[Pool Update] Epoch 323, 324, 325 & 326

Hi people! πŸ™‚

First of all I want to thank each and everyone one of you for returning after the Sundae RISO or staying with me in the first place! We saw a quite big hit in stake after the ISO but quickly recovered afterwards. I really appreciate that.

SundaeSwap ISO and RISO

SundaeSwap ISO and RISO are over and it is possible to claim your ISO rewards via https://dripdropz.io/ now. Claiming your ISO rewards via DripDropz will come with a small fee of around ~1.6 ADA (plus ~0.18 ADA TX Fee). If you want to avoid this ~1.6 ADA fee you can wait for SundaeSwap to implement their own claiming solution which should not come with this fee. If you participated in the RISO your rewards are not claimable via DripDropz, you’ll need to wait for the SundaeSwap claiming solution. I’ll let you know if I have any more information about this. Don’t worry the rewards will be claimable for at least one year (so something around Q1/2023).

Cardano Submit-API and FreeLoaderz.io

As many Wallets already offer the option to use a custom submit endpoint for transactions instead of using their endpoints, I setup a Submit Endpoint for you:

  • https://submit.fairpool.eu/api/submit/tx

That endpoint uses an infrastructure of dedicated distribution relays connected to many peers inside the Cardano network to get your transactions onto the chain. The performance should be significantly better than the public options during high congestion times (e.g. highly anticipated NFT drops) as there are likely less users on this submit endpoint than on the endpoints of the wallet providers. If you need any help setting your wallet don’t hesitate to contact me.

I also joined https://www.freeloaderz.io/ a coalition of Cardano Stake Pools offering access to their submit APIs to help improve transaction speeds and spread the load among the network. Several submit APIs are sitting behind an HAProxy load balancer that you can also use to submit your transactions depending on your location:

  • https://usa.freeloaderz.io/api/submit/tx
  • https://europe.freeloaderz.io/api/submit/tx

Also stop by at their Discord (or contact me directly) if you have any questions about the project. Want to help? Then it would be appreciated if you’d check out the FreeLoaderz Catalyst proposals https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/403911 (Load Balancer) and https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/403924 (Reward Distribution).

Upcoming Maintenance and Hardware Upgrades

During the next few weeks I’ll upgrade several parts of the pools infrastructure. If you are subscribed to any notification bots you may see alerts about some relays being occasionally down. I assure you that there is enough redundancy in place that there will be no influence on the block production of the pool whatsoever.

The goal of these upgrades is to make the pool more future proof and have enough spare resources in place. I will also add a fourth relay and spread out the relays to even more different countries to be prepared for any eventuality and to be well interconnected within the network.

New IOHK Blog posts

From node enhancement to block leadership… Cardano’s February release

Project Catalyst, Cardano’s innovation engine, launches Fund8!

Diving deeper into the Marlowe Playground

Cardano360 – February 2022


Performance and assigned slot

EpochLeaderIdealLuckConfirmed LuckProducedConfirmedMissedGhostedStolenInvalid
3226263.198.26%90.33%62570500
3233933.91115.01%112.06%39380100
3243732.27114.66%111.56%37360100
3254734.8135.06%126.44%47440120
3264148.9183.83%–––––––

Looking at the past epochs we saw a great performance during the 323 – 325 with each over 110% confirmed luck. 322 could have been a good one too but unfortunately we saw 5 ghosted blocks due to nearby other slots. 326 will end as a rather unlucky one as we were assigned only 41 slots which is way under the expected 49 slots.

That’s all I have for you today. Talk to you soon! πŸ™‚

[Pool Update] Epoch 319, 320, 321 & 322

Hi people! πŸ™‚

Some interesting epochs are behind us, the SundaeSwap ISO is over, the SundaeSwap RISO is starting, the congestion has decreased but is is still noticeable. Let’s get straight into it.

SundaeSwap ISO and RISO

The last Snapshot for the inital SundaeSwap ISO was taken 14th February and thus the initial ISO has ended. Sundae ISO Rewards will be available through DripDropz March 1st or later this year through a SundaeSwap faucet (if you want to avoid the DripDropz fee). Rewards will be claimable for at least one year, so no reason to stress about it. Please take a look at the ISO Dashboard for all the important dates for the ISO as well as a reward estimation. Also take a look at their Twitter and medium page where all major updates will be posted.

