The Emergence of Solo Stakers from Asia

Transcript

[Music] Thank you. Hello. All right. Has it begun? Okay. Awesome. Well, thank you everyone for joining us at this uh very cozy stage today. Um, my name is Sam, also known as Techosaurus, and this is Dyiki. We are both Ethereum solo and homestakers in our respective cities. So, I'm based in Singapore. Dy is based in Japan. So, today we are going to talk to you about the emergence of solo stakers and homestakers in Asia.

So, this is going to be a casual conversation that you guys will be part of as well. Uh, Dyke and I will be sharing stories uh from our respective communities. you know, how we got started on our own journeys as Ethereum solo stakers, as homestakers, um what our communities look like, uh what do they like about this space, what are the unique challenges they face, you know, and what uh how do we run our communities and what are the plans we have in store for our communities uh moving forward. So, like of of course I naturally know your journey, but for the benefit of everyone else here, maybe let's kick it off with a simple uh question. How did you get started as an Ethereum solo staker and where you at today? Yeah, good point. So once again,

I'm Diki leading the Japanese source ster community and my okay, let me start with this topic. So like last year this day I wasn't start my s um my ber and last time I get to know the notion of level staking which is the notion that you don't have to bring 32 but you can get the protocol delegation from lido locko. So the thing is like you're gonna um prepare like maybe like a two e as a coral or I would say bond and you're gonna um put into the protocol and the protocol will get you the 32 unit. So this is like the notion of the leverage staking and then last year like

I started I get to know about this notion and do some uh test net practice during last year summer and then later hop this year I start to utize in Lido CSM uh which is the latest module provided by Lido Finance and I start learning over like 10 yeah over 10 like mainet by in the last last year and then um I also started to helping um others to do the same journey with me. So like it's super new for me to be part of like this kind of like like speaking opportunity is also new to me but like I also um I also like um it's very um interesting because like once you get started with another operation like

bunch of the opportunities open up I'm also which is I'm going to cover later on but that's how my journey starts. So like last year like it was like just one year late after like my graduation from my college. So of course I don't have like enough um fund but like it's eventually um end up to um running like twodigit notes. So yeah that's super super lovely thing. Yeah. And then I think I spoke too much so I get you my microphone back this time and yeah it's house of yours. Sure. Sure. So I first started exploring E the Ethereum ecosystem in 2017 and I've always wanted to run my own validator um eventually uh but I did not have a technical

background and um uh resources and the tooling was very scarce back then. So it took me until uh early 2022 to finally be confident enough to launch my own full 32e uh Ethereum validator. And um and what this meant was you know we like you and I we are running uh Ethereum validators from our own homes using consumer hardware running on residential internet connection residential power lines. Um and soon after that um people started reaching out to me to help them get across this very scary chasm as well. So um a a community started to form when I uh started putting together uh tailored guides for nontechnical

people like myself and um I started you know running workshops in Singapore and Malaysia. So organically this uh this uh community started to form and um over time I started getting more involved with um projects that were building for Ethereum homestakers like the Lido community livegus initiative like the uh OOT staking mastery uh program like the SSV verified operators u uh program as well. Yeah. So in in a nutshell that was how my journey went. Today what I'm doing is I other than my full node my full validator uh I also take part in uh and leverage on various staking projects like uh the lido community staking module um uh I also run stake wise uh v3

vaults for both ETH and and GNO. I facilitate SSV and OO clusters within my communities. Um what do I do else do I do? I also have uh been involved in the uh Lido simple DVT and Ether operation solo stakers uh delegation program. So this is where um Lido and Ether as an organization they would delegate um some amount of um uh Ethereum validator keys to DVT clusters who have been verified and who are proficient in operating their nodes. Yeah. And these uh DVT cluster members, they get a share of the staking rewards from this uh delegated

ETH. Um and I believe there are more uh delegation opportunities on the horizon, especially with the uh advent of um not event yet, but hopefully soon to be advent of uh the Eve staking ETF or ST ETF, which should bring a lot more demand for ST ETH and then there will be more uh delegation opportunities hopefully. Yeah. Um and we're starting to see uh more delegation opportunities arise and emerge actually. Uh so node set is the newest one that started uh onboarding node operators and solo stakers onto their node operator set and then delegating some number of uh Ethereum validated keys to them. Yeah.

So that is uh my journey. Moving forward I will continue exploring uh high quality and ETH aligned um note operation opportunities. For example, layer 2 sequencing there layer 2 sequences. They're starting to open up to uh Ethereum home stakers and solo stakers as well. The foremost example I can give would be Aztec, the privacy focused uh layer 2. Yeah. So they are starting to open up their sequences to um everyone. So yep, I'll be exploring that and you know once I experiment with it and then I feel that it's uh it's uh credible and reliable, right? I will then funnel it to my community as well.

