►
From YouTube: Staking as a Service | Illuminate:Genesis Summit
Description
In this session, staking experts, Luke Youngblood and Zaki Manian have a conversation about staking as a service and the dynamics of blockchain protocol communities.
🔦 Featuring 🔦
Luke Youngblood – CEO & Founder, Blockscale
Zaki Manian – Principal Co-Founder, Iqlusion
What is Illuminate?
Illuminate is a free virtual event that took place on March 28th, 2021, and which celebrated Mina’s mainnet launch and exciting protocol milestones.
Participants heard from a range of blockchain experts, industry leaders, and community members about Genesis and the road ahead. The one-day event featured panels and sessions on Mina’s use cases, advancements in zk-SNARKs, Staking-as-a-Service, industry insights and so much more. Illuminate is also a big thank-you to Mina’s vibrant community, who have made incredible contributions to the network over the past two years.
📧 Sign-up here to be the first to find out about the next illuminate conference: https://bit.ly/MinaNewsletter
💥 Follow us on Crowdcast: http://bit.ly/MinaCrowdcast
What is Mina?
Mina is the world’s lightest blockchain, powered by participants. Rather than apply brute computing force, Mina uses advanced cryptography and recursive zk-SNARKs to design an entire blockchain that is and always will be about 22kb, the size of a couple of tweets, ushering in a new era of blockchain accessibility. With its unique privacy features and ability to connect to any website, Mina is building a private gateway between the real world and crypto—and the secure, democratic future we all deserve. Mina is stewarded by the Mina Foundation, a non-profit organization.
#Blockchain #ZeroKnowledge #Blockscale #Iqlusion #consensus #Crypto #Decentralization #Scalability #CryptoCommunities #MinaProtocol #Cosmos #Staking #StakingService #Validators
A
So,
let's
see
I've
been
involved
in
proof
of
stake
for
about
three
years
now
I
started
in
early
2018
and
I
helped
the
tesla's
foundation
betanet
launch.
I
built
the
tesla's
foundation,
validator
infrastructure
and
then,
since
then,
I've
been
involved
in
a
lot
of
incentivized
test
nets.
Cosmos
game
of
stakes
was
one
of
the
first
kind
of
set
the
you
know.
A
That
was
the
first
incentivized
test
net.
It
set
the
gold
standard
right
for
what
incentivized
testnets
could
be
and
and
also
you
know,
I've
been,
of
course
in
the
mena
genesis
and
it's
been
really
exciting,
and
I
also
work
at
coinbase
on
staking
as
well
so
excited
to
be
here.
Zaki,
don't
you
go
for
it.
B
I'm
zucky
munyan,
I'm
one
of
the
co-founders
of
occlusion
inclusion
is
a
validator
and
protocol
development
organization.
We
work
we
work
on
cosmos.
We
work
on
mena
we're
on
a
bunch
of
other
networks.
Oh
I'd,
say
you
know
a
lot
of
a
lot
of
you
know
the.
When
I
started
you
know
when
I
when
I,
when
we
built
gate
when
we
did
game
of
stakes,
I
don't
think
I
could
have
ever
imagined
the
the
number
of
incentivized
test
nets
that
would
get
kicked
off,
but
it
was.
B
It
was
an
extremely
versatile
and
successful
idea
that
has
worked
out
that
you
know
how
it
was
like
really
got
incentives
right
to
build
a
a
robust,
validator
community
and,
like
you
know,
it's
been
great
to
see
how
much
it's
inspired.
You
know
all
of
the
other
proof-of-stake
networks
that
we're
watching.
I
I'm
I've.
You
know
like
that
that
work
will
continue
basically
forever.
I
think.
A
Yeah,
I
mean
actually
that's
a
let's
talk
about
that
a
little
bit
I
mean,
I
think,
one
of
the
things
that
was
really
inspiring
about
game
of
stakes
and
has
sort
of
resonated,
I
think,
with
all
the
l
ones
that
have
also
launched
incentivized
test
nets,
is
that
it
did
two
things
really
well.
First
of
all,
it
helped
with
token
distribution
right,
because
a
lot
of
these
new
networks
are
funded
by
vcs
or
they
have
a
very
small
initial
amount
of
token
holders
right.
A
So
it
helps
decentralize
the
network
and
get
your
token
distribution
right
from
day
one,
and
it
also
incentivizes
delegations
from
the
foundation
to
the
the
operators,
the
node
operators
that
are
the
most
professional
that
had
the
best
uptime
they
had
the
you
know
they
were
providing
community
services
like
block
explorers
and
other
things
like
that,
and
I
thought
that
was
really
effective.