The initial SundaeSwap ISO led to a lot of criticism and concern about decentralization, as a huge amount of stake was accumulated in the pools of the 30 voted Pool Operators. Many of those were Multi Pool Operators which also led to a decrease of the minimum attack vector (MAV). To mitigate this development the Reverse ISO (RISO) was introduced to the Community and approved by a community vote. Please check out the linked article for all informations about the ISO and the Reverse ISO Dashboard for all participating pools and important dates.

While it is still up to debate within the community whether the RISO was a good or bad idea, it certainly reached it’s goal to move stake from the initial ISO pools to those of the RISO and also increase the MAV again.

New IOHK Blog posts

Implementing Hydra Heads: the first step towards the full Hydra vision

The knowledge base for Cardano is growing: Cardano Stack Exchange graduates from Beta version

Mid Month Technical Development Update – February 2022


Performance and assigned slot

EpochLeaderIdealLuckConfirmed LuckProducedConfirmedMissedGhostedStolenInvalid
3187463.34116.83%107.36%74680510
3195762.2891.52%80.28%57500610
3207063.44110.34%94.58%70600550
3216263.5397.59%89.72%62570410
3226263.198.26%–––––––

Take the current quite crowded network, add to that the recent parameter changes and the long existing bug that causes a degraded propagation times of the blocks within the network during reward calculation and you get many ghosted blocks. Those ghosted blocks are due to height battles which are resolved by the protocol and which outcome we can’t influence. I still hope we see that issue resolved in the future; otherwise we will have to live with a bigger amount of ghosted blocks.

That’s all I have for you today. Talk to you soon! πŸ™‚

[Pool Update] Epoch 315, 316, 317 & 318

Hi people! πŸ™‚

Cardano is currently suffering from a very full chain. Transactions sometimes take a long time, but at least they are executed and the fees remain unchanged. Therefore good news first: Block size will be increased by 8KB taking it from 72KB to 80KB and in addition Plutus script memory units per transaction will be raised from the current 12.5M to 14M. This will take effect very soon at the boundary of epoch 319 on 4 Feb at ~21:45 UTC. This will further increase the capacity and allow more transactions. It is very special how quick and easy Cardano can make such protocol changes without any kind of fork.

SundaeSwap ISO

The SundaeSwap DEX started January 20th and since then executed nearly 65000 thousand orders and has around $70M total locked value (at the time of writing according to defillama.com). Due to the current situation of a congested chain and a very high initial demand for certain Liquidity Pools (especially Sundae/ADA) orders can take several days to process for those specific liquidity pools. Orders for other Pairs are usually processed much faster. Once we have worked through the backlog, the execution time for all pairs will be roughly the same. You can check the queue for the different Liquidity Pools in the Queue Section of the DEX.

Please take a look at the ISO Dashboard for all the important dates for the ISO as well as a reward estimation. No further information has been released yet about the claiming process or when you will be able to claim your rewards. Keep an eye on the official SundaeSwap Announcement Channels

New IOHK Blog posts

A new internal IOG Developer Experience department will improve development agility

How we’re scaling Cardano in 2022

The beating heart of a fast-growing network

Plutus fee estimator: find out the cost of transacting on Cardano

Simple property-based tests for Plutus validators

Introducing pipelining: Cardano’s consensus layer scaling solution

Cardano360 – January 2022


Performance and assigned slot

EpochLeaderIdealLuckConfirmed LuckProducedConfirmedMissedGhostedStolenInvalid
3145955.71105.91%105.91%59590000
3156258.22106.49%96.19%62560330
3165361.2286.57%83.31%53510110
3175062.9679.42%77.83%50490010
3187463.34116.83%–––––––

As we can see we recently were more on the unlucky side with overall luck often below 100%. In addition we lost some blocks due to height and slot battles, which we can’t really influence from our side. Epoch 318 looks pretty fine though and I hope we won’t see too many stolen/ghosted blocks.

That’s all I have for you today. Talk to you soon! πŸ™‚

[Pool Update] Epoch 311, 312, 313 & 314

Hi people! πŸ™‚

As always, there is a lot to do and time is limited so we jump right in.

SundaeSwap ISO

No date for Mainnet has been announced yet but as we are approaching the Mainnet launch we need to set our expectations straight. I highly recommend reading this article to understand what the initial phase of the DEX will look like and what you can expect: Expectations, Congestion, & Mainnet Launch

If you have any questions regarding SundaeSwap please check out the previous pool Updates where you can also find more information about it. Don’t hesitate to contact me if there are any questions left.

