Cosmos Validators Brief #13: Chainflow
Chainflow
After a couple week hiatus lasting through Cosmos’ mainnet launch I’m coming back with these Briefs and focusing on Validators who are, in my opinion, very ‘under-delegated’ right now.
This one focuses on Chris Remus’ Chainflow.
Chris has an impressive IT/Telecom infrastructure background and a very interesting story to tell. He currently offers staking on Livepeer and Iris and is an original member, since October 2017, of the Cosmos Validator Working Group.
Chainflow’s Cosmos Validator in terms of staked Atoms is currently ranked 46th-largest, with over 227k staked Atoms. At about 3 weeks into mainnet now they’ve had superb Uptime (99.96%) and minimal missed blocks (138), which makes the performance better than about a dozen or so much larger Validators with more stake.
Anyhow, Chainflow’s got a cool story and vast diversity of knowledge across IT and high-profile Crypto projects…
Tell me a bit more about yourself.
I’m Chris. I caught the blockchain brain virus in early 2016. I’ve become deeply involved in the crypto and blockchain ecosystem since then.
Twitter’s a good place to see what’s on my mind at the moment.
You can learn more about my pre-crypto experience and history here.
In short, my background is heavy on telecom and IT infrastructure. My first job was as a self-taught UNIX system administrator. Those systems ran Sprint’s first IP-based Cisco Router network.
In my pre-crypto life, I worked on large, mission-critical data center and networking projects. My clients were some of the largest financial, government and telecom institutions in the world. (And yes, I’m grateful NOT to be doing THAT anymore!)
I worked on data center projects for banks, credit card processors, defense and homeland security agencies as well as global telecom providers. As you can imagine, they all operated under strict and unforgiving up-time and security metrics.
Outside of Cosmos/Tendermint, how have you been involved in blockchain so far? What projects have you participated in? What projects do you find particularly intriguing?
I’ve been the Ethereum Name Service (ENS) project manager for 2+ years. I also lead Aragon’s product team for 7 months. That work culminated in the project’s Mainnet launch in October 2018. I’ve worked with other projects along the way too, including FOAM and the Unlock Protocol.
I’ve been running an active Livepeer Transcoder since September 2018 and betanet Iris transcoder since genesis. There are other staking networks I’m experimenting with and hope to come online with soon.
How did you get into the blockchain space initially and what keeps you interested?
A sticker on a mailbox where I live in Brooklyn, sparked my interest. You can find that full story here.
The promise of decentralizing power keeps me interested. My sense is the massive inequalities perpetuated by our society cause many of humanity’s biggest problems. I see blockchain technology as a way to reduce these imbalances.
A better balance can result in a greater harmony for our world. Yes, it will take some time to get there. If we don’t get all the way there in my lifetime, I’m hopeful we will in my young son’s generation.
Where do you see the blockchain space evolving over the next 3–5 years?
That feels like a long time away in the crypto lifespan ;)
My hope is the space evolves toward one that pays more attention to the end user. By end user I mean non-developers who want to and will use the tools that can be built on blockchains.
My sense is that the true power of decentralization will only be realized once its easy enough for the everyday person to use. This may happen in two phases. The first could be adoption by people who are comfortable with banking online. The second could be moving that to the people who are comfortable interacting with today’s social networks.
I don’t know if these applications will be the popular ones in 3–5 years. I use them more to illustrate examples of technical competence.
With regards to being a Cosmos Validator, what do you think will be the biggest challenges you’ll face?
Smaller validators like myself face many challenges. One is convincing delegators that some smaller operators, like me, are as dedicated to and capable of operating a validator as the bigger companies doing this. In some cases we may be more dedicated and capable.
Once we overcome that hurdle a second challenge emerges. That’s convincing delegators there’s value in keeping the network decentralized. This can only happen when stake isn’t concentrated among a small number of large validators. Unfortunately, today’s network economics encourage this outcome. I wrote more about this problem here.
A third challenge, limited resources, compounds the first two. I concentrate my limited resources on running the validator as securely and well as I’m able to. This means there’s not a lot left to market my validator.
To me, marketing takes two forms. The first is helping educate the delegator community. The second is making myself know to the community.
Right now, the time I do have availble to market is concentrated on the former. I believe education adds value to the network. My hope is that I become know and attract delegations through this effort. My fear is these efforts get overwhelmed by the marketing horsepower of the larger operators. They have dedicated budgets and people to do this kind of thing!
Along those lines, I’d like to extend my gratitude to you, for featuring me in this series!
Chainflow’s website: https://chainflow.io
Chris Remus’ Twitter: https://twitter.com/cjremus