So
do
you
want
to
kind
of
talk
a
little
bit
about
that.
B
So
absolutely
you
know
these
are
the
goals
of
get
of
game
of
stakes.
This
is
the
goals
that,
like
and
like
when
gay
mistakes
demonstrated
that
this
would
work.
You
know
this
is
why
so
many
projects
have
have
folded,
because
you
know
there
are.
There
are
some.
You
know
things
that
don't
really
work
super
well
at
the
end,
you
know
these
early
days
of
proof-of-stake
we're
still
in
the
early
days
of
stake.
B
You
know
there
was
a
sort
of
early
generation
of
proof
of
stake
where
these
proof
of
stake
networks
were
notionally
proof
of
stake,
but
the
tokens
were
very
closely
held
and
it
was
like
basically
whales
who
ran
you
know
and
like
the
the
the
projects
that
ran
their
networks
and
that
was
sort
of
characteristic
of
the
first
generation
of
proof
of
stake
networks
and
with
cosmos
I
felt
like
just
like.
I
know
my
my
mission
was
to
prove
that,
like
you
could
do
something
else
that
you
could.
B
Actually
you
know
there,
there
are
tendencies
towards
you
know.
All
of
the
stake
accumulates
in
exchanges.
All
of
the
stake
accumulates
with
whales,
but
there
are
countervailing
tendencies
that
you
can
build
and
we
can
talk
a
little
bit
about
what
those
kind
of
veiling
tendencies
are.
But
you
know
it's,
it's
been,
it's
been
like
the
the
tensions
and
the
dynamics
and
the
and
the
sort
of
battle
that
started
with
gay
mistakes.
I
think
has
just
like
characterized
the
last
two
years
of
proof
of
stake.
A
B
What
I,
what
I,
what
I'll
say
about
the
mena
test
net
is
the
mena
test
net
has
in
the
most
ways
of
all
the
test
nets
that
I've
participated
in
in
the
last
two
years.
Reminds
me
the
most
of
cosmos,
game
of
sticks
and
the
things
about
it.
That
remind
me
a
lot
about
cosmos
game
mistakes
was
one
it
was
not
dominated
by
like
when
cosmos
game
mistakes
started.
B
The
professional
validator
community
didn't
exist,
so
it
had
this
very
like
organic,
grassroots
feeling
of
people
meeting
each
other
in
chat
rooms
like
putting
together
validators
and
one
of
the
things
that
I
think
the
mina
project
really
wanted,
and
I
was
like
I
tried
to
help
as
much
as
possible
than
getting
is
they
wanted
to
start
outside
of
the
professional
validator
community?
They
really
wanted
to
go,
find
a
new
community,
and
I
think
that
was
really
good.
B
B
You
know,
building
their
own
stack.
That
was
very
similar
to
tendermint
or
using
tendermint
itself
like
they
could
use
a
lot
of
the
lessons
that
we
learned
in
our
test.
Net
and
meno
was
is
so
different.
You
know
with
the
succinct
blockchain,
with
a
different
p,
with
like
a
novel
consensus
protocol
with
all
these
different
pieces
that,
like
they
had
to
forge
new
ground,
and
that
reminded
me
a
lot
of
the
cosmos
process.
A
A
A
Perhaps
he
he
would
just
evolve
into
or
they
would
just
evolve
into
like
learning
how
to
do
it
in
a
more
professional
way,
building
in
data
centers
and
in
cloud
as
opposed
to
at
home,
but
that
the
concepts
and
the
tools
and
the
infrastructure
we
have
to
build
to
get.
There
is
probably
this
similar
for
everyone.
Do
you
have
any
thoughts
on
that.
B
It's
like
okay,
like
so
you
have
professional
validators
like
like
you
know,
you
have
the
professional
battery
errors,
you
have
the
exchange,
validators
there's
always
gonna
be,
and
I
think
those
things
have
a
lot
of
advantages.
Like
you
know,
it's
easy.
You
know.
If
you're,
a
professional
you
have
a
marketing
person,
you
can
get,
you
can
build
media
content.
You
can
build
community
content.
You
can
build
public
goods.
You
can
do
lots
of
stuff
to
market
yourself
as
a
validator
you
can.
B
B
You
know
you
know,
occlusion
isn't
as
built
out
as
some
of
these
networks.
When
we
launched
two
years
ago,
we
were
probably
one
of
the
most
built
out
network.
