parameter set to 500. The parameter indicates how many pools are required on the network. 500 is well below the ~ 2800 currently active pools.

Competition is tough right now for any stake pool that is just starting. If you don’t have a high amount of ADA that you can pledge or delegate to your pool, you’re already behind.

If you don’t have a significant influence on social media, you will be competing with who has it.

If you have the technical skills to set up a pool but don’t have the marketing skills to grow the pool, you will struggle.

If you don’t have a unique point of difference that makes you stand out from the others, you will struggle.

There is hope for every pool that is starting. If you can join other pool owners or teams to create a dynamic pool that ticks all the boxes, you can make it through a year in business and move on.

You can join initiatives such as First 2 Lifetime Block (F2LB) or various pool alliances where communities are formed to share knowledge and resources.

It may be that this metric and the number of transactions will increase over time with the introduction of smart contracts on Cardano, but that’s not something I count on as a stake pool operator.

Finally, the Cardano Foundation and Input-Output Global can procure a seed delegation to help grow small pools.

Realistically, however, many of the pools will not make it through their first year of operation and will close with others taking their place. Stake pool management and marketing is a demanding, full-time job. If you plan on starting one, keep all of this in mind.

Thank you for your time. Do you want to add something? Where can people find you?

There are many places where you can contact me or the team: Twitter , Facebook , YouTube , Spotify , Website . 

Thank you for inviting me to write about our stake pool. It is a pleasure to connect and interact with other members of the community.

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