Climate Neutral Cardano is a Community Group of climate-neutral Cardano Stake Pools

Climate Neutral Cardano Group (CNCG) is an alliance of Cardano stake pools committed to using 100% renewable energy for the operation of our stake pool servers. In addition, we donate a portion of our pool operator rewards to protect our climate and environment. CNCG is working together with the Cardano Community, institutions and external parties to achieve our common goal of making Cardano the most eco-friendly blockchain platform.

Find out more about our member stake pools [here](https://www.climateneutralcardano.org/#members).

Blockchain is a technology that will change the future of the economy and society as much as the internet. In the media and public discussion, however, scepticism and resistance prevail at the moment – blockchain is associated, among other things, with serious environmental impacts due to high electricity consumption.



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Climate Neutral Cardano

<h1 style="margin-left:0px;">Switzerland for UNHCR to launch innovative collaboration with Cardano Foundation in benefit of forcibly displaced people</h1>The <a href="https://summit.cardano.org/">Cardano Summit</a> 2022 – an event bringing together individuals interested in blockchain technology and the largest ever in-person gathering of the Cardano community, took place from 19 to 21 November in Lausanne. While it was a great opportunity for many to come together and share their vision, the summit was not only destined for technology aficionados – it welcomed everyone wishing to join the ecosystem or curious about how Cardano’s blockchain technology is being used to create positive change worldwide. The event featured a virtual Summit Lodge, as well as 50 community-led events in multiple locations across the world with many presentations, workshops and panels as well as updates from those building Cardano. All of the speakers and prize winners were voted by the Cardano community.&nbsp;&nbsp;Switzerland for UNHCR took the opportunity of the global event to announce a very promising collaboration with the <a href="https://cardanofoundation.org/">Cardano Foundation</a> at the core of their Annual Global Impact Challenge. This collaboration consists of a charity stake pool launched by Switzerland for UNHCR, with funding by the Cardano Foundation of 3.5 million ADA, the native token of the Cardano blockchain. <a href="https://www.taurushq.com/index.html">Taurus</a>, a leading Swiss-based digital asset infrastructure provider, will run the stake pool. Both parties are very excited about this opportunity to raise funds for the cause of forcibly displaced people and to prove that blockchain can be a force for good in the humanitarian world.Frederik Gregaard, CEO of the Cardano Foundation, commented: “The collaboration with Switzerland for UNHCR is an embodiment of the Foundation’s ethos. We strongly believe in using blockchain to improve conditions for everyone, and doing so with the active participation of the Cardano community. Announcing this year’s Global Impact Challenge during the Cardano Summit 2022 was a great way of launching the conversation, giving ample opportunity for in-person dialogue, and ensuring the Cardano community, together with the Cardano Foundation, will help shape this year’s challenge. We hope this new Global Impact Challenge will make a real difference to the lives of displaced people globally.’’&nbsp;UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, will benefit from 100% of the stake pool rewards generated for Cardano Blockchain implementations of which 80% will go towards less mediated and sometimes even forgotten operations as well as to the organization’s other most pressing needs. The remaining 20% of rewards will be allocated to UNHCR’s Innovation programs and funds, promoting blockchain applications as solutions to real problems that refugees are facing. Cardano has an established history of stake pools donating to charitable organizations, most recently the Climate Neutral Cardano Stake pool. This project is an innovation in crypto-philanthropy and the first occasion where a registered charity will be operating its own stake pool as a fundraising tool.&nbsp;&nbsp;Hovig Etyemezian, Head of Innovation at UNHCR, concluded: “The tech sector has a crucial role to play in helping humanitarian agencies innovate to better deliver assistance. In a time when more people have been forcibly displaced than ever before, this collaboration between the Cardano Foundation and Switzerland for UNHCR, our national partner in Switzerland, is a great example of how innovation can be a force for good and empower the most vulnerable. I look forward to seeing how this partnership can unlock the power of the blockchain community, in support of people forced to flee."&nbsp;&nbsp;

Cardano Foundation

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Blockchain for refugees: Switzerland for UNHCR x Cardano Foundation