We
have
this
really
great
blog
post,
that
tony
wrote
one
of
my
co-founders
about,
like
our
hardware
setup
and
that
hardware
setup
has
become,
has
evolved
over
time
to
add
new
functionality.
A
Yeah,
definitely,
I
think
it's
yeah.
It's
been
fascinating
to
kind
of
see
that
the
diversity
of
setups
across
the
media
genesis
program,
I'm
sure
we
have
everyone
from
very
professional
multi-data
center
setups
people
running
multiple
block
producers
in
the
cloud
and
on
physical
bare
metal,
and
then
everything
to
you
know
the
hobbyists
at
home,
just
running
a
single
validator
on
the
linux
box
yeah,
we
see
a
wide
range
and
a
wide
variety.
A
Now
the
challenge
there
for
the
networks,
though,
I
think,
is,
if
you
know
half
of
your
validator
community,
is
in
a
single
data
center
in
germany,
that's
probably
not
the
most
decentralized
network,
and
you
might
have
you
know
we
might
have
issues
with
the
chain
halting
if
they
ever
have
a
bad
weather
day
on
the
internet.
So.
A
B
There
was
going
to
be
a
down
time
in
one
of
the
hustler
data
centers
and,
like
I
think
they
had
a
problem
with
like
at
you
know.
When
the
downtime
was
expected,
there
was
like
more
than
a
third
of
the
network
in
that
one
data
center
yeah,
and
so
you
know
this
is
the
other
thing
is
like
so
like
you
know
the
heavier
and
more
specialized
your
hardware
requirements
are
as
a
protocol,
especially
in
the
early
days.
A
A
A
lot
of
these
incentivized
test
nets
that
I
participated
in
personally.
The
tokens
were
not
worth
that
much
when
the
network
launched,
but
after
you
know,
after
growing
for
a
couple
years,
they're
doing
pretty
well
now.
What
do
you
think
about
that
at
occlusion?
Do
you
hold
or
sell
most
of
your
tokens
that
you
earn.
B
I
mean
we
hold
quite
a
bit
of
tokens.
Like
our
token
balance
sheet
has
grown
yeah.
It's
like
our
token
balance
sheet
is
several
million
dollars
right
now,
nice
of
tokens
right.
You
know
in
this
bull
market
and
like
and
it's
not
like,
we
did
every
test
net.
You
know
we
have
left.
We
have
left
tens
of
millions
of
dollars
on
the
table
and
but
we
are
also
primarily
not
just
a
validator,
we're
primarily
a
protocol
dev
shop
and
like
what
we
do
is
we
we
work
on
new
protocols.
B
A
Yeah,
I
mean
I've
definitely
seen
on
the
tesla's
network.
We've
seen
a
few
validators
drop
out
that
were
relatively
large
and
they
just
decided
like
criptium,
for
example,
left
recently,
and
they
just
decided
hey
we're
no
longer
going
to
validate
on
these
networks,
and
so
please
delegate
to
someone
else,
and
it's
been
it's
a
little
bit
chaotic
because
with
delegations,
a
lot
of
the
delegator
community
doesn't
really
pay
attention
to
what
their
validator
is
doing.
A
B
I
mean
I
think
this
is
you
know.
The
cryptium
scenario
is
like
a
really
great
example,
actually
of
like
how
the
validator
business
is
evolving
over
time
yeah.
So
you
know,
kryptium
was
a
structurally
wrong
tezos
entity.
You
know
they
were
involved
in
tozos
dev
for
metastate,
which
was
their
sort
of
protocol
dev
arm
and
they
were
and
they
were
structure,
and
they
were
also
structurally
long
and
so
they
and
then
they
were
also.
B
You
know,
running
a
very
successful,
independent,
texas
validator,
and
then
they
made
a
business
decision.
They
made
a
business
decision
to
like
focus
on
a
new
protocol
that
they're
building.
There
was
a
talk
about
it
at
the
at
the
zk
validator
event.
On
friday
they
have
a
their
it's
called
anawa,
it's
pretty
cool,
it's
like
private,
private,
decentralized
bartering.
B
I
see
more
and
more
validators
becoming
building
protocol,
dev
expertise
internally,
and
it's
going
to
it's
always
going
to
be
an
interesting
tension
between,
like
you
know
what
networks
they
participate
in
actively
and
what
networks
that
they
that
they
sort
of
drop
out,
that
you
know
they
drop
out
of.
But
it's
basically
like
for
occlusion,
at
least
any
network
in
which
we're
not
like
sort
of
like
socially
tied
into
we're,
probably
not
going
to
be
valid.
