❤ ADAGE stake pool | ~13.4M delegated | 77 delegators | ようこそ!

You know the old ADAGE…? The ADAGE pool has been around since the early days of Jormungandr, months before the ITN. Some stats about the pool:

  • 0.84% pool fee
  • 380 ADA fixed fee
  • 77 delegators
  • 13M controlled stake and growing
  • Ticker: ADAGE

Learn more about the pool: https://adage.app

Motivation
Decentralization is a top priority for the ADAGE pool. In my opinion decentralization is one of the main features of Cardano. In the future Cardano will get other new cool features from IOJ, Emurgo and the Treasury, but decentralization is the first major test, and if we can’t do it, I am most likely out.

I am a long time Bitcoiner, and I have seen many examples of bad things happening when cryptocurrency projects become centralized. On the other hand I also see why awesome companies like IOHK and Emurgo are required to make a project of this magnitude take off.

With roughly 1000 stake pools and hundreds of operators we have the technical skills and infrastructure that is required to make Cardano truly decentralized. It is a very important first step, and I almost can’t believe that we have already proved that we can do the technical side of decentralization! But of course there is more to decentralization than hardware and tech. We all have to do our bit to ensure that Cardano stays healthy and decentralized in other areas going forward.

I have more than 10 years pro experience as a developer and Linux administrator, so it was natural for me to focus my efforts on the technical side of decentralization. This is also reflected in some of the choices I made when I setup the ADAGE pool:

  • One pool, one pool operator
  • Relay nodes run on cloud servers, but my main pool node is a bare metal server that is hosted in a secure environment far away from big hosting providers. They may close down or attack my relays, but taking down my pool node will be much harder :smile:
  • I am an anonymous pool operator

Some people prefer to know the identity of the pool operators they delegate to, and this is understandable. I do have a lot of respect for pool operators that go on Youtube, or reveal their true identity in other ways. Youtube is a great platform for promoting a pool and for helping out members of the community. I am just not going to do it :grinning: As a delegator you don’t gain a lot of security from knowing my real identity. After all, your funds are never at risk when you delegate. However adversaries gain a lot from knowing the real identity of pool operators.

Being anonymous does come with a few extra challenges, and I still want to be transparent about my operation. This is the reason why I have put a lot of work into the pool site: https://adage.app - Via the site you can track performance in near real-time. You are always welcome to ask me questions on the pools Telegram channel.

Delegate to ADAGE if you value decentralization. If you are comfortable managing multiple passwords and recovery phrases consider splitting your stake and delegate to multiple pools.