Stake Pools in 100 Countries

Cardano shines when adoption is global. Ideally, Cardano stake pool nodes should be running in every country.

After 12 months, Cardano stake pools operating in 100 countries which did not have stake pools prior to the challenge.

• Number of unique countries with stake pools operating after 1 year, compared to the number operating before the challenge.
• Increase in community members from countries with new stake pools
• Increase in Project Catalyst submissions from countries with new stake pools
• Total number of new block producing stake pools
• Number of countries where there are no stake pools (so we can then ask the question: "why?" and possibly search for solutions to other problems in the future)

Where is a stake pool?
In a simpler world, it would be easy to say that a stake pool is wherever the operator and the hardware are both physically located. In reality, in our modern decentralized world, there are many more permutations. A single stake pool may have nodes running on servers in multiple countries. A team running a stake pool could be spread across the globe, having never met in person. Someone may start a stake pool while living in one place, and then move to another country and continue operating it.
For the purpose of this challenge, I recommend that we leave the definition of "where is the stake pool" to the individual proposers, so long as they can meet this minimum requirement: there must be hardware running part of your stake pool or a bona fide team member living in the country you are claiming as your location. Of course, you can have more: a whole team living in one country, or all of your nodes could be running on servers in a specific place, or both.

Long Term: Hardware Everywhere
Today, even as more people around the world gain access to high speed internet, there are many countries where it is impractical to run a reliable stake pool due to local conditions: electrical blackouts, inconsistent network connections, government restrictions, etc. The Cardano community has a vested interest in improving the availability of network access in places where these problems exist. This challenge will serve to offer specific monetary rewards for pioneers to push the boundaries of what is possible with stake pool operations, and not be confined to the existing models. And further, this challenge will highlight the limitations that exist in specific places around the globe. After 12 months, it will be very enlightening to see exactly where the geographic gaps remain, and then additional questions can be asked and challenges formulated to improve local conditions in those places to allow Cardano to flourish in the future.

How to Measure

• One option is the Relays page on AdaPools.org which lists stake pool relays by the country they are operating in:

https://adapools.org/relays

• This or some other source of stake pool geographic data will be used to collect a list of countries with and without stake pools at the beginning of the challenge.
• Each individual proposal in this challenge should state which country (or countries) they plan to focus on, and success will be measured by the number of stake pools operating in that country(ies) after 12 months.

Example Solutions

• A team or SPO who has implemented a stake pool on the Testnet but lacks the capital to initiate it on the Mainnet
• A team or SPO who will hold remote education sessions to train those in a country where no stake pools exist
• Fully loaded stake pool servers (on RasPi or traditional hardware) that can be shipped to countries for easy "plug-n-play" setup
• The "Diplomat" approach - where an experienced SPO moves to a country without a stake pool, lives there for a few months to setup a stake pool, provide hands on training and then turns over the reins to a local team.
• The "Multinational" approach - where an experienced SPO travels to multiple countries, sets up stake pools in each, then continues to operate them remotely from their HQ.
• Big picture efforts (infrastructure, protocols, etc.) to bring down barriers to global expansion of the network.

Budget Rationale

With the exception of the actual stake amount, I feel $2,000 is the minimum that someone would need to start a stake pool completely from scratch: including the cost of hardware or cloud server fees, network connection, electricity, labor, and marketing. Based on this, and the stated goal of reaching 100 countries, I multiplied $2,000 x 100 = $200,000. My hope is that some proposed solutions will find a way to spread stake pools to more countries more efficiently than this calculated estimate. It's also entirely possible that in some countries there will be some additional financial hurdles that could necessitate much more for an individual project's budget.

Important note: This is a Fund 7 Challenge Setting proposal - for a future challenge in Fund 7. This means I am not personally applying for funding in this challenge! The proposed budget of $200,000 would go to fund proposals developed by future proposers in Fund 7 who would apply to find solutions to this challenge. I have no proposed solutions nor am I suggesting the best way of addressing this Challenge it will be up to proposers in Fund 7, if this is selected as a future Challenge.