Africa

[Pool Update] Epoch 327 – 335

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Hi people! 🙂

Long time no see. I was on vacation and took a break from the digital world. I think it’s always good to distance yourself from the things you deal with every day and take some time out to clear your mind. It is remarkable how new impressions, nature and exciting experiences can stimulate you and how much energy can be gained from them.

But let’s go back to topic: Although I was not active the pool was monitored at all times and there were no problems.

Maintenance & Pool Upgrades

As announced in the last Pool Update several parts of the Pools infrastructure were upgraded:

  • There are now four relays spread across different countries to provide good interconnection within the network as well as resilience in case of disaster.
  • The main block producer as well as the backup block producer were upgraded to more powerful servers.
  • The high availibility solution including the automatic failover was tested and the system works as intended.
  • The Monitoring solution was moved to a fully managed system to reduce maintenance effort for that part of the infrastructure
  • Existing alerts were adjusted and the incident response system was improved.

New IOHK Blog posts

Increasing the transaction throughput of Cardano

The critical role of AI / blockchain synergy in humanity’s future

Wave Financial launches ada yield fund to support Cardano’s DeFi ecosystem growth

Project Catalyst launches incubator for Africa

Introducing the Concept of Delegate Representatives (dReps)

Boosting Cardano’s throughput with script referencing

Introducing the new command line interface tool for Marlowe

Cardano360 – March 2022

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6qNwOE9Bvo&t=13s

Mid Month Development Update – April 2022

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0tojqvMgB0

Performance and assigned slots

EpochLeaderIdealLuckConfirmed LuckProducedConfirmedMissedGhostedStolenInvalid
3264148.9183.83%77.69%41380300
3276756.4118.79%108.16%67610410
3286157.45106.18%104.44%61600010
3295550.16109.65%105.66%55530110
3305049.03101.98%99.94%50490100
3315148.69104.74%102.69%51500010
3324048.7182.12%80.07%40390100
3334848.7498.48%92.33%48450120
3344751.5791.14%81.44%47420230
3354551.6487.14%–––––––

Nothing special occurring during the shown epochs. Some were luckier, some were a little less lucky. Overall everything is in the expected range and we only see the usual ghosted and stolen blocks due to slot and height battles.

That’s all I have for you today. Talk to you soon! 🙂

[Pool Update] Epoch 297, 298, 299 & 300

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Hey people!

Financial freedom also means taking responsibility for the safety of your own money. I therefore urge everyone to read the following security advice carefully: Cardano Stay Safe Content

No one will ever send you free ADA. It is always a SCAM. Please stay away from it or you will lose your money.

New IOHK Blog posts

IOHK was really busy writing a ton of new blog posts. Here is what was posted since the last update:

Building on the Cardano Summit

UTXO alliance: fostering innovation and collaboration across the blockchain space

Oasis Pro partnership is where DeFi meets RealFi for Cardano

Cardano: robust, resilient – and flexible

Bringing premium spirits to the Cardano blockchain

New certification levels for smart contracts on Cardano

Africa is where the tough get going

Ouroboros Chronos provides the first high-resilience, cryptographic time source based on blockchain technology

Plutus Application Backend (PAB): supporting DApp development on Cardano

Buffalo soldiers march to the heart of the blockchain

Mithril: a stronger and lighter blockchain for better efficiency

Djed Stablecoin On Cardano

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-Ozaf_aGNM

Mid Month Development Update – October

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzdTyV5Jejc

Cardano360 – October 2021

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0s3lPG8XDw

Performance and assigned slots

EpochLeaderIdealLuckConfirmed LuckProducedConfirmedMissedGhostedStolenInvalid
2965352.39101.16%89.71%53470240
2976051.33116.89%111.05%60570030
2984349.4486.97%80.01%43400120
2995748.3118.01%115.94%57560100
3004847.02102.08%–––––––

If we look at the 4-epoch confirmed luck during 296 to 299 we see around 99.2% luck, which is fine. However our lifetime luck is still under 100% so I think we’ll see more luckier epochs in the fcuture again. Otherwise the pool is running fine, doing some fine-tuning here and there but nothing special to report. If you have any questions regarding our performance or the above table, please don’t hesitate to contact me. I’m always happy to help or just have a nice chat with you!