A
A
B
A
You're
you're,
a
validator
on
that
will
earn
you
a
ton
of
goodwill.
You'll,
probably
get
delegations
just
from
holders
that
use
your
block
explorer
and
appreciate,
like
the
public
good
you
offer
to
the
community,
there's
probably
other
examples
of
that
as
well:
yeah
yeah
and
then
I
think
how
to
weed
out
mercenaries
like
yeah.
If
you,
you
know,
if
your
validator
is
not
providing
any
public
goods
or
is
just
charging
a
high
fee
and
not
giving
much
to
the
network
in
return,
maybe
find
a
validator
that
does
provide
public
goods.
A
So,
for
example,
I
mean
we're
just
in
the
in
infancy
of
seeing
this
but
some
friends
of
mine
and
I
I'm
an
advisor
to
them,
built
a
sable
coin
on
tezos
and
if
you
you
can
basically
delegate
to
them
and
you
can
mint
a
stablecoin
from
your
delegating
smart
contract,
so
there's
ways
that
validators
can
start
to
build
like
d5
protocols
on
top
of
the
protocol
and
sort
of
reward
their
delegators,
and
I
think
that's
going
to
be
a
really
exciting
trend.
So
it's
like.
A
Why
would
I
delegate
to
you
if
I
just
get
like
a
staking
reward
now?
I
can
not
only
get
a
staking
reward,
but
maybe
I
get
like
a
token
that
I
can
use
to
participate
in
some
other
activity
on
on
chain.
So
that's,
I
think,
a
way
validators
can
differentiate
themselves,
build,
build
some
defy
applications,
build,
build,
a
decks
or
something
and
and
then
make
it
so
that
the
decks
as
liquidity
pools
can
be
delegated
to
you
and
you
can
earn
a
reward
and
be
a
liquidity
provider.
B
Yeah,
absolutely
yes,
there
are
many
layers
of
this
and
like
this
is
definitely
like,
like
more
like
your
validator.
Differentiation
is
really
is
like
validators
can
do
like
can
do,
will
probably
differentiate
themselves
more
with
software
development
than
what
and
like
community
presence
than
they
will
from
like.
A
B
I
don't
think
that
there's
an
optimal
number
of
validators,
I
think
I'm
still
a
blue
like
I'm
still
quite
like
I
don't
like
what
e
two
does
for
their
validator
system.
I
don't
like
having
systems
that
don't
have
delegation.
I
basically
think
that
you
know
we
are
like
you
know
in
in
another
year
or
two.
If
you
don't
have
staking
derivatives
and
delegation
built
into
your
protocol,
you're,
not
a
modern
proof
of
stake
protocol.
A
B
Can
set
up
be
a
validator
on
a
money
moving
network
tomorrow
in
the
cosmos
ecosystem.
32
eth
is,
you
know
almost
a
hundred
thousand
dollars
now,
which
is
similar
to
the
buy-in
right
now.
I
I
think
well,
no,
that
I'm
buying
is
probably
now
more
than
that,
but
you
know
I
I
do
think
we
need
to
keep
like
having
that
initial
entry
point
into
the
network.
Be
a
relatively
low
level
is
not
a
bad
thing.
A
Yeah
but
yeah,
that's
that's
super
interesting
yeah.
I
think
more
and
more,
you
know
having
derivatives
and
things
like
that
are
gonna
be
more
and
more
popular.
So,
for
example,
I
delegate
my
my
staked
coins
to
you
and
now
I
can
use
that.
I
can
use
that
liquidity
to
mint
a
synthetic
asset
like
these.
These
type
of
new
synthetic
derivatives
that
are
built
on
top
of
sticking
are
going
to
be
super
powerful
because
there's,
basically
all
of
this
liquidity
locked
in
staking
on
a
lot
of
these
all
ones.
A
B
B
A
I
agree
with
that.
It's
a
great
time
to
be
a
validator
people.
Always
you
know
people
always
think.
Oh
maybe
I
missed
the
boat
it's
too
late
to
get
involved.
I
don't
think
it's
too
late.
You
know
it's
still
the
early
days,
mina
just
made
that
just
launched
and
yeah
it's
it's
never
too
late
to
get
involved.
Everyone
thinks,
oh,
I
missed
the
boat
cryptos
are.
The
crypto
has
already
sailed
right,
but
you
have
it
hasn't.
Let's,
let's
validate
and
earn
some
money,
and
you
know
help
these
networks.