<div data-id="168549" data-title=" Stake ADA Pool [RCADA]" data-slug="https://en.cryptonomist.ch/2022/09/24/cardano-spo-column-stake-ada-pool-rcada/">This week&rsquo;s guest on the Cardano SPO Column is a stake pool operated by Rick, who is a solo operator originally from South Africa now living in London: <a target="_blank" href="https://cexplorer.io/pool/pool1p82vmqednsalje23mpnz9u3qt9ruj79xu83mr6p8t93fw5fcu3y" rel="noopener">Stake ADA Pool [RCADA]</a>.<a target="_blank" href="https://en.cryptonomist.ch/2022/09/18/cardano-spo-column-harmonic-armn/" rel="noopener">Last week&rsquo;s guest</a> was a stake pool operated by Michele who is working on a project called &ldquo;plu-ts&rdquo;, which will allow developers to build dApps using Typescript.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.<h2>Cardano SPO Column, interview with Stake ADA Pool [RCADA]</h2><figure id="attachment_168550" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-168550"><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://en.cryptonomist.ch/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/IMG_InternaSPO_078-1-1024x421.jpg.webp 1024w, https://en.cryptonomist.ch/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/IMG_InternaSPO_078-1-300x123.jpg.webp 300w, https://en.cryptonomist.ch/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/IMG_InternaSPO_078-1-1536x631.jpg.webp 1536w, https://en.cryptonomist.ch/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/IMG_InternaSPO_078-1-800x329.jpg.webp 800w, https://en.cryptonomist.ch/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/IMG_InternaSPO_078-1-450x185.jpg.webp 450w, https://en.cryptonomist.ch/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/IMG_InternaSPO_078-1-195x80.jpg.webp 195w, https://en.cryptonomist.ch/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/IMG_InternaSPO_078-1-96x39.jpg.webp 96w, https://en.cryptonomist.ch/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/IMG_InternaSPO_078-1.jpg.webp 2048w" sizes=" 1024px) 100vw, 1024px"></source><img loading="lazy" src="https://cryptonomist.ch/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/IMG_InternaSPO_078-1-1024x421.jpg" alt="Cardano SPO" width="1024" height="421" srcset="https://en.cryptonomist.ch/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/IMG_InternaSPO_078-1-1024x421.jpg 1024w, https://en.cryptonomist.ch/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/IMG_InternaSPO_078-1-300x123.jpg 300w, https://en.cryptonomist.ch/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/IMG_InternaSPO_078-1-768x315.jpg 768w, https://en.cryptonomist.ch/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/IMG_InternaSPO_078-1-1536x631.jpg 1536w, https://en.cryptonomist.ch/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/IMG_InternaSPO_078-1-800x329.jpg 800w, https://en.cryptonomist.ch/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/IMG_InternaSPO_078-1-450x185.jpg 450w, https://en.cryptonomist.ch/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/IMG_InternaSPO_078-1-195x80.jpg 195w, https://en.cryptonomist.ch/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/IMG_InternaSPO_078-1-96x39.jpg 96w, https://en.cryptonomist.ch/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/IMG_InternaSPO_078-1.jpg 2048w" sizes=" 1024px) 100vw, 1024px">Cardano SPO [RCADA] is a fan of the retro arcade gaming scene</figure><h3>Hi, thanks for your time. Tell us something about yourself, where are you based and what is your background?</h3>Hi, thank you kindly for extending the invitation and taking the time to get to know me better.My name is Rick, I&rsquo;m the solo operator for Stake-Cardano-Pool, but I prefer to go by my ticker name RCADA, which is a wordplay between ADA and the retro arcade gaming scene (where I spent much of my youth &amp; pocket money &#128521;) and of course homage to the Cypherpunk era of the 80&rsquo;s.I&rsquo;m South African born, the Afrikaans speaking variety and grew up in the Northeast part of the country, in a small town close to the Kruger National Park. Not sure if you have visited the country at all but would highly recommend it. After completing my degree in Architecture, I decided to move to London in 2008 to further my career.Growing up so close to nature &amp; wildlife I have a great concern for the health of our natural environment.I also have a passion for design, the culinary arts, flying, motorcycles, permaculture &amp; anything to do with living off the grid.As a solo operator I&rsquo;m responsible for the technical maintenance, marketing &amp; social interactions of my pool which can be quite challenging at times, but I&rsquo;m very excited to be a part of this amazing community and here to stay!