How did this happen?
The Lido Nation staking pool launched on the Cardano mainnet in December 2020. From there, a couple of dreamers started to talk about what our little corner of the network should look like. As a pair of curious birds who get excited about learning and sharing knowledge, we noticed that there wasn’t enough of the kind of material we wanted to read about blockchain, and Cardano. So we started to write it!
Blockchains are about decentralization, and decentralization means involving a lot of people, from lots of places of the world. The more decentralized a network is, the stronger it is. Therefore, a growing and resilient network needs to appeal not just to the people who are already in it:
It needs to be attractive to newcomers and to people who don’t just speak English!
We write about introductory topics, complex topics, and news from the block-o-sphere.
No matter the topic, we write in a way that a newcomer could start to understand - and an O.G. might still learn something!
We started translating our articles into Swahili and Spanish - two high-impact languages to reach new continents with accessible blockchain education.
To sustain and support our work while the staking pool grew, we started to participate in Project Catalyst; we appealed to the Cardano community for project funding from the network treasury. We’ve been awarded funding to sustain and expand our writing efforts, to found a blockchain mentorship lab in Kenya, to fund language translation, and to build tools that increase transparency, communication, and accountability for Project Catalyst. The Project Catalyst research tools at Lido Nation have become a fan favorite, helping everyone from proposers to proposal assessors to voters and really anyone who is interested in Cardano to learn more about the projects that are building the network.
Back to today’s exciting news
The Cardano Foundation uses its stake to support and boost the efforts of staking pools that are doing the work of building the network in a way they want to support and encourage. A Foundation stake is not forever - usually, they leave their stake with a new pool for about three months. During that time, we will be working hard to attract new delegators. New people are more likely to join our pool now - knowing that they will start earning rewards immediately. If we can attract enough new stake in the next three months - our pool will be launched and continue minting blocks and earning rewards, even after the Cardano Foundation moves on to support a new pool.
While we’ve got this opportunity, we will be hard at work building a stellar experience for our community of delegators. One exciting piece of this puzzle is Phuffy Coin, a delegator perk that supports our vision of a future that works for everyone. Here’s how it works:
When Lido Nation earns ADA for minting blocks, 96% minus 340 Ada of all the staking rewards go straight to you, our delegators.
The 360 Ada and other 4%, called the pool margin, goes to us, the pool operators. It pays for server costs, website hosting and development, and all of the ongoing work of researching, writing, building, and maintaining Lido Nation.
But only half of the margin does that, actually - the other half of that 4% goes back into your hands as wrapped Lovelaces. (Lovelaces are just fractions of ADA – as a penny is to a dollar in the United States, that’s what a lovelace is to an ADA, except the proportion is 1 MILLION lovelaces in one ADA). Those wrapped lovelaces are a new network token called Phuffycoin.
Phuffycoin is fun to get and fun to show off in your Cardano wallet, but unlike many network tokens and collectibles, Phuffy has a purpose. With it, you can vote for a charitable cause on our website. After a round of voting, the amount of Phuffy that was voted to a cause will be cashed out to fiat, and donated.
Future versions of this process will allow us to donate the money directly on the blockchain - when more organizations start accepting ADA donations. This will provide end-to-end seamless accountability and transparency to you, our community. Nearer-future enhancements will allow you to not only vote for a cause, but to nominate one, so that you and others can donate Phuffy to causes that you love!
Whether you showed up today because you saw that we got the Foundation delegation, because you like the articles, because you are using the Project Catalyst tool, or because you just can’t wait to get some Phuffy - we are glad you are here.
You can stake to Lido Nation by using our pool ticker LIDO in any Cardano wallet that supports staking. If you need help, drop us a line: [email protected]
…because the future is for everyone!
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