Right. Um, Diki, I'm very curious. So, you spend a lot of time in Japan. Um, and obviously you have to speak the language in the community in order to grow it. So, I'm wondering how how do these uh homestakers in Japan typically look like? You know, who are they and and you know, what do they like? What do they why do they want to get started and what makes them stay in this community? Yeah, it's a fantastic question. And um I will say like we have like over like 100 community member in my telegram chat like everyone would like to keen about like how to spin up the node and how to be participate in node operation but I would like to highlight more than um 50% of people has no technological background engineering

background but they are still keen to learn so like um when it comes to like a node operation or like a validator it's kind of like it's very like looks like technological stuff but like the nor patient in this year is not like something like super super technological you don't have to like have like a full stack of engineering like if you have like passion like you can um spin up the node so like the same situation is like in my community so once again like most of the people no not most of like at least like 50 over 50% of people is nontechnological and what I found out until current my journey is like okay so I will highlight three key remarks from like our community the first one is like

one of my community members said like Ethereum is currently only the one chain who has dedicated um support community and protocol for individual who like to spin up the node. Yeah, it's I totally agree that like let's say like if when when the situation of Solana if you want to make a profit of n operation you have to have like approximately 80k soul token it's very much huge but when it comes to the ethereum like you don't have to have like that much of the token and also like we have like community so like um hearing that kind of feedback from the community is like it's actually capture the nature of Ethereum homestaking And then the second

thing is like um one another people one another person say like if you contribute to the n operation you can have like you can gain the pure access pure sense of like taking care of network because you have to learn about what is there maybe how to um take the transaction and how to approve it. So like you can by contributing the node operation you can understand what is the Ethereum what is the E is actually do what is the um actual process of the trans transaction is finally terminated so like once um even though like you don't have like a technological background um you can like learn this

kind of aspect which is good and then the last thing I want to share in this stage is like another people Today validator is something like a digital pit like like dog or cat digital version of them because most of the time like validator nodes are super healthy so you don't have to sit um in front of the desk and you don't have to like check every time but something happened let's say the pectoral upgrade on a on a test net like we have like kind of like a buggy buggy situation you know like two months ago so like one sometimes these things happen and then you you also have to take care of that. So it's like and then

like doing this kind of stuff is eventually like node operation become part of your life. So like saying like like saying that like n operation is something like a digital pet is it's also capturing the nature. So overall like n operation in a Japanese scene is like something like people mo from a lot of the background has a keen to learn about the um baser and I also happy to hear that like these kind of remarks is coming up from our community. So how about the situation in Singapore? Yeah.

Yeah. Um before that I'd like to make a comment. So it's like a tamagoti or digimon pet. Yeah. Yeah. That's true. And and I think it's quite interesting. I think culturally it's very aligned with Japanese culture as well, you know, with the whole, you know, it's like taking care of a bonsai plant, you know, you're trying to refine your skills in in a craft. And I think that's um u very Japanese aligned as well. Very ether and Japanese aligned. Yeah. So true. So true. Cool, cool, cool. Yeah. Um I think in in Singapore, we are a bit um a bit more lucky um because number one, it the country the economy is quite uh affluent. So um you know from all walks of life we can find aspiring solo

stakers they can be like non techchnical people uh we have OG um uh web3 founders we have web3 contributors we even have treadfi traditional finance executives who are curious about the space um who else do we have we have like a lot of like you know protocol researchers MV researchers um define natives all of them uh find that uh becoming an Ethereum homestaker could be interesting um previously is a bit more altruistic because um you need to put up 32 E, you need to buy hardware and all that barriers to entry very high and then the uh staking rewards were not uh significantly better than if you were to you know just do liquid staking or delegated staking of any sort. Um but with the rise of you know um b wanted

validator concepts you know with the likes of a lido community staking module you know there's rocket pool as well there's sta uh there's puffer you know you you can organically enhance your staking rewards to um up to 2.3 times in the case of community staking module and that um completely blows any other uh eaking option out of the water. Yeah. And this comes without the use of leverage. Yeah. So for the community in Singapore, I think it's fairly easy to uh show them the benefits of uh why they should uh pick up this skill set today.