<h3>What&rsquo;s the path that led you to Cardano and to become a Stake Pool Operator (SPO)?</h3>Well to answer your question, I&rsquo;d firstly like to elaborate a little on what Permaculture is all about.&ldquo;Permaculture aims to create systems that are ecologically-sound and economically viable, which provide for their own needs, do not exploit or pollute, and therefore are sustainable in the long term.&nbsp;Permaculture uses the inherent qualities of plants and animals combined with the natural characteristics of landscapes and structures to produce a life supporting system for residential dwellings or homesteads, cities and even a country, using the smallest practical area.&rdquo;&nbsp;Bill MollisonThese qualities and principles can be applied to all aspects of life and problem solving in general, not just explicitly to natural environments.By the pursuit of these principles, it was the overlapping core values &amp; attributes of the Cardano ecosystem that drew me in!At the heart of the Cardano blockchain lies the SPO, a guardian of truth and bearer of many hats. This is where I knew I could bring about the most impactful change with my specific skill set. Although not being a developer by trade, I was committed to take on the challenge.I picked up a copy of &ldquo;The Linux Command Line&ldquo;, completed the IOHK Stake Pool Operators course and fired up a pool on the now &ldquo;legacy&rdquo; testnet in November 2021.Shortly after I launched RCADA Pool on the mainnet in March 2022!I have also taken part in the Marlowe Pioneers programme and I&rsquo;m continuously delving deeper into the community and projects building on Cardano!Of course this is only the beginning for me, my vision is to establish a Cardano Educational Hub &amp; permaculture farm that integrates real world activities and commerce with the Cardano blockchain. This will leverage everything from DID&rsquo;s, NFT&rsquo;s &amp; DeFi &amp; Lending dApps to fulfil the core principles and values that drives permaculture and Cardano&rsquo;s ecosystem as a whole.&nbsp;<h3>What is the Climate Neutral Cardano (CNC) group? What projects are you involved in?</h3>Climate Neutral Cardano is an alliance of stake pools dedicated to using 100% renewable energy for the operation of their stake pool servers. RCADA Pool is an active member of this alliance, as such I also donate a portion of my operator rewards to CNC projects that help protect our climate and the environment which are very important to me.CNC is working together with the Cardano community, institutions like the Cardano Foundation and IOG, and external parties like <a target="_blank" href="https://en.cryptonomist.ch/2021/10/31/cardano-forest-interview-with-veritree/" rel="noopener">Veritree</a> to achieve a common goal of making Cardano the most eco-friendly blockchain platform.Currently our alliance is supporting the CNC Ala project, a regenerative agriculture and reforestation project in Madagascar. In short we are aiming to raise $300,000, or 600K &#8371; (ADA) at the current market price, in order to plant 100,000 fruit &amp; nut trees, including a variety of vegetable crops and other shade plants.I&rsquo;m also very excited to be a member of the upcoming ISPO which will allow delegates to receive the CNC token on top of their regular ADA rewards, all the while they are helping to make the world a better place.As an added bonus, delegates will also receive NFTs based on the amount of CNC tokens acquired during the ISPO from four amazing NFT projects that have decided to support the CNC Ala project with unique and limited NFTs&nbsp;You may find out more about them here:<a target="_blank" href="https://cardanoproxies.io/" rel="noopener">Cardano Proxies</a>,<a target="_blank" href="https://en.cryptonomist.ch/2022/06/11/cardano-nft-column-earth-natives/" rel="noopener"> Earth Natives</a>,<a