That’s all I have for you today. Talk to you soon! 🙂

[Pool Update] Epoch 286, 287, 288 & 289

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Hey people 🙂

Financial freedom also means taking responsibility for the safety of your own money. I therefore urge everyone to read the following security advice carefully: Cardano Stay Safe Content

No one will ever send you free ADA. It is always a SCAM. Please stay away from it or you will lose your money.

Alonzo Hard Fork

For your information and to ease your mind: Rest assured that FAIR will install all updates in a timely manner and is always ready when it comes to network upgrades. We are ready for the Alonzo Hardfork. All Nodes are running 1.29.0. Looking forward to September 12th!

New IOHK Blog posts

Cardano Stack Exchange: a growing and vibrant community developer resource

Making education in Africa more accessible, affordable, and equitable

No-surprises transaction validation on Cardano

No-surprises transaction validation: part 2

Cardano360 August edition – monthly Cardano update!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baS9efSa2F8

Cardano360 August Edition is here and it is again full of great updates and information! Get your favourite hot beverage ready again, lean back and enjoy the full show 😉

Cardano Summit 2021

The Cardano Summit will be held 25th and 26th of September as a mix of virtual and live events from around the world over two days.

Everyone is invited and it’s free, so make sure to register now to stay up to date: https://summit.cardano.org/

Performance for 285

LeaderIdealLuckAdoptedConfirmedMissedGhostedStolenInvalid
6956.18117.48%66660030

Epoch 285 was a very good one for us. We were assigned 69 slots, we produced all 69 but lost three due to slot battles. At the end 66 blocks made it to the chain which results in a performance of ~117.5%

Performance for 286

LeaderIdealLuckAdoptedConfirmedMissedGhostedStolenInvalid
5455.6789.15%50500040

We were assigned only 54 slots in 286 and also lost four blocks due to slot battles. This means an underperformance of 89.15%.

Performance for 287

LeaderIdealLuckAdoptedConfirmedMissedGhostedStolenInvalid
4855.8976.94%43430050

Epch 287 was a really bad one: Not only were we allocated unexpectedly few blocks, we also lost five blocks due to slot battles. This leaves us with an underperformance of ~76.94%.

Performance for 288

LeaderIdealLuckAdoptedConfirmedMissedGhostedStolenInvalid
6358.46106.06%62620010

Epoch 288 was a rather good one. 63 assigned slots; 63 produced blocks; 62 adopted blocks = 106.06% performance. Not bad 🙂

Assigned Slots for 289

LeaderIdealLuckAdoptedConfirmedMissedGhostedStolenInvalid
6958.71117.54%000000

In Epoch 289 we are looking for 69 leader slots which equates to 117.54% luck. If we don’t lose many blocks this will be a very good epoch for us! It has the potential to be the epoch with the most blocks per epoch of this pool so far.

This is it for now. Let’s see you all in the Alonzo Era! Talk to you soon 🙂

[Pool Update] Epoch 263

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Hi people! 🙂

Welcome to the pool update for epoch 263. So many things happened in the Cardano Africa Special that I just need to talk about it again and provide you with the information you need. It was such a great show with great news and really fun to watch. Big times lie ahead, never forget: We are here to stay.

Cardano Africa Special

Mini Edition

If you haven’t had time to watch the full Cardano Africa Special, here’s a short and sweet summary of the most important topics.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKT_3clxeqw

Highlights

On the official Cardano Africa website you can find video snippets that will show you some of the highlights of the Cardano Africa Special Show. It’s definitely worth watching these if you haven’t already seen the full show.

The importance of Identity

And there is also another blog post from Charles Hoskinson about why identity is so important and how Cardano is working towards giving identity to those that don’t have one: Identity is the key to our vision for Africa

New collection of information

Information is often distributed at several different locations and is not always easy to find. Therefore a new resource for collecting information was created. What you can find there, how to contribute and more information on that can be found in the blog post about this topic: The essential Cardano list – a new resource for the community

Performance for 262

LeaderIdealLuckAdoptedConfirmedMissedGhostedStolenInvalid
6057.29104.73%60600000

Epoch 262 was a good one for us. We were assigned 60 blocks, produced 60 blocks and all 60 blocks made it to the chain. We did not lose any blocks due to slot or height battles which is very fortunate for us. This leaves us at around 105% luck and should end up in around 5.5% ROA.

