Cardano SPO Column #016: Ginger’s Pool [GINGR]
By: Patryk Karter
Tags: Cryptocurrency, Decentralization, Cardano, Staking, Blockchain

This piece was published July 18th, 2021 on The Cryptonomist

This week’s guest on the Cardano SPO Column is Eva, a Single Pool Operator who is involved in Cardano with several projects, including a Catalyst proposal which was a Fund 4 winner and an NFT project. Her stake pool is called Ginger’s Pool [GINGR].

Last week’s guest was a stake pool which supports the decentralization of the Cardano blockchain as well as several environmental projects.

This initiative is a point of reference for everything Cardano and every week or two we will invite a Stake Pool Operator (SPO) to answer some questions and give us an update directly from within the Cardano community.

Considering that many of our readers are new to the crypto space, we will have a mix of simple and technical questions.

Hi Eva, welcome to this Column. Please introduce yourself, where are you based and what’s your background?

Hi Patryk, thank you for hosting and inviting me! Originally, I am from Zurich, but half a year ago, I moved to the UK and I live in Oxford now because I am going to do a Master’s degree at Oxford University. My background lies in humanities, namely architecture, art history and philology. What excites me are the theoretical concepts rather than the practical implications. After working as a content creator, as well as with publications and universities, I am currently self-employed and do communications & PR for architecture firms. And since the beginning of the year, half of my time has been dedicated to Cardano.

How did you discover Cardano and what inspired you to become a Cardano Evangelist and a Stake Pool Operator?

I got into Cardano through friends. They were really (and still are) very excited. They have been explaining everything to me and literally pulled me into installing my first wallet. Now a year later, there is no day passing by that I’m not doing something Cardano-related. I spent the last decade in an academic environment and seeing a science-based project of this scale growing was simply inspiring. I stayed because I started believing in it. As it might have become clear already, I am an idealist — I’ve realised what blockchain technology and especially Cardano can do, how it can make the world a more accessible, righteous, and eventually a more human place. Since I’m more of a thinker and conceptualist without technical background rather than an actual doer, it led to some problems related to how I could actively participate. There was a moment when I realised that I better just start trying something and maybe fail, rather than thinking about it and doing nothing. The decision to run my GINGR pool, besides my other involvements, was a logical conclusion after committing so strongly to Cardano. GINGR is not what the Cardano Foundation calls a “mission-driven” stake pool because to me it is just another measure to pursue my very own vision of contributing to a project that can do good.

You’re also co-author of a Project Catalyst proposal which recently was among the winners of Fund4. What is Project Catalyst and what has your team proposed?

Cardano is research-based and has a high interest in improving itself constantly. Project Catalyst (PC) is an ecosystem that gives everyone the chance to be part of the governance and come up with ideas on how the various aspects (technology, adoption, etc.) can be developed. There are different funding rounds, each of them with specific goals. Proposals can be submitted by anyone, the community votes on where the funding is directed, which is paid out of Cardano’s treasury system. I am part of a team that consists of 4 SPOs: besides me, there are NANI (lead proposer), HYGGE and FIKA. The proposal is called “The Great Filter” as a homage to the Fermi paradox and addresses the challenges of PC itself. After the first funding rounds, it became clear that there is an increasing number of proposals of varying quality, leading to a time-consuming venture to skim through all of them and decide what to vote for (or against). The Great Filter aims to ease and therefore increase the participation in PC, respecting everyone’s time by introducing an objective filtering system. Different binary filter criteria (such as the existence of a problem statement, goal, timeline, etc.) are applied to the proposals. It means that we are doing the initial work of finding proposals that are presented in a way, so they appear to be understandable, feasible, serious, and reasonable. Proposals that fulfil these criteria will be presented mostly in video format on YouTube and other social platforms.

Let’s talk about NFTs. You’re a member of the Yifu Pedersen team, what are you bringing to the table?

Before I answer this question, I have to make a short digression: with my background, I am particularly interested in NFTs by default. Art minted on, or even generated by, a blockchain is a totally new era in art history and brings an endless number of new possibilities and ways of expression. This made me realise that Cardano has even this one aspect to offer I am so passionate about, where I find so much satisfaction. With that said, it becomes evident that I got involved very quickly. I still remember the words Yifu used when I was asked whether I want to support them: “You already know Cardano very well and you’re an architect, you must have taste”. Since then, I have been on board and have been doing especially their social media marketing, but also helping setting up processes, website, testing etc. It has been hands-on as every project in the beginning, but it’s getting more and more structured. The product itself is very appealing: Yifu Pedersen has designed the first (!) Cardano-themed jewellery pendant that comes along with its own NFT minted on Cardano. In this case, it makes even more sense to have an NFT behind given that fine jewellery pieces rely on certificates that prove their authenticity. Since we are talking about NFTs, I was approached by some amazing people working for unsigned_algo’s, which is another of my favourite CNFT projects. I am very excited, and it seems that I might have my hands in there as well in one way or another. Hopefully more to come soon 🙂

Many thanks. Do you want to add anything? Where can people find you?

My life has significantly changed in every aspect in the last 2 years; I’ve learned to embrace whatever comes and if possible, turn it into something positive. Stumbling upon Cardano was luck. Now I am working hard to make something even better out of it, for myself and for others. I am extremely grateful for this. People come and ask stuff, raise concerns and correct me or bring up new ideas — I wasn’t expecting that I would find it so rewarding being a point of contact! If someone wants to come and just say hello — everyone is welcomed, be it on Twitter, on Telegram or on my Discord: please go and enjoy yourself for a couple of minutes playing with blocks 😉

Disclaimer: The opinions and views of the SPOs are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Cardano Foundation or IOHK.