target="_blank" href="https://mada-s-lemur.xyz/" rel="noopener"> Madas Lemur</a> and<a target="_blank" href="https://en.cryptonomist.ch/2022/09/03/cardano-nft-column-yummi-universe/" rel="noopener"> Yummi Universe</a>I&rsquo;m currently helping with the whitepaper which will be made public very soon, but strongly encourage readers to visit the <a target="_blank" href="https://climateneutralcardano.org/cnc-ala-ispo/" rel="noopener">CNC website</a> for more information.I am also pleased to announce that I have recently taken on the role of Marketing Lead in the group for the CNC Ala ISPO project and look forward to building relationships and getting the wider community just as excited about the impactful work we are doing.<h3>What is the Single Pool Alliance? Why is it important to stake with single pools? Please share your thoughts.</h3>The Single Pool Alliance consists of SPOs that have pledged to only ever operate a single pool and not to create any additional (multi) pools once their pools have reached saturation.Each member still strives to make their pool profitable. However, once a respective stake pool reaches saturation, the pool&rsquo;s operator channels their efforts to fellow SPA pools to reach saturation.This is crucial for maintaining true decentralization of the Cardano blockchain and one of the core pillars of crypto. Without it what are we doing here?I&rsquo;m a proud member of the Single Pool Alliance and also the xSPO Alliance, which is an alliance for extra small pools who may join the alliance if they have less than one million ADA delegated to their pool at the time of application.As an alliance we promote decentralization, help educate the community and support new SPOs with minting their first block. A great example of this is the rotating delegation initiative whereby SPOs of the alliance set aside an allocation of ADA which they delegate to a specific pool on the list to help increase their active stake and the chance of producing a block. Every member gets a chance to receive the group&rsquo;s combined delegation as the list rotates.Several pools have managed to mint their first block this way and this is also a fantastic way for the rest of the Cardano community to help support decentralization.We have opened this to all delegates who wish to support small pools by staking their ADA to whichever xSPO pool is currently in rotation. By following along with the xSPO rotating delegation you could help support a huge range of small SPOs, often mission driven &amp; also building on Cardano. Not only do these pools represent a wide geographical area, but you should also be seeing an equally respectable percentage rewards return.If you&rsquo;d like to find out more, jump into our <a target="_blank" href="https://discord.gg/fmsFb9Kw7S" rel="noopener">Discord</a> server.Single pools are the backbone of the Cardano blockchain and provide so much richness and diversity to the ecosystem, I have the greatest respect for my fellow members dedicated to the cause.<h3>Awesome. Any closing remarks? Where can people stay in touch?</h3>Yes, indeed &#128522;Firstly, I&rsquo;d like to express my heartfelt gratitude to all my early delegates who have been sticking it out from the start, you are legends!Secondly, a big thanks to the CPSA, xSPO and CNC Alliances, you have been like a family to me and represent the heartbeat of Cardano.Shout out to The Cardano Army for their invaluable efforts to support single pools &amp; decentralization!A special thanks to the welcoming Proxies Community who have a unique &amp; inspiring approach to the space.Patryk thank you for lending me your megaphone and all the work you&rsquo;re doing as well.Folks can get in touch through my Discord, Telegram or Twitter accounts, all of which can be found on my <a target="_blank" href="https://www.stakecardanopool.com/" rel="noopener">website</a>Cardano has really grown into its own now and we&rsquo;re about to step up to a whole other level. I&rsquo;m very excited to be an integral part of this vibrant community and I&rsquo;m very much looking forward to the journey ahead!Disclaimer: The opinions and views of the SPOs are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Cardano Foundation or IOG.</div>Source: https://en.cryptonomist.ch/2022/09/24/cardano-spo-column-stake-ada-pool-rcada/

