For the December edition of the Spotlight article, we interviewed Josef from ADApools.
Hey Josef! Happy to connect today and learn more about the ADApools project! Can you tell us more about the founding of the project and the problem you were addressing?
Hi, thanks for the invitation! It started in the early days of ITN when there was no list of pools with their performance and no way to compare. I like to process open data. Such a tool was completely missing on the market. So it was such a logical evolution and fun. Over time, as Jormungandr added more data, ADApools eventually grew into a serious project. So the goal was to create a feature-rich comparison tool, which, looking at it today, has been achieved.
Could you please give us a rundown of the most important things about ADApools?
We've created the biggest and most popular pool comparison site, which is great! But ADApools has long been about more than just looking for a pool or checking how your pool stacks up against others. It's now a huge colossus, and the amount of features and tools go far beyond a list of pools. We have all sorts of on-chain data analysis, various APIs, callbacks, bots, graphs, an early-stage asset browser, a transaction browser with testnet support, and now the recently launched NFT explorer.
So going forth into 2021 and beyond, how will Cardano and ADApools make an impact in the crypto space, or on the world?
In any case, we want to continue supporting the Cardano ecosystem because it is a great project with an awesome future. It is important not to rest on our laurels and keep up with the development of the cryptocurrency world and Cardano itself. The only thing I would like to see is a fundamental change in Daedalus wallet - delegation center - pool sorting - not be the first one's 0% pools with a high stake. This leads to small pools being destroyed, especially when delegators see the potential rewards: 0.
Now, could you tell us about your accomplishments so far, and in the history of the project, please tell us what you are most proud of.
Of course, I'm most proud of the fact that we are by far the most significant pool explorers and help people every day to choose a pool to delegate or check where they are at. Doubly proud of the fact that although we didn't win catalyst funding, we found our own way of funding - currently, we have about 140 people supporting us through, Patreon for example, which is an incredible achievement and a sign of support from the community, it's just great!
Now, give us a quick rundown of the future of ADApools. For example, what new things are you seeking to bring to life, and what will it mean for the overall project?
There are a lot of those things at the moment. We want to extend ADApools.org to something like etherscan.io. We are considering launching POOLS tokens and doing funding for ADApools development. Cardanoassets.com with the advent of smart contracts, I could see something close to Coinmarketcap, focused on Cardano, I also have some more comprehensive API in mind, but we already have blockfrost.io from my great colleague Marek Mahut, so I guess there's no need.
Tell us about your team. Who're the people behind the screens?
ADApools belongs to the Cardanians.io group, with ADApools operating as an independent project. This means that we don't interfere with each other's work and work on projects independently. From Cardanians, Jaromir and I, Josef, are participating in the project. But we have a lot of other people who help us - I must mention Danny, who manages the groups and a lot of other contributors and translators.
Which partnerships have you engaged so far, and which ones are the most impactful?
We have many partnerships, and to be honest, I don't even keep track of them all anymore. I have to mention the great Yoroi wallet, where we provide data on pools, or adalite.io, which also works with our data. There are a lot of sites that more or less take our data and work with it somehow, which is great. Our server that hosts static files/ resources for public use-case gets a lot of traffic, so data/api is used quite intensively.
Thank you for your time! Do you have anything else to add?
Thank you, Kevin, for the interview. I would like to wish you and all readers a peaceful holiday and a happy new year on behalf of the whole team. I believe that next year will be even more interesting than this year; I'm looking forward to it.