New IOHK Blog posts

Cardano education in 2021: the year of the pioneers

2021: the year robots, and graffiti came to a decentralized, smarter Cardano

DeFi demystified


Performance and assigned slot

EpochLeaderIdealLuckConfirmed LuckProducedConfirmedMissedGhostedStolenInvalid
3105160.8483.83%78.9%51480300
3115458.991.68%88.29%54520200
3126657.82114.15%105.5%66610420
3135354.1397.91%90.52%53490220
3145955.71105.91%

Over the few past epochs we saw a lot of ghosted blocks. They are caused due to bad propagation times of previously produced blocks. That is either caused by bad connection of other pools or due to other delays in the network. There is a long known problem, where bad propagation times of blocks are caused by the reward calculation of a previous epoch. This should be partly mitigated with cardano-node version 1.33.0 which was released recently. FAIR already updated all it’s nodes to this new version. Unfortunately the impact of this will only be noticeable if as many other pools as possible also upgrade. At the time of this post, about 58% of pools have already upgraded and it is expected that we will see higher numbers throughout the next epochs.

That’s all I have for you today. Talk to you soon πŸ™‚

[Pool Update] Epoch 307, 308, 309 & 310

Hi People! πŸ™‚

Welcome to probably the last pool update of this year. Let’s just start right away.

SundaeSwap ISO

Small Update about the SundaeSwap ISO and how the testnet is going. We saw many improvements during the testnet over the past weeks. It’s a continous process and the team is still developing and further improving UI, UX and fixing open issues. There is still no date announced when the ISO and DEX will start. The chosen Scoopers will start running their Scooper nodes on testnet soon to get ready for the Mainnet launch. I’m really excited to see this project going forward.

But there is more: Many asked themselves how much the Sundae token will be worth at launch. The SundaeSwap Team said from the beginning that they won’t set the initial price and the mechanism how the price will be set was released now. Give the announcement a good read and ask me if you have any questions about it: SundaeSwap Presents: The Taste Test

New IOHK Blog posts

The AGIX ERC20 converter testnet is now live

Introducing our new peer-to-peer (P2P) testnet

When it comes to DeFi, Do Your Own Research

Cardano at Christmas (and what to say if anyone asks…)

Mid Month Development Update – December

Building On Cardano: December Cardano360 Community Update


Performance and assigned slot

EpochLeaderIdealLuckConfirmed LuckProducedConfirmedMissedGhostedStolenInvalid
3065755.01103.62%99.98%57550020
3074759.978.46%75.13%47450020
3087160.73116.91%111.97%71680210
3096160.89100.18%93.61%61570310
3105160.8483.83%

No issues to report for Epoch 306 to 310. We were a bit unlucky, but also had a great Epoch 308, which ended with a new record (most blocks per Epoch) for us: We produced 68 blocks and broke our previous record of 67 blocks from epoch 261.

We unfortunately still see an increased amount of ghosted blocks due to rewards calculation each epoch. A future release of the cardano node should hopefully fix this issue soon.

That’s all I have for you today. I wish you all some beautiful last days of 2021. Reflect on what is important to you and stay healthy. Talk to you soon πŸ™‚

[Pool Update] Epoch 304, 305 & 306

Hey people πŸ™‚

The price goes on a roller coaster ride but regardless of that the development on Cardano always continues. There are some exciting developments and below you will find the latest information and a small FAQ about the SundaeSwap ISO.

SundaeSwap ISO

SundaeSwap FAQ

When does the ISO start?
The ISO starts together with the DEX. There is no date announced yet.

To which pool do I need to delegate to receive Sundae tokens?
30 SPOs were chosen by the community. All pools of the chosen SPOs are eligible for Sundae rewards. Here are the official voting results. And here is the unofficial list with all participating pools. An official list with all Pools/Tickers will be made available before the ISO starts.

Can I already delegate now?
Yes you can but you will only receive ADA rewards until the ISO starts. When the ISO starts you will receive Sundae on top of your regular ADA rewards. There will be sufficient time before the ISO to redelegate if you do not want to change right now.

Do I need a special Wallet for participating in the ISO?
No you can use any wallet that allows staking to one of the ISO pools.

How long does the ISO last?
Five Epochs / 25 Days.

Do I need to stay the whole time?
No you can also partially participate and will receive the rewards for every full epoch you delegated to an ISO pool during the ISO.

How much Sundae will I get?
5% of all Sundae tokens will be issued. So 1% will be distributed per ISO Epoch to all delegators who have staked their ADA in an ISO pool. The rewards are proportional to your stake but not linear. The exact calculations will be released after the ISO to prevent people from gaming the system.

How do I receive the SundaeSwap tokens after the ISO?
You will need to claim them with a dApp enabled