BitcoinEthereumNews

Cardano SPO: Stake ADA Pool [RCADA]

<div data-id="154927" data-title=" Upstream [UPSTR]" data-slug="https://en.cryptonomist.ch/2022/05/14/cardano-spo-column-upstream-upstr/">This week&rsquo;s guest on the Cardano SPO Column is a stake pool with the aim to educate, and make people feel safe and secure when staking and with the end goal of donating 30% of all profits to charity: <a rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank" href="https://adapools.org/pool/b67b0635ab2b26df9e44ba14fac3560720ca0902446d68fe282d4b97">Upstream [UPSTR]</a>.<a rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank" href="https://en.cryptonomist.ch/2022/05/08/cardano-spo-column-change-chg/">Last week&rsquo;s guest</a> was a stake pool committed to supporting the global Cardano ecosystem and donating to independently selected charities and not-for-profit organizations.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.<h2>Cardano SPO, interview with Upstream [UPSTR]</h2><figure id="attachment_154928" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-154928"><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://en.cryptonomist.ch/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/IMG_InternaSPO-1024x475.jpeg.webp 1024w, https://en.cryptonomist.ch/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/IMG_InternaSPO-300x139.jpeg.webp 300w, https://en.cryptonomist.ch/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/IMG_InternaSPO-754x350.jpeg.webp 754w, https://en.cryptonomist.ch/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/IMG_InternaSPO-450x209.jpeg.webp 450w, https://en.cryptonomist.ch/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/IMG_InternaSPO-195x91.jpeg.webp 195w, https://en.cryptonomist.ch/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/IMG_InternaSPO-96x45.jpeg.webp 96w, https://en.cryptonomist.ch/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/IMG_InternaSPO.jpeg.webp 1047w" sizes=" 1024px) 100vw, 1024px"></source><img loading="lazy" src="https://cryptonomist.ch/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/IMG_InternaSPO-1024x475.jpeg" alt="cardano spo upstream" width="1024" height="475" srcset="https://en.cryptonomist.ch/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/IMG_InternaSPO-1024x475.jpeg 1024w, https://en.cryptonomist.ch/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/IMG_InternaSPO-300x139.jpeg 300w, https://en.cryptonomist.ch/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/IMG_InternaSPO-768x356.jpeg 768w, https://en.cryptonomist.ch/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/IMG_InternaSPO-754x350.jpeg 754w, https://en.cryptonomist.ch/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/IMG_InternaSPO-450x209.jpeg 450w, https://en.cryptonomist.ch/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/IMG_InternaSPO-195x91.jpeg 195w, https://en.cryptonomist.ch/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/IMG_InternaSPO-96x45.jpeg 96w, https://en.cryptonomist.ch/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/IMG_InternaSPO.jpeg 1047w" sizes=" 1024px) 100vw, 1024px">Cardano SPO [UPSTR] is a new stake pool</figure><h3>Hi, welcome to the SPO Column. Tell us something about your team, where are you based and what are your backgrounds?</h3>Hi, thanks for having us. Upstream are a group of 7 friends, of 20/30 years, and we&rsquo;re from the UK. Within our group we have;&nbsp;<ul><li aria-level="1">Mark &ndash; Web3 developer/business owner.</li><li aria-level="1">Dave &ndash; Videographer/business owner.</li><li aria-level="1">Chris &ndash; Commercial contracts manager.</li><li aria-level="1">Luke &ndash; Operations manager at a global IT company.</li><li aria-level="1">Ben &ndash; Interior architect</li><li aria-level="1">Andy &ndash; Customer support</li><li aria-level="1">Sam &ndash; Product innovation lead</li></ul>Ultimately we came together at the start of 2021 with the dream of working as a team to lift each other in tandem, to better ourselves and to ensure no-one is left behind.&nbsp;With a wider societal view, we&rsquo;re painfully aware of the knowledge gaps within our education system which has resulted in multiple generations missing out on some of the most basic skills; money management, sustainable living, basic food knowledge to name a few.