Assigned Slots for 263

LeaderIdealLuckAdoptedConfirmedMissedGhostedStolenInvalid
5857.59100.71%000000

In epoch 263 we were assigned 58 slots. That corresponds to about the expected amount, which can be seen when looking the 100.71% luck. Let’s see how that epoch plays out.

That’s all I have for you today! Talk to you soon 🙂

[Pool Update] Epoch 262

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Hi people! 🙂

Welcome to the pool update for epoch 262. Some birds have finally landed and I think it’s a really big deal. So let’s start.

Cardano Africa Special

Already talked about the Cardano Africa Special Show last time. But I can’t stress this enough: Register immediately and be there on 29 April 2021, 16:30 UTC! Less than 24 hours, till the show. See you there!

Blockchain finally comes of age with the world’s biggest blockchain deployment

Already before the Africa Special the following partnership was announced: IOHK cooperates with the Ethiopian Government to implement a national, blockchain-based student and teacher ID and attainment recording system to digitally verify grades, remotely monitor school performance, and boost education and employment nationwide. This will onboard around 5 million students and teachers into the Cardano Ecosystem using Atala PRISM. This is honestly just awesome. I really hope that this project will be successful and can establish itself in other countries. I would love to see such a system being used in my country. For more you should read through the whole IOHK blog post here: Blockchain finally comes of age with the world’s biggest blockchain deployment

Performance for 261

LeaderIdealLuckAdoptedConfirmedMissedGhostedStolenInvalid
7258.63114.28%67670050

Epoch 261 looked very promising with 72 assigned slots. We produced all 72 blocks but only 67 were adopted as 5 blocks were stolen due to slot battles, which is quite high amount. Nothing we can do about it but nevertheless, we have a luck of around 114.28% which will end up in a nice estimated ROA of ~5.9%.

Assigned Slots for 262

LeaderIdealLuckAdoptedConfirmedMissedGhostedStolenInvalid
6057.29104.73%000000

In Epoch 262 we were assigned 60 leader slots, which means around 104.73% luck. As we saw during the last epochs it is expected that we lose some blocks due to slot or height battles. But let’s see how it turns out. The pool is ready to produce those blocks and I hope we will stay at or over the 100% luck at the end of this epoch.

That’s all I have for you today! Talk to you soon 🙂

[Pool Update] Epoch 261

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Hey people! 🙂

Welcome to the pool update for epoch 261. Let’s dive rigth in.

Cardano Node update

After 1.26.1 was released two weeks ago, the cardano network was going through a very rough epoch transition from epoch 259 to epoch 260 which caused the network to halt for nearly 30 minutes. It was investigated by IOHK and they identified that the issue was a wrongly timed calculation of the stake distribution. They fixed the issue, tested the code within a few days and released the cardano-node version 1.26.2 to prevent this from happening again. All SPOs were encouraged to update as soon as possible, preferably before the next epoch transition and so we did. All FAIR nodes were updated before epoch 261 and we did not encounter any issues during the transition. Thanks to development team for the quick response and the fast provision of a new version.

Cardano Africa Special

For quite some time now we have been hearing birds singing and now the time has come. The Cardano Africa Special Show has been announced. Register immediately to not miss any news and be there on 29 April 2021, 16:30 UTC! I am very excited. See you there! 😉

Performance for 259

LeaderIdealLuckAdoptedConfirmedMissedGhostedStolenInvalid
5758.1797.99%55550110

In epoch 259 we were assigned 57 blocks of which we produced all 57 but only 55 were adopted due to 1 ghosted and 1 stolen block. Please refer to the older pool updates if you do not know what ghosted and stolen means. I’m currently working on an overview / faq page which I can refer you to in the future. The ROS for this epoch was 4.865%.

Performance for 260

LeaderIdealLuckAdoptedConfirmedMissedGhostedStolenInvalid
6658.39113.03%65650010

The performance for epoch 260 was quite good with 66 leader slots and 65 adopted blocks. We lost only 1 block due to a slot battle which is good for this amount of blocks. The estimated ROS for this epoch is ~5.8%.

Assigned Slots for 261

LeaderIdealLuckAdoptedConfirmedMissedGhostedStolenInvalid
7258.63122.8%000000

Epoch 261 looks also very good for us with 72 assigned slots and a maximum performance of 122.8%. As in the last epochs we need to calculate with a few lost blocks due to slot or height battles. Nevertheless, we will see an overperformance and good rewards for this epoch.

Thats it for today! Talk to you soon 🙂