Announcing the stake pools chosen for April 2022

Congratz to the selected.

I made the honarable mention, meaning I applied hooray :).

Congratulations and best of luck to all pools selected :sunglasses:

Cool to see EQUTY as an honorable mention - thank you CF :raised_hands:

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4 posts were split to a new topic: The pool ticker “ADA” is part of a pool cluster

IOG did exactly this in their last delegation announcement.

What is the name or ticker of your pool?

Congratulations to all pools selected! Could anyone please tell me where one can apply for the next round?

Thank you in advance;)

A post was merged into an existing topic: The pool ticker “ADA” is part of a pool cluster

Congratulations to all pools selected!
and thanks a lot for onorable mention of STPZ1 pool!

3 posts were merged into an existing topic: The pool ticker “ADA” is part of a pool cluster

I’m sure this post will probably be hidden, but here is another multi-pool that CF has been delegating to for their last 3 rounds - ZW3RK. Go to their website which shares a webpage with one of their other pools.

Your posts are not hidden. They are very much visible at the link directly above your latest post.

As @adatainment already said:

Adapools considers them single pool operator:

:man_shrugging:

Nobody can comment there. It was removed from conversation. As if too embarrassed to let people agree with what’s said.

This is single pool by omission. They haven’t reach out out to @danny_cryptofay to have themselves labeled as a group. Why would they when they can continue getting CF delegation?

Continually falling back on that weird loophole is adolescent. I’ve showed that your mythology is fatally flawed and is continually being gamed. To just shrug about it is sad…

Do something about it

What are you guys even defending? Are you defending what is right?

These people know they are running more than one pool, but are willing to lie on applications because they will probably get paid for it. Instead of looking at it objectively, you are defending and promoting this behavior.

I’ve pointed it out, I’ve provided proof. It’s not ok that you guys are advocating it and even preferring it. This is wrong.

That thread deteriorated into bickering between two users. That was a good reason to close it, in my opinion.

Do you really consider this example as one of the reasons multi-pools should be excluded? The second one has a totally different concept (100% margin for more or less charity), has whooping 5076 ADA stake and did not produce any blocks ever. Isn’t it just stickling to the rules as self purpose to want them excluded?

I’m not CF, not nearly. I just can very much understand that they do not want and do not have the resources to do an investigation into hundreds of pools.

I’d see two possibilities:

  1. Remove the single pool requirement. It’s obviously not assessable objectively and continously leads to fruitless discussions.
  2. Work out a better definition for multi-pools and a methodology that cannot be so easily gamed. Waiting for someone to cry havoc in the forum and then swiftly taking away their delegation again at will is not a methodology.

The person that stood to lose from the conversation was able to derail and hijack the thread and have it hidden. Their conversation had little to do with the OP. That’s why it’s so suspicious to have my other comments also moved to that locked thread instead of pruning their conversation out.

They could easily prefer pools with pledge over pools without it. Pledge is THE system in place to eliminate pool splitting. When they announce that they PREFER ‘small’ pools, guess what, suddenly we have 1500+ small pools trying to get their delegation.

I’d hardly call a post with proof crying havoc. They should accept and positively respond to community members that are willing to put in the work to find pools gaming the system. Instead they point to a loophole and remove my comment from conversation. The proper response would be, 'Huh, thanks for pointing that obvious multi pool out that for some reason is considered a single pool."

ZW3RK doesn’t even hide that fact that they run many pools. It’s as simple as going to their website where they list another one of their pools. They have lied on their CF delegation application many times.

This behavior should not be rewarded.

2 Likes

@Tom_Stafford you are a defender of decentralization and may well be THE Defender of Decentralization. I commend your determination and dedication to helping pools…

The two grave threats to decentralisation that you found – ADA and ZW3RK – both have 25k pledge. So, you want to have a higher pledge requirement? How high? Or would it then be okay again if they get it? And you want to exclude pools that cannot afford that from CF delegation?

“Many” as in “two, one of which very much looks like a failed experiment that never picked up any pace”?

Again, what are you defending? or are you simply disagreeing for the argument of it?

These are merely 2 examples, but certainly not all or most of them. I’m not going to spend hours combing through data just to have it ignored and removed from conversation. If CF was willing to entertain a conversation with intent to improve then I might be willing. There are simple on chain analytics that can be done like figuring out how which pools were created shortly after each announcement that conveniently fit their minimum criteria perfectly. This will also show how their irrational delegation mythology is negatively impacting the network.

Think of it like this, somebody could run a single 2 mil pledged pool and have 0 chance of getting CF delegation or they could could run 80 25k pledged pools. Which is more decentralized? (rhetorical) Specifically targeting low pledged pools is promoting sybille behavior and there are plenty of examples of it being exploited. However, this is easily corrected. Instead of starting at lowest pledge first they should start with highest pledge first within their other criteria. CF has continually taken a stance AGAINST pledge, first starting with their inaccurate reward calculator and continuing into their delegation methodology.

Yes, 25k is WAY WAY WAY too low and over-leverages operators with very little stake of their own in the system. If every single 1PCT pool was saturated they would still have lower leverage than a single 25k pledged pool that is saturated.

"The lower the leverage of a blockchain system, the higher its degree of decentralization." - Prof Aggelos Kiayias

It just hasn’t received CF delegation yet. The first pool would also be failed too if it weren’t for CF. These are 2 pools of a group of at least 3.

I’m disagreeing, because I do not see the big problem you are constructing out of it.

You found two examples that may in a very strong interpretation not fit the requirements:

Yes, the communication of the operator of ADA is problematic, but there is zero proof of him operating other pools. He is providing hosting – allegedly for free in many cases – and support according to his own exposition, which is probably okay. If he has SPaaS customers is open, if SPaaS is multi-pool is also open.

For ZW3RK, I have only seen the two pools on their website and the second one hardly counts (to me), honestly.

These two are definitely not examples of pool splitting or sybil behaviour. You are making the problem (if it exists) way bigger than it is.

If it is so easy, show examples of actual exploitation of the CF methodology! You have not shown pool splitting! You have shown two pools that got CF delegation that have run for quite some time before getting the delegation and have not splitted, faked to be a small pool, or anything like that.

Another way to look at it is that you want only wealthy people to be able to run stake pools. Might be okay, but be honest about it.

“Stake pool operators may prove to have skin in the game in other ways than pledging stake of course; e.g., they can be very professional and contribute to the community in different ways. You should be the judge of this: high leverage in itself is not a reason to avoid delegating to a particular pool, but it is a strong indication that you should proceed with caution and carefully evaluate the people behind the operation.” – Prof. Aggelos Kiayias

His ideal leverage of only 1 is only ideal if everyone operates their own pool, not if nobody stakes except for a few wealthy guys operating fully pledged, fully saturated private pools (which have a leverage of 1).

Do you have any indication that they even applied for it? And have not simply forgotten about it?

It had 4.5 million stake before CF delegation. I’d hardly call that failed.

And where is the third one?

congratz @all