&nbsp;We want to promote and support charities that plug these gaps in the system, that allow everybody a fair chance at succeeding in life and to give everyone, regardless of upbringing, the opportunity to be the best them possible.<h3>What&rsquo;s the path that led you to Cardano and to become Stake Pool Operators (SPO)?</h3>Truth be told, when we came into the Crypto space at the start of 2021 our primary intention was investing for profit. We spent a few months investigating and researching the industry, making some investments and getting a general feel for the space.&nbsp;I&rsquo;ll be the first to say that early-doors we were relatively naive and soon realised the extent of the learning-curve ahead of us. This is where having a 7 person team really helped us, having the ability to research from multiple angles and bounce off each other has been so important.ADA was one of our earliest investments, it instantly stood out above everything else and the more we researched the more positive aspects we discovered. Our initial plan of straight-up speculative &lsquo;investing&rsquo; very quickly went out of the window and we knew that this was a project that would spearhead social change. We instantly knew that we wanted to be involved for the long-term &amp; was hooked on Cardano from this moment on..Through further research we discovered how committed to social-equality projects the Cardano community was. You can see it everywhere you look. I&rsquo;m not saying that other networks&rsquo; communities aren&rsquo;t decent too, there are plenty of decent spaces around, but what we saw coming from the Cardano community was special. We knew we couldn&rsquo;t sleep on it.We decided that we would use our early ADA investment (plus a bit more) as the delegation to our pool, and luckily for us Mark has the technical ability to make this happen. Upstream went live in epoch 286 and we&rsquo;ve been plugging away ever since.<h3>Please share your experience as a new stake pool that hasn&rsquo;t produced any blocks yet. What difficulties are you encountering? And what is in store for the future of [UPSTR]?</h3>Marketing, marketing, marketing.. from experience, when an OG SPO says to you &lsquo;make sure you have a strong marketing plan and are ready to adapt it when needed&rsquo; make sure you listen to them! We had researched what hurdles the smallest pools would encounter and had a decent idea of what was involved regarding marketing but what caught us a little bit off-guard was how quickly the ecosystem changes.&nbsp;For example, we created Upstream just as the ISOs really started to become prominent and unfortunately as an unproductive pool it&rsquo;s difficult to build the relationships with relevant projects, as they want to see proof that the pool is effective and working properly. We do understand that this is part of the system and certainly aren&rsquo;t expecting hand-outs.&nbsp;We believe that effort and commitment will be rewarded over the long term and there are plenty of projects coming through with the goal of supporting and enabling the smallest pools to grow. We will be eternally grateful to these projects for the support they provide the smallest pools.As far as what the future holds.. we are focusing on helping the wider onboarding of Cardano through local investment/crypto meetups. We&rsquo;re also arranging a Cardano specific event(s) in London too. Additionally, we aim to use Dave&rsquo;s skill-set (video production) to promote the network and to provide new users with the knowledge and tools to get involved. We plan on doing this by continuing to create simple entry-level &lsquo;how-to&rsquo; videos explaining all aspects of the space; wallet creation, NFT/Metaverse projects, crypto security etc. in a way that&rsquo;s jargon free.<h3><span id="The_activation_of_smart_contracts_on_Cardano_has_opened_a_plethora_of_possibilities_How_have_you_been_engaging_with_the_DeFi_and_NFT_space_on_this_blockchain_Are_there_any_projects_in_particular_you_are_excited_about">The activation of smart contracts on Cardano has opened a plethora of possibilities. How have you been engaging with the DeFi and NFT space on this blockchain? Are there any projects in particular you are excited about?