Throughout our convo, George and I discuss the impetus for Walrus, early use cases and scalability, as well as differences in considerations around decentralization between L1 networks and storage networks, and his key learnings from the testnet thus far.

*Correction -- the podcast introduction incorrectly mentions David Campbell as CEO of Zcash, the correct title is COO of the Electric Coin Company, the organization behind Zcash.

It's our season two premier, and we're kicking off with an incredible guest: Will Pankiewicz, Master of Validators at Parity / Polkadot.

Together, we dive into some of Polkadot's most consequential new developments:

* The Nominated Proof-of-Stake protocol;

* The 1000 Validators Program; and

* How, together, these new endeavors can be used to support true decentralized staking.

Will and the team may well be breaking ground on the next generation of scalable, decentralized staking—it's a conversation you won't want to miss.

Links and Further Reading

* Find Will on Linkedin and Github

* Find out more about Parity at their website

* Follow Parity on Twitter

* Find out more about Polkadot at their website

* Follow Polkadot on Twitter

* Read more about Polkadot's Nominated Proof-of-Stake protocol

* Connect with others in Polkadot's Discord

About the Series

Staking Defense is hosted by Chris Remus, decentralization activist and founder of Chainflow. Connect with him on Twitter, @cjremus. The series is produced and scored by Luke Griffin. You can hear more of his work over at Heritage Radio Network.

Staking Defense is brought to you by Chainflow, a proudly smaller, independent, and equitable Web3 infrastructure provider. Stake your tokens with Chainflow to help support this work and keep these conversations going. Learn how at chainflow.io/staking.

I’m feeling excited to bring you this episode of the Staking Defense podcast with Tegan Kline. Tegan handles “all things business” at The Graph.

The Graph’s Mission Control testnet has been going strong for months now. Mainnet launch is on the horizen.

The testnet’s being supported by 100’s of nodes. This feels hopeful from a decentralized perspective.

As I spoke to Tegan, it became clear that The Graph approaches their work from a “crypto-first” value set. This felt refreshing to me, as so many early staking network entrants are coming at this from a “finance-first” mindset.

Here’s what Tegan and I cover in the episode -

1 Introductions

1.1 Personal

1.2 The Graph

2 The Graph Testnet

2.1 How did it come about? What are the goals?

2.2 How were participants found and selected?

2.3 What are the participation requirements and commitments?

2.4 What the current testnet’s Indexer composition look like, e.g. small, medium, large operators?

3 Smaller Operators and Decentralization

3.1 What's the team's view on decentralization and how it relates to participant composition?

3.2 What are the long term prospects for small operators to continue supporting The Graph? (Spoiler alert…it’s not too late to start!)

I hope you enjoy this episode and come away inspired that decentralization isn’t dead 🙂

#KeepStakeDecentralized 💪

Chris

@cjremus

Show Links

Tegan on Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/in/tegan-kline-17306b60…

Tegan on Twitter: https://twitter.com/theklineventure

The Graph on Twitter: https://twitter.com/graphprotocol?s=20…

The Graph on Discord: https://thegraph.com/discord

The Graph on Telegram: https://t.me/GraphProtocol

The Graph’s Telegram Announcements: https://t.me/GraphProtocolOfficial…

The Graph’s Newsletter: https://thegraph.com/#newsletter

The Graph’s Website: https://thegraph.com

The Graph’s Reddit: https://reddit.com/r/thegraph/

The Staking Defense podcast is sponsored by Staking Defense and Chainflow. It’s produced by the talented Luke Griffin of the Hear Bushwick podcast, part of the Heritage Radio Network.

It’s been a minute but we’re back with Episode #3 of The Staking Defense Podcast. I’m feeling excited that David Campbell of the Electric Coin Company joins The Staking Defense Podcast to discuss PoW and PoS, from the perspective smaller validator operator accessibility.

I first met David through my involvement as a Celo validator. He operates the Zanshin Dojo Celo validator.

David was one of the few people to reach out to me directly when my Celo validator went down.

(There were plenty of others who were happy to discuss it in the forums, without reaching out to help. But that’s another story…)

Since then, David and I have connected on a number of different perspectives. Accessibility to network participation is one of them.

Listen to this episode and hear David’s perspective on how welcoming and accessible Proof of Work and Proof of Stake networks are to smaller validators.

#KeepStakeDecentralized 💪

Chris

@cjremus

The Staking Defense podcast is sponsored by Staking Defense and Chainflow. It’s produced by the talented Luke Griffin of the Hear Bushwick podcast, part of the Heritage Radio Network.

Episode 2 of the Staking Defense podcast features the SKALE Labs and Consensys Activate program collaboration. The Activate program provides a number of benefits to smaller validator operators.

Done well, the program can help level the playing field between larger and smaller validator operators. In Episode 2, I discuss these benefits with Jack O'Holleran, CEO of SKALE Labs, Ebru Engwall, Director of Solutions Engineering at SKALE labs, and Collin Myers from Consensys.

We also cover these topics -

1 - Collin describing the Activate program

2 - Jack explaining why SKALE decided to use Activate

3 - Ebru and Jack discussing how SKALE views smaller operators and how they can start validating on the SKALE network (don't worry, it's not too late...!)

I hope you enjoy this episode. The program leaves me feeling hopeful that the importance of smaller validator operators isn't going unnoticed.

#KeepStakeDecentralized 💪

Chris

@cjremus

Episode links -

* Collin, Ebru and Jack on Twitter

* Collin’s Telegram ID - @stakeETH

* SKALE Labs validator program

* SKALE Labs validator chat

* Consensys Activate program

The Staking Defense podcast is sponsored by Staking Defense and Chainflow. It’s produced by the talented Luke Griffin of the Hear Bushwick podcast, part of the Heritage Radio Network.

I’m feeling excited to release the Staking Defense Podcast’s pilot episode. This episode features Ian, founder of Secretnodes.org.

Ian’s a very active member of the Secret Network’s (formerly Engima) community. He’s also a smaller, independent validator operator 💪

In this episode, we discuss -

* How Ian got started validating

* Secretnodes.org’s contribution to the Secret Network

* Challenges he faces as a smaller, independent validator operator

* Whether the Secret Network is welcoming to smaller, independent validator operators

Also, you’ll hear Ian reference raising a modest amount of VC funding. Since the episode was recorded, Ian informed me that he returned this funding.

I hope you enjoy this episode. Please remember that it’s a pilot episode and my first as a podcast host. I’ve already identified some areas that and benefit from improvement.

Along those lines, any and all constructive feedback is welcome!

#KeepStakeDecentralized 💪

Chris

@cjremus

The Staking Defense podcast is sponsored by Staking Defense and Chainflow. It’s produced by the talented Luke Griffin of the Hear Bushwick podcast, part of the Heritage Radio Network.