Cosmos Validators Brief #12: Bliss Dynamics

Bliss Dynamics

This Validator Brief, among all the Briefs so far, could very well be one of the most important. Because this Validator won’t be Validating if he doesn’t find a partner.

TLDR:

Although the Bliss Dynamics setup has been good enough to deliver this performance in Game of Stakes, I would not risk the Atoms of others until I could be absolutely sure everything was ready to ensure Bliss Dynamics was a worthy service provider.
For this reason, Bliss Dynamics will not be validating on the Cosmos Hub until a suitable partner has been found to help deliver a sufficient standard of service for the delegators.

The rest of you, who are curious to learn about this skilled Validator, read on:

Tell me a bit about yourselves — as much/ little as you guys would like to share.

Bliss Dynamics, based in Melbourne, Australia, consists solely of an Aerospace Engineer going by the name of Kamuel Bob (me, g’day!) who became involved in Cosmos in around April 2018. Led to Cosmos by the search for solutions to everything that was wrong with blockchain developments at the time, the technology became captivating and learning more was addictive. As testnet after testnet rolled on, the vision of being a validator on the Cosmos Hub slowly came into view.
As a perfectionist, I set my standards high in anything I do, and participating in the validation of a Bonded Proof of Stake network was no exception. The hard work culminated in a performance at Game of Stakes of never being jailed, which would definitely not have been possible without the amazing support from the unique Cosmos validator community. I did my best to give back as well, supporting technical questions during the Asian time zone when Europe and the US were asleep.

Outside of Cosmos/Tendermint, how have you been involved with blockchain so far? What projects have you participated in? What projects do you find particularly intriguing?

The Cosmos/Tendermint Project is the only blockchain that I have been involved in at the protocol level. It is the first one to captivate me with its approach to solving the barriers to mass blockchain adoption, and although some other projects follow a similar path, the strength of the Cosmos community and the resulting progress has set them apart in my eyes.

How did you get into blockchain space initially and what keeps you interested?

As an engineer who is tech-curious about modern scientific advancements, bitcoin was always a fascinating creature. Casual research on the technology was enough until the hype of 2017 took hold and cryptocurrency became an investment opportunity. Eventually, during the early months of 2018, the search for the next best thing was purely financially motivated, however once in the thick of Bonded Proof of Stake and the Cosmos SDK, the desire to understand and contribute to the technology, and be part of the community took over.

Where do you see the blockchain space evolving in the next 1–3 years?

The journey from a speculative investment hype machine to real world use and mass adoption will take a lot of investment in the technology and infrastructure in and around blockchains. The next 1–3 years will go a long way to bringing about this mass adoption, thanks in no small way to the efforts of the Cosmos and Tendermint teams. If done correctly, most people won’t even know they are interacting with blockchains. In fact, evidence of this is already starting to appear.

With regards to Cosmos, what do you think will be the biggest challenges faced by the project overall?

Whether it be at home, or within a top tier Formula 1 Team (having worked within one, I can confirm), communication is the source of most of our problems. Misunderstandings, preconceptions and making assumptions in the absence of hard evidence are a part of many day to day issues we encounter. The Cosmos Project will face issues like this on so many levels, however managing effective communication with the wider community during the inevitable challenges (and successes) of the development of this ecosystem is likely to be the biggest challenge this project will face.

With regards to being a validator in Cosmos, what do you think will be the biggest challenges you will face?

Having no background in Golang, Linux CLI or even much understanding of advanced networking terminology before learning about Cosmos, the learning curve towards proficiency was steep. Nevertheless, by the time Game of Stakes came around, I was ready. And it was enough, a simple but robust setup of Google Cloud Instances in a self-designed topology was enough to keep Bliss Dynamics from being jailed for the entire competition.
As a hobby, full time work and evening/weekend activities sometimes took priority over Cosmos. This lead to both stake accumulation and boundary validator pre-commit inclusion (the difference between 99% and 100% uptime) being on the lower end from the Bliss Dynamics Game of Stakes entry (when compared with other non-jailed validators). However, the main criteria from Zaki was not getting jailed so this was an acceptable trade off.
Although the Bliss Dynamics setup has been good enough to deliver this performance in Game of Stakes, I would not risk the Atoms of others until I could be absolutely sure everything was ready to ensure Bliss Dynamics was a worthy service provider.
For this reason, Bliss Dynamics will not be validating on the Cosmos Hub until a suitable partner has been found to help deliver a sufficient standard of service for the delegators.
Watch this space!

Quick follow-up though: what makes a “suitable partner” for you to validate again?

A suitable partner will have an IT background and be passionate about blockchain advancement and most importantly have a strong attention to detail.

And preferably they would be locally based (Australia)

You can find Bliss Dynamics on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/BlissDynamics

He is also in the Cosmos Riot chat as the moniker: ‘muelBob Bliss Dynamics’