</h3>Yeah, it&rsquo;s starting to get really exciting isn&rsquo;t it. We&rsquo;re in contact with some NFT creators and platforms and it&rsquo;s great to see how far they&rsquo;ve come considering how fresh the space is. Mark has made some really impressive contacts through his work creating the back-end for the MAD (Mad In Art) NFT platform which was originally planned to be built on Cardano but ended up being built on Harmony.&nbsp;We met the team behind MAD at the Cardano Summit and are really excited to see them building on Cardano soon. Also, CryptoBoutique are a group local to where we&rsquo;re based, who we&rsquo;ve met at some of the local meetups and have a great project &amp; community backing them. They&rsquo;re well worth a look.As selfish as this sounds, the projects that excite us the most are the ones coming through which will allow us to grow the pool at a faster rate and attract more delegators. There are a number of projects that we&rsquo;re in contact with that are being built with the specific purpose of boot-strapping the smallest pools;Optim Finance (<a rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/OptimFi">@OptimFi</a>) is one of my personal favourites. They&rsquo;ve created a system that will allow the smallest SPOs to have a substantial amount of ADA staked to their pool for a set amount of time. This includes very low interest rates which are also partly subsidised too. It&rsquo;s very exciting as this would allow us to become productive as a pool, further support decentralisation within the network and to be able to keep donating to our chosen charities.Some other projects that have really caught our eye recently &ndash; particularly for the support they give the smallest pools &ndash; are;&nbsp;ZiberBugs (<a rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/ZiberBugs">@ZiberBugs</a>) which is a really interesting NFT collection and game, look out for the drop coming soon, and,&nbsp;Profila (<a rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/ProfilaPrivacy">@ProfilaPrivacy</a>), which is a tool that allows a user to control their advertising &amp; marketing data, to choose where this data is shared and to receive royalties for doing so. Sounds like a win-win to us..<h3>Great contribution. Any final thoughts? Where can people stay in touch?</h3>We&rsquo;re contactable on <a rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/Upstream_ada">Twitter</a> and are always open to collaborations so feel free to drop us a tweet, or, through our <a rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCg0slOnS99-AFaLCGEjCAVw/featured">YouTube channel, &lsquo;Upstream Staking&rsquo;</a> for that. Feel free to leave comments as to what you&rsquo;d like to see us cover from the Cardano ecosystem, we&rsquo;re always open to community suggestions. And keep your eyes peeled for upcoming announcements for affiliated ISOs and NFT drops happening soon..&nbsp;We have to thank our current stakers, we appreciate your support more than we can show you at the moment, we will find ways to show our appreciation as we grow..&nbsp;A huge thank you to the alliances; The <a rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/AllianceXspo">xSPO Alliance</a>, <a rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/CardanoMDP">Mission Driven Pools</a> &amp; <a rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/CardanoCnbg">Climate Neutral Cardano</a>, you&rsquo;ve been so supportive of us. The guys and girls that run these alliances are true heroes of the space, are always ready to provide support &amp; expert knowledge and their input &amp; dedication really should be highlighted, so thank you.One last thing that I really can&rsquo;t leave without saying.. If you would like to stake to a small, charitable &amp; sustainability run Stake Pool please consider us &ndash; Upstream (UPSTR) &ndash; every stake is appreciated. We&rsquo;re really excited to be a part of this community and cannot wait to see what the next few years hold for us all. Hold on to your hats, it&rsquo;s going to be a hell of a ride&hellip;Disclaimer: The opinions and views of the SPOs are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Cardano Foundation or IOG.</div>

