Written interviews with Stake Pool Operators (SPOs) on the Cardano blockchain.
Link to post on my Medium
Cardano SPO #090 [SHARE]
This week’s Cardano SPO is Bastian, who’s a Berlin-based finance and economics professional with a passion for blockchain technology, cryptocurrencies and decentralisation: SHARE Pool [SHARE].
The previous guest was a stake pool operated by Toshi from Japan who lives in Bangkok, Thailand and aims to donate 25% of the stake pool’s revenue to an orphanage in Thailand.
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.
Cardano SPO [SHARE] donates to charities all over the world
Hi, thanks for your time. Tell us something about yourself, where are you based and what is your background?
Hi, Bastian here, I’m a Berlin-based finance and economics professional with a passion for blockchain technology, cryptocurrencies and decentralisation. I’m also into philosophy, history, politics and culture (mostly music in particular) and I especially enjoy what Berlin has to offer in this area.
I came to blockchain technology, because of my inquisitiveness for big ideas. I liked the paradigm shift in economics and finance, as well as in our social systems as a whole, that is possible through this technological revolution. I’m thriving to change our economy and social systems towards more inclusion and sustainability, and I believe that blockchain technology will play a big role in solving related issues. Therefore, I got involved directly as the stake pool operator of SHARE, a mission-driven Cardano stake pool.
What’s the path that led you to Cardano and to become a Stake Pool Operator (SPO)?
I came into crypto in the fall of 2017, close to the height of the bull market at the time and one of the first related videos I saw was the famous whiteboard video by Charles Hoskinson. I got hooked immediately into the Cardano project and have followed it ever since.
In my first two years in crypto, I had to orient myself and get familiar with the technology, so I read into quite a few projects and soaked up all the information I could get. When I realised that Charles’ vision for Cardano started to really come to fruition during the ITN era, I became solely focused on Cardano, because I thought that the project’s approach (science-based, PoS, functional programming, etc.) is the best the industry has to offer.
At the time, I was in the final straws of my Master’s degree and my goal after graduating was to go into the blockchain industry. During the ITN and when PoS approached mainnet, I thought it would be really cool to start my own stake pool as well. But, having no background in computer science or coding, made it a little harder for me to get started as an SPO.
I approached friends with a CS background and even people over the internet, asking if someone would be interested in starting a stake pool together. However, I could not find anyone — so I had to do it myself.
Luckily, the Cardano Foundation offered the Stake Pool School course, in which you learn how to run a stake pool. With this course, and the help of other experienced SPOs, I was able to learn how to become an SPO myself.
And now, here we are, my stake pool has been running for over two years, with hopefully many years to come. It’s been a beautiful experience so far.
You were one of the organizers of the community-led Cardano Summit 2022 event in Berlin. How was the event? What were your takeaways?
The event was in my opinion and from the resonance I’ve got from the participants — a great success. With NMKR, Blueshift, Smart-Places and GeniusYield/GeniusX, we had four super cool projects presenting themselves, and we even had more Cardano projects, SPOs, CF Ambassadors, IOG employees and many more as guests at the event.
The speakers were met with a really keen audience and they gave great presentations to introduce what they do in Cardano. After the talks were over, the networking session was great as well. I’ve met countless interesting people from the Cardano community as well as newcomers to Cardano, and I believe that through the event, many new connections have been formed.
Organising the Cardano Summit 2022 community event in Berlin was one of my personal highlights of the year. I’m super enthusiastic about Cardano and the blockchain revolution, so it was a huge honour to do so. I’ve also learned a lot and could grow from hosting the event, so I totally recommend this to anyone… but it was a lot of work too, so be ready for that if you want to commit to it 
What does it mean to be a mission-driven stake pool? What is the mission of your pool? Why is it important to you?
In line with the name of the stake pool, our mission is sharing, as we thrive to provide optimal ADA staking-rewards to our delegators, we are giving away to charity and we share knowledge around the Cardano blockchain ecosystem.
Being mission driven means to me that your stake pool provides additional value, other than just staking rewards. This could be either to the Cardano community directly or outside the community. SHARE does both, as we share knowledge about the Cardano ecosystem to a german-speaking audience through our YouTube Channel “Alles zu Cardano” and we are donating parts of our profits to charitable causes all around the world. So far, SHARE donated over 6000 Euros (donations overview). Being mission-driven is important to me, because I want to contribute to creating a better Cardano ecosystem and ultimately making the world a better place, just like Cardano’s vision.
Contrary to common opinion, I personally see other SPOs that — for example — contribute open source code to the Cardano ecosystem or run their own Cardano project, also as mission-driven, although they might not even consider themselves so, because usually mission-driven means donating to charitable causes. I see this a little differently. Therefore, I encourage every SPO to become mission-driven in my sense of the word, meaning to contribute in one form or another either to the Cardano ecosystem and/or beyond, to make our ecosystem and the world just a little bit better. Together, we will have a big impact.
Great contribution. Any final thoughts? Where can people stay in touch?
Thank you, Patryk, for the opportunity of this interview! Really appreciate the work you do for the Cardano ecosystem.
I welcome everyone to get in touch with me and my stake pool SHARE, and I’d also be very happy if you decide to delegate to SHARE as you want to support our mission.
You can find us on our Website and Twitter Handles: @Bastian_SHARE and @share_pool.
Disclaimer: The opinions and views of the SPOs are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Cardano Foundation or IOG.