This episode of the #citizenweb3 podcast features Isaac Zarb, CTO and co- founder of Simply Staking

Simply Staking aims to offer self-managed, self-owned, secure. They also say that they are a Tier 3 data centre with immediate onsite access without the need for 3rd party or public cloud providers. They claim to offer maximum privacy and security, ensuring multiple layers of redundancy.

Our guest Isaac Zarb has had an interesting journey and we discuss many of his experiences. He provides insight on what it takes to start a data centre, what is at the heart of blockchain, as well as how important governance is. He also discusses how improved connectivity will eventually be the key in uniting the tribes in Web3 and the importance of testnets.

00:00 -- 01:21 : Intro

01:21 -- 09:52 : Isaac explains the start of his journey and the birth of Simply Staking

09:52 -- 13:00 : A discussion about the need for validator tools.

13:00 -- 20:37 : Isaac details how they set up the origial data centre and their expansion.

20:37 -- 24:44 : Isaac explains when they feel refurbished hardware is permissible.

24:44 -- 32:59 : Isaac gives his opinion on initial start up costs and hardware needed for a new validator.

32:59 -- 36:18 : Isaac explains how they select which networks they validate and the importance of testnets.

36:81 -- 39:42 : What is the goal and what are the values?

39:42 -- 43:09 : What should validators do with regards to governance and KYC?

43:09 -- 47:22 : Potential dangers of KYC for a validator and how ZK Proofs could solve it.

47:22 -- 55:56 : Isaac gives his opinions on tribalism.

55:56 -- 58:30 : Simply staking projects in the pipeline and the outro

We spoke to Isaac Zarb about SimplyStaking and:

• What is the heart of defi


• Data sovereignty


• Risks and rewards of KYC


• Dangers of cloud services for decentralization


• Refurbished hardware


• Tax compliance


• How validators add value outside of providing nodes


• Scalability for validators


• Challenges of running a business through Covid


• The importance of governance and voting with regards for validators


• The pros and cons of Island life


• The value of participating in testnets


• The life cycle of projects and founders


• Cloud vs Bare Metal


• Origins of Simplystaking


• Adapting projects to be profitable


• Costs of launching a startup


• True use case for NFT’s

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Special Guest: Isaac Zarb.

Links:

• Agoric
• Bitcoin
• Chainlink
• Entrypoint.zone
• Ethereum
• Hetzner
• Keplr
• Linux
• Notional
• Polkadot
• Ruby
• Solana