A Spotlight on Stake Pools: Cardano France [FRADA]

Stake pool operators (SPOs) are essential to the performance and decentralization of the Cardano network. Through infrastructure, tooling, and community support, they strengthen the ecosystem and help onboard new participants. The Cardano Foundation’s “A Spotlight on Stake Pools” series showcases SPOs worldwide, offering a deeper look into their operations and impact.

In our previous edition, we featured Jonny, operator of the CAN1 stake pool, who offered insights into running a bare-metal pool in Ottawa, Canada, and developing ADAView—a web tool designed to introduce newcomers to Cardano through a familiar interface.

This article showcases insights from Victor, operator of Cardano France [FRADA]. In addition to building a low-emission pool infrastructure, Victor has contributed technical tools to the wider SPO community, including security scripts, KES rotation support, and content for the Cardano Developer Portal.

Why did you become a stake pool operator?

I’ve been interested in blockchain technology for more than six years. At first, it was just curiosity about Bitcoin and Ethereum, but then I started to explore further and found the Cardano project.

As an IT engineer, I found myself fascinated with the scientific method used by Charles Hoskinson, and the teams behind Cardano, to create a pure decentralized system. The steps and “era” described in the Roadmap were quite interesting, so I decided to invest in the project and bought my first ADA.

I kept following the development of Cardano very closely. When Shelley was finally released, I found the stake pool implementation exciting, but at that moment in my life, I did not have the time to set up my own pool, although I had all the necessary skills and knowledge. Finally, in September 2022, I launched my FRADA pool!

What is the mission of your stake pool?

First of all, I want France, my country, to be more involved in blockchain technology, which I believe is the future. We have great actors like Ledger, who do an incredible job to increase adoption and to develop new ways to use crypto. That is why I decided to create a 100% “Made in France” Cardano stake pool, hosted in France and fueled by French energy, which is one of the lowest CO2 footprint producers in the world. On top of that, most stake pools are hosted in the United States; thus, hosting in France allows me to contribute to decentralization, which is key to the Cardano philosophy.

Can you give us a brief history of your stake pool?

When I launched the pool, it was running on two virtual private servers with just one relay and a small monitoring dashboard. Week after week, I learned, improved, and optimized many things, such as security, automatic admin tasks, and failover. The pool finally made its first block on 24 January 2023.

It was a huge milestone for me because it was concrete proof that FRADA was useful and meant something. Over the next three months, despite its very low stake, FRADA validated four blocks.

When I received my first Cardano Foundation delegation, it changed everything. The pool was able to consistently validate blocks and became more attractive to delegators. It has now validated more than 1,000 blocks and gained more than 180 delegators.

How did the Cardano Foundation delegation impact your stake pool operation?

When I received my first Cardano Foundation delegation (in April 2023), I was mindblown and decided to significantly upgrade everything I could. I went for a full barebone server setup, with three relays, in three different data centers for maximum performance and security. As the pool stake grew, I also had to improve its resilience and backup plan, to make sure it would keep running in case of a major incident.

Did the Cardano Foundation delegation enable you to build or improve tools/projects/open-source repositories?

Of course! I kept improving the tools I built for the community, and decided to add them to one of the major guides that describe how to set up a Cardano stake pool (CoinCashew’s guide).

How would you summarize your contributions to the Cardano ecosystem?

As a security/network IT engineer, I do have skills in SecOps, scripting, and building sys tools, so I decided to use these skills to help Cardano pool operators. I first created a security audit script that scans a block producer or relay and checks several key settings, rights, and security best practices. It’s very simple to use.

I also created a KES key rotate companion script, as I found out that it was often a pain point for operators. It allows SPOs to rotate their keys more easily every 3 months. Regarding the Cardano Developer Portal, I wrote several guides for the big revamp that went online.

Are you currently building or working on something that you would like to share?

I keep improving the scripts I wrote and exploring new ideas that could be helpful for Cardano SPOs.

Is there anything else you would like to add?

Thanks to the Cardano Foundation for its support and trust!

To learn more about FRADA, visit the stake pool’s website.

The Cardano Foundation encourages all operators to submit the SPO notification form. Completing this form ensures that SPOs receive updates on the newest operator tools, upcoming delegation rounds, on-chain governance developments, and other pertinent information.

And to learn more about Cardano, head over to the Cardano Academy.