Cardano SPO: Southtyrol Pool (SUDTI)
This week’s guest in the Cardano SPO column is a stake pool based in beautiful South Tyrol in Italy. Southtyrol Pool [SUDTI] is looking to attract new delegators to its mission driven pool by providing incentives in addition to regular rewards. Last week’s guest was a mission driven stake...
This week’s guest in the Cardano SPO column is a stake pool based in beautiful South Tyrol in Italy. Southtyrol Pool [SUDTI] is looking to attract new delegators to its mission driven pool by providing incentives in addition to regular rewards.
Last week’s guest was a mission driven stake pool that does its bit for the decentralization of Cardano and donates some of the revenue to charities .
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 Markus. Tell us something about yourself, where do you live and what is your background?
Hello everyone, my name is Markus Fischnaller and I am from beautiful South Tyrol in Italy . My working background is in electrical engineering and I am working as an industrial printer service technician. I have a passion for Linux and Raspberry Pi systems. For this reason I used Linux and Raspberry Pi 7 years ago as a basis for home automation.
How did you discover Cardano and what led you to set up a stake pool?
I entered the blockchain world in early 2020 with investments in Ethereum & Bitcoin. While researching other projects that manage to solve Ethereum problems I found Cardano. After tens of hours of studying the Cardano blockchain, I decided not to just want to invest money but to support the project in another way. And so given my experience with Linux I decided to create a Staking Pool and thereby help decentralize the blockchain further. For this I have chosen not to install a pool on a large virtual server but to run the pool on servers in my house. By creating a network and infrastructure that resists power failure to ensure proper pool operation 24/7.
Why are there many small pools like yours struggling to attract delegates and what are your plans / incentives to improve your situation?
The problem with a small pool in the beginning is the distrust of the delegators towards the pool. Because they don’t get rewards after after each epoch and so they think the pool has some technical issues. But the reality is that each pool, whether small or large, on average in a year can guarantee an interest of 5%.
And so it happens that some delegators leave a pool after a few weeks because they haven’t received a reward yet. Currently a pool must have a minimum of 1.2 million ADAs in the pool to receive one block each epoch.
With the Southtyrol Pool I am constantly trying to increase the pledge of the pool to show my delegators that we believe in our pool.
For the great delegates we have created a special prize called “Tiroler”. Anyone who delegates more than 50k ADAs receives an extra 17 ADA reward every time the pool receives a block. In this way, a great delegator becomes a kind of partner.
In terms of the physical operation of a stake pool, what are the steps and what do you need to keep an eye on when choosing hardware?
In the choice of hardware the most important thing is obviously that they respect the technical specifications indicated by the Cardano Foundation. It is currently recommended to have a quad core processor and 8GB of RAM. Since one of Cardano’s goals is to be a green blockchain, I would say that it is important to use low-power hardware. I recommend using hardware that can be easily upgraded in case more memory is required in the future.
Also of considerable importance is a stable internet network to ensure that the pool is operational 24/7.
Once you have chosen the hardware you have to choose a Linux operating system, for example Ubuntu. After installing the operating system you have to configure the security side, which includes the firewall, fail2ban and ssh deactivation etc. When the server is protected from external attacks, the pool packages can be installed.
What should not be forgotten is that a pool must be operational 24/7 and requires a daily check.
Thanks for the contribution. Do you have any last comments? Where can I contact you?
Small pools need your support! By delegating to small pools, you help the decentralization of Cardano.
It was a pleasure to answer your questions and to talk about the SOUTHTYROL POOL. Anyone who needs more information can contact me via Twitter , Telegram or visit my website https://southtyrolpool.it . Thank you!
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