Original Placement:
Today’s guest on the Cardano SPO column is a stake pool operated by Shawn, a Mechanical Engineering Technologist based in Toronto, Canada: A3C Pool [A3C].
The previous guest was a bare-metal stake pool operated by Brock, a Canadian decentralization maxi focused on improving many areas of the Cardano ecosystem.
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 are your backgrounds?
My name is Shawn, I am based in Toronto, Canada, operate A3C Pool & A3C crypto club at night & work full time for the government as a Mechanical Engineering Technologist for the city’s subway fleet during the day.
I absolutely love my daytime job as I use technology to solve very complicated problems. I very much enjoy jogging and playing basketball.
What’s the path that led you to Cardano and to become a Stake Pool Operator (SPO)?
In 2021, my wife and I decided to pick up new hobbies and share them with one another.
I am a big Tesla fan and at the time Elon Musk was talking a lot about Dogecoin. I did not know what it was and decided to pick up blockchain as my hobby using my engineering skill set to research various blockchains and what they do.
My research led me to Cardano and I was hooked. I told all my friends and family about a great opportunity for an up-and-coming investment. I was telling everyone that you could stake your coins on Exodus wallet and get 3 to 5% every year.
At the time I did not realize that. Exodus is a multi-pool organization, therefore hindering decentralization. The more I learned about Cardano and the importance of decentralization. I needed to fix a wrong, so I created my own stake pool.
Ever since then I have been building the stake pool in an effort to create a pool that is fun, informative & trustworthy.
For those unaware, what did the Chang hard fork involve? And now that it’s behind us, what are the next steps for Cardano?
As you know the Chang hard fork marks a huge milestone not only in the Cardano roadmap but in the blockchain community as a whole, which really excites me.
The Chang hard fork focuses on enhancing on-chain governance. It introduces new mechanisms for community-driven decision-making, allowing users to vote on protocol upgrades and fund allocation through the treasury.
This upgrade strengthens Cardano’s decentralization by giving the community more control over the network’s future direction.
I am proud to be a part of the Cardano Community and will continue to build my stake pool in an effort to offer the best value by seeking out as many partnerships as possible and provide reliable information, news and advice.
What are you most looking forward to with Cardano? Do you have any favourite applications/projects?
I really enjoy seeing what Book and Stuff, Hosky, MuesliSwap and Iagon are building, as these projects are clearly building for the long term on Cardano.
I also look forward to spending time with people and projects from the community by donating my time to help anyone with free advice.
Whether it be tech support, marketing/branding or social media advice, this is my stake pool’s mission to help.
I have met and helped a lot of great people, projects, artists and even other stake pool operators with whatever they need and I truly enjoy innovating and providing ideas that make people go “wow”.
Great contribution. Any final thoughts? Where can people stay in touch?
If people would like to reach out to me they can do that on X or visit my website and send me an email.
I look forward to continuing to build the A3C stake pool and am excited to see what the future brings.
Please follow me on X to see the type of information and news I provide to help the community.
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.