Cardano SPO: Upstream [UPSTR] – The Cryptonomist

<div id="content"><div><div><div id="primary"><div><div><div data-id="143883" data-title=" GranADA_Staking_Pool [GRANA]" data-slug="https://en.cryptonomist.ch/2022/02/06/cardano-spo-column-granada_staking_pool-grana/">This week&rsquo;s guest on the Cardano SPO Column is a stake pool striving to sustainably decentralize the Cardano ecosystem: GranADA_Staking_Pool [GRANA].Last week&rsquo;s guest was a stake pool that is a SundaeSwap Scooper and donates the pool&rsquo;s profit to saving the lives of children.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.<h2>Cardano SPO, interview with GranADA_Staking_Pool [GRANA]</h2><figure id="attachment_143880" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-143880"><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://en.cryptonomist.ch/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/GranADA-Cardano-SPO-1.png.webp 1050w, https://en.cryptonomist.ch/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/GranADA-Cardano-SPO-1-300x154.png.webp 300w, https://en.cryptonomist.ch/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/GranADA-Cardano-SPO-1-1024x525.png.webp 1024w, https://en.cryptonomist.ch/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/GranADA-Cardano-SPO-1-683x350.png.webp 683w, https://en.cryptonomist.ch/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/GranADA-Cardano-SPO-1-450x231.png.webp 450w, https://en.cryptonomist.ch/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/GranADA-Cardano-SPO-1-195x100.png.webp 195w, https://en.cryptonomist.ch/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/GranADA-Cardano-SPO-1-96x49.png.webp 96w" sizes=" 1050px) 100vw, 1050px"></source><img loading="lazy" src="https://cryptonomist.ch/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/GranADA-Cardano-SPO-1.png" alt="Cardano SPO [GRANA] is operated by 3 vegans" width="1050" height="538" srcset="https://en.cryptonomist.ch/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/GranADA-Cardano-SPO-1.png 1050w, https://en.cryptonomist.ch/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/GranADA-Cardano-SPO-1-300x154.png 300w, https://en.cryptonomist.ch/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/GranADA-Cardano-SPO-1-1024x525.png 1024w, https://en.cryptonomist.ch/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/GranADA-Cardano-SPO-1-768x394.png 768w, https://en.cryptonomist.ch/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/GranADA-Cardano-SPO-1-683x350.png 683w, https://en.cryptonomist.ch/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/GranADA-Cardano-SPO-1-450x231.png 450w, https://en.cryptonomist.ch/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/GranADA-Cardano-SPO-1-195x100.png 195w, https://en.cryptonomist.ch/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/GranADA-Cardano-SPO-1-96x49.png 96w" sizes=" 1050px) 100vw, 1050px">Cardano SPO [GRANA] is operated by 3 vegans</figure><h3>Hello, glad to have you here. Tell us something about your team, where are you based and what are your backgrounds?</h3>We are 3 vegans from Venezuela who really like the Cardano ecosystem and who want to make a positive impact on the world. I actually take care of most of the work but my wife and my brother help me sometimes with social media and with marketing. I&rsquo;m a software engineer and we are based in Zurich, Switzerland.<h3>What&rsquo;s your Cardano story? How did you get started in this space and why launch a stake pool?</h3>After realizing how technologically obsolete, centralized, expensive and pollutant Bitcoin and Ethereum were, I decided to research more about other blockchains to change my portfolio. Here is when I came across Cardano for the first time. I loved the scientific approach, the mission-driven community and energy efficiency of this project. I started first as an investor and since I&rsquo;m a software engineer, I decided that the next logical step would be to open a staking pool to contribute to the decentralization of the network.&nbsp;I realized that most pools use highly centralized data centers like AWS, DigitalOcean and Google Cloud. Therefore, I decided to launch a staking pool with a hybrid solution (private servers with a backup node on a small data center) and run it with renewable energy, of course!<h3>GranADA is an active member of the Climate Neutral Cardano Group. Please tell us more about this group, its operation and its goal.</h3>CNCG is an amazing group full of altruistic, generous and conscious SPOs. We are scientists, businessmen, engineers and artists from different nations and backgrounds with a common passion: protect our environment and the biodiversity of our planet from climate change.&nbsp;Our goal is to reduce and offset the carbon footprint of the Cardano ecosystem until reaching neutrality. We research and estimate the carbon footprint of Cardano with calculations and external auditing, we create awareness within the community on social media platforms and we donate more than 25% of our staking rewards to projects that offset carbon emissions by planting trees or protecting our oceans. We also create proposals on Catalyst and make strategic partnerships with several great projects to get closer to our goal. We have achieved quite a lot in the last 4 months but we still have quite a lot to do!<h3>So besides choosing an eco-friendly blockchain like Cardano, what else can we do to reduce our carbon footprint and mitigate the risks of the environmental crisis?</h3>Adopting a plant-based diet! It&rsquo;s the easiest and yet most powerful thing that we can change to reduce our carbon footprint. Not just because we will stop financing one of the most polluting and wasteful industries but also because when we change a habit like our diet, we start to care more about what&rsquo;s going on in the world.&nbsp;We also should know that we have governance power with our money and that we can vote with our wallets, just like on Catalyst! Politicians and big companies should also contribute, but we, as consumers, should consciously buy products that are sustainable because it is our money that keeps governments and these companies alive.<h3>Thank you kindly for your time. Any final thoughts? Where can people stay in touch?</h3>Scientists have warned us several times already. We just have 8 years until we reach the non-return point in climate change. We must take this crisis seriously and take action if we want to save the precious biodiversity of our planet and our own lives. Climate change won&rsquo;t be a quick end for us. We will see food shortages due to violent rains, droughts, snow storms in the middle of the year, etc. Species will go extinct, we will have to go to war for resources like water and crops.&nbsp;It&rsquo;s not about what will happen, but rather when. Shifting to a plant-based diet is a must, spending less than 10 hours on airplanes every year, actively demanding our politicians to fight for our climate and getting away from fossil fuels will buy us enough time to shift our economies. I&rsquo;m convinced that we can do this! But we need to stop thinking that we won&rsquo;t see this disaster and do our part right now! &#128578;To get in touch, here&rsquo;s our website and <a rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/GranAdaSwiss">Twitter</a>.Disclaimer: The opinions and views of the SPOs are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Cardano Foundation or IOHK.</div>Source: https://en.cryptonomist.ch/2022/02/06/cardano-spo-column-granada_staking_pool-grana/</div></div><h2>Post navigation</h2></div></div></div></div>

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Climate Neutral Cardano Group of SPOs. Join us and help to make #Cardano the most climate-friendly blockchain. We run on 100% renewables and give to the planet.

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