Original Placement:
Today’s guest on the Cardano SPO column is a stake pool part of the Cardano Single Pool Alliance (SPA ) and operated by Leandros, a full-stack Cardano engineer: The Brothership Pool [BSP].
The previous guest was a stake pool operated by a software developer based out of Warm, Sunny, Colorado, who’s also a Full-Stack dev at Book.io.
This column is where I invite Stake Pool Operators (SPO) to share their stories and vision as a way to connect with and learn about the Cardano Community.
Hi, thanks for your time. Tell us something about yourself, where are you based and what is your background?
My name is Leandros, you might know me as the guy behind the BroClan wallet and most people call me Leo.
Studied electrical and computer engineering in Athens, worked as a QA engineer, a DevOps engineer, a K8s-cloud engineer, an SPO and now with BroClan I picked up React, Helios and Aiken to be a full-stack Cardano engineer.
I am half dutch and was born and raised in Cyprus. I have had the chance to witness the collapse in Greece while I was a student there and just as I returned to Cyprus I lived through the banking collapse.
It was hard times but it gave me a perspective that allows me to understand how important it is to build a system where you “Cannot do evil”. Because at the end of the day as systems collapse it is the lives of real people that get ruined, and that is not acceptable.
What’s the path that led you to Cardano and to become a Stake Pool Operator (SPO)?
In 2017 I was a starting DevOps engineer at a large corporation when the Bitcoin summer happened and it got on my radar. Once I researched it and learned how it works and how decentralized systems are now possible, I was on-board. I always believed Fiat to be fake and now I had a real alternative.
I was also fascinated by the amount of things that can be fixed in the world if we leverage the trustless nature of blockchain to tackle all governmental and societal issues, not just monetary policy.
Unfortunately nobody seemed to realize the magnitude of this revolution, with BTC maxis denying any utility other than monetary policy, ETH deploying half-baked tech that puts at risk everyone that uses it, and a myriad of other “cryptocurrencies” that focused on Marketing over the substance. Then I ran into Cardano, they had their shit together and it was visible.
So I worked my ass off, got a much higher paying job as a Cloud engineer, keeped my lifestyle frugal, and went all in on ADA with ~40% of anything I made.
When the incentivized testnet came around and with my DevOps background I could not resist jumping in and building my own pool.
You’re a proud member of the Cardano Single Pool Alliance (SPA). What is it? And why is it important for the decentralization of Cardano?
The Cardano Single Pool Alliance (SPA) is an organisation of stake pools that have 1 thing in common. We all promise to only run a single pool. That is because we value decentralization.
The basic value of a blockchain is decentralization, by having real robust decentralization you can offload an enormous amount of effort into the blockchain and free yourself from the trouble. Most of the bureaucracy that rules the world today is built for the exclusive reason of making sure people are not cheating.
Without decentralization, the value blockchain has to bring to the world is neutered and lost, it is human nature to move to a bi-polar configuration since it is much cheaper to run a pool farm rather than have a myriad of small pools (each operation has an overhead that is shared in farms).
But if we manage to build a blockchain that is so decentralized that not even “total war” by a large nation state can stop it, then we will have built a much better future for the world.
On your website you mention you’ve seen the destruction caused by outdated and corrupt systems in Greece, can you share more about this? And how does blockchain technology solve these issues?
Greece was ruined by corruption, and if you live around corruption but manage not to get involved in you can clearly see that it permeates every level. It is not just the corrupt politician, it’s also the corrupt police looking the other way, the corrupt reporters reporting facts they know are wrong and the corrupt citizen that pretends everything is fine and votes for the government because his daughter got a cushy job in the government.
And all this propped up by lies and fake facts, the government of Greece entered into the EU by faking their financial statements, they were not ready to enter as it was still a developing nation, but they faked it, they faked 100 Million in profits for 4 years straight and then it was proven that they were actually running on a deficit and the money was borrowed.
In Greece there is 0 trust between the government and the people and it’s a 2 way street, this makes people more corrupt since they feel it’s the only way to get ahead and the cycle just keeps going.
If the government was run on and validated by a blockchain all this would be fixed, there would be no reason to have doubts and cause trouble, having a society that is able to trust its government and a government that works hard to earn that trust is a must for a society with a high quality of life.
That is the reason we need a blockchain decentralized and expressive enough to control a government, and not the other way around.
Awesome. Any final thoughts? Where can people get in touch?
What we are doing here with Cardano has the potential to completely alter the future of humanity, to bring a new era that is just a little bit closer to the perfect world.
Take this seriously and we might manage to finally end corruption from all governments.
You can find me on Twitter, always feel free to reach out. I might not be polite with you, but I will always try to be honest 
Disclaimer: The opinions and views of the people interviewed are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Cardano Foundation or IOG. Moreover, this content is for educational purposes, it doesn’t constitute financial advice.