Hello, friends! I’d like to officially apply for consideration for the open Validator DAO Council position.
About me:
I’m a huge fan of the Harmony blockchain, community, and ecosystem. I enjoy helping people learn about different ways they can get involved and help the community grow. I’ve been developing software professionally for 6 years and have a passion for building things. I’m a proud supporter of the LGBTQ+ community, autism awareness, mental health awareness, and sustainability.
Below, I’ll discuss the Harmony Validator DAO Mandates, what they mean to me, and how I can contribute to the Council’s goals.
Decentralization: bootstrap thousands of elected validators, grow diverse validator profiles
This mandate is something I already spend a significant amount of time working on. I am very active in several validator support telegram/discord groups, and have helped a lot of new validators work through technical issues with setting their nodes up. I love helping people and teaching them about things I’m passionate about. I try to help spotlight unelected validators on various social media platforms so they can gain enough delegations to get elected. I’ve really enjoyed helping our Validator community grow, and would love to continue doing that as part of the VDAO Council.
I also work with two newer groups, OR1ON and Harmoforce, whose missions are centered around getting newer validators elected. In OR1ON we have spotlights, giveaways, and other events to help encourage engagement between validators and delegators. In Harmoforce we vote for an unelected validator to delegate to as a group, and move on to the next one once the group agrees the current one is stable. We’ve seen great results so far in both groups, and I’m proud to be a part of that.
Security: support high staking rate, promote security practices and tooling
This is always a fun topic for me. As a software developer, security is something I always have at the front of my mind. I really appreciate the fact that the VDAO recognizes the importance of both ensuring high staking rates and securing validator nodes.
For ensuring high staking rates, I like to evangelize the high rewards and low risk of Harmony’s staking. I’ve educated Harmony holders about the importance of moving their tokens off of exchanges and into their own wallets so they can stake with independent validators. Furthering that, I try to teach the importance of spreading your stake to multiple validators of different sizes.
Securing our validator nodes is extremely important for our success and the success of the network. It’s crucial to make sure bad actors do not gain access to our validator nodes as they could attempt to manipulate the network or steal funds. As a senior software developer, I have many years of experience securing software applications and servers. I’ve been using that experience to help new validators set their nodes up in a safe, secure manner while educating them about the risks of not doing so.
Participation: facilitate protocol upgrade proposals, recruit votes for improvements
One of the motivating factors of me setting up my validator was getting involved in improving the protocol by offering ideas and voting on proposals. I really enjoy the process Harmony uses for sharing and refining ideas for improvements. As part of the VDAO Council I would love to get more involved in this process.
11/27 AMA Questions
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What can you contribute to the Validator DAO?
As a senior software developer, I have a lot of experience managing servers, monitoring software, and following best practices for security. My current role as a team lead has given me experience with project management and mentoring coworkers. One of my favorite things about working with other validators is helping teaching them the lessons I’ve learned about how to set nodes up, how to protect against bad actors, and how to grow by connecting with delegators. As part of my work with new validators in the Validator Initiative telegram, OR1ON discord server, and Harmoforce, I’ve been able to help many new validators set their nodes up, get elected, and maintain a high signing rate. All of that work aligns with the 3 mandates of the VDAO, and I genuinely enjoy doing it. Regardless of whether I get elected for this council position, I’ll continue with this work as I really enjoy working with our validator community. -
What does “DAO” means to you and why is participating in governance of Validator DAO important to you?
To me, a DAO is a group of people working together toward a common goal. For the Validator DAO the goals are tied to the 3 mandates discussed above. In the short term, the goal is to achieve 200 elected validators by the end of the year. Participating in governance is important to me because I have a huge passion for what the VDAO council does and the expertise to be a valuable contributor to their work. -
The Validator DAO is in the moment working on a program to boot strap validators. What do you believe would be the best certification of a prospective recipient of the VDAO boot strap funds?
I feel like the most important factor for choosing a validator to support should be their level of community engagement. It’s hard to measure that objectively, but there are some approaches we could attempt to take for that. The easier initial approach would be to put it to a vote. I believe that the VDAO should collect submissions from prospective candidates and either vote on it among themselves or set up a governance vote so all validators can participate. My vote would be chosen based on who are the most active community members, with further consideration given to how long they’ve been around. I also think that we should consider primarily allocating funds to validators under the lower bound (0.65 * median stake). It’s less valuable for us to have an existing, stable validator add another key than it is to get a new validator elected. That approach would help us reach our goal of 200 elected validators more quickly than we otherwise would.