Uh of course the hurdle is that they have to learn an entirely new skill set which is quite a big challenge because the attention span of the community in Singapore, it's a little bit shorter. Yeah. We don't have the discipline that the Japanese people have unfortunately. Yeah. Uh things move very quickly. Uh most people want to be entirely passive. So DeFi options still rank top of mind for them. Um but this is what I'm trying to change. You know, I'm trying to uh show them that hey, you know, this skill set that you're learning today, it's very scalable because one single hardware can support hundreds of validator keys, thousands of validator keys even theoretically. And the this skill set is also very transferable

because once you know how to run validator nodes on Ethereum, you can easily you know uh explore beyond Ethereum. Um you can run DVTs, you can run uh even uh layer 2 sequences. Yeah, 80% of the skill set you learn is going to be Linux system administration and it's uh very transferable once again and the skill set is very monetizable because there are delegation opportunities popping up every now and then you know for you to capture on for you to tap on. Um yep so other kinds of um challenges in Singapore are also fairly easy to uh overcome. So one one common challenge will be on the networking side of uh residential internet connection. Um especially if you want to uh run things

like distributed validators, you need something called a static IP address. Um in Singapore, there are ISPs that could give you uh the static IP address uh if you just pay them. I'm not sure about Japan. How how does it work? Yeah. Yeah. So like uh answering the um Japanese situation like um one of the tip for the audience is like if you want to spin up the nodes firstly you have to learn about like your current network is it compatible with node operation or like maybe not. So like the Japanese situation is like exactly like totally against the node operation situation. So like let's say like uh um if you have a internet in Japan like Wi-Fi or like whatever and if you don't have a contract of home phone like the phone

like physical phone in your home like you can't get the you your internet will be allocated in the form of IPv4 which is um the sharable like IP address is shared with other people maybe the if you are living in a mansion like a accommodation the IP address will shared with like your residents and this situation is not like suitable for the node operation at all. So firstly like even though like people would like to spin up the node first you have to check about like your network is compatible with the node operation or not and once again Japanese situation is not of course so like you have to change that I mean the Japanese people has to change

the network into like IPv6 or something. So like these kind of things like getting people proper internet access is one of the hardest part for the Japanese people because like even though like they know like how to spin up the node like what is the structure of node operation they also have to understand what is the network what is the like um yeah like they also have to understand that network situation in general and then once like after they learn it it turns out that like most of the network situation is not like suitable. So like this kind of stuff is so much tough for me and uh how about this? But but it's solvable and this is why a community is

important as a layer to uh get people together uh have them solve problems together and in this way they can uh form deeper bonds with one another. And one of the reasons why I think the the community stays is for the others people in the community is it's a way to make friends. And I I like to uh talk a little bit about how we run our communities. All right. Um if you see Diki uh title, Diki's title is Solo Stakers Guild Japan. The Solo Sters Guild is the banner which we use to gather our uh communities under. Yeah. So it's a uh brand under the the Lido community livegus initiative um where you know Lido will provide um uh support in terms of grant resources manpower to

grow these communities across uh uh Asia and Latin America. Um and actually we are going to run an edition of Solo Stakers Guild right after this at 2 p.m. from 2:00 to 5:00 p.m. So it's going to be a hands-on workshop uh covering LITO CSM solo staking and SSV and OBO distributed validators. So if you guys want to uh join uh feel free to DM me on Twitter uh can look for Steakosaurus search for Steosaurus and you'll find me and then I'll send you the Luma link. Um why I think why we are excited about growing a a very niche community of solo stakers is because uh Ducky and I we believe that solo stakers and homestakers are the power users of the Ethereum ecosystem because we are

patient we are adventurous you know once we learn something we we go deep into it and we've started exploring beyond just solo staking we we've done things like Ethereum consensus mechanism how it works how does onchain voting works how even like other Ethereum ecosystem system projects work in in more detail like uh AMMs uh and we're going to do a bit of like solidity and all this stuff as well. So um this is a a grassroots community effort that we are working very hard on and it's starting to uh show a lot of progress. So we invite you warmly to uh join this movement of Ethereum solo stakers and home stakers.

Do we are we on time? Yeah. Two minutes. Okay, that's all. Yeah. Yeah. Um, you know, if you guys have any questions for us, feel free to uh to ask or reach out. Yes. Can I get your mic? Thank you. you are solo stakers but uh as you mentioned there are a lot of initiatives um for delegating stake uh like lido CSM uh rocket pool uh not set u others um do you think there's a threat in that as well because uh solo staking offers like just shy of 3% or

something and Lido CSM is like three or or six Seven 7%. Yeah. So your concern is all like in the worst case scenario all solo stickers shut down their nodes exit and then go into light CSM. Yeah. Correct. Um I think that that uh it's less likely for that to be so because those who are already solo staking with 32 ETH, right? They they don't only do it for profit. They they want to uh contribute the highest marginal decentralization and security to the network. So it's less likely that they will shut down their notes and move all to Lido CSM. And even for us uh at the Lido community uh lifeguards initiative, we actively discourage uh solo stakers from doing that. What we tell them to do

is u any acrew accumulated rewards that you have acred right you can use it on lighter CSM to compound. Yeah. Um but is it is it good uh that we as a comm as a Ethereum network rely on uh the generosity of solo stakers to run less profitable? Yeah, unfortunately we are on time so but happy to take that question offline. Sure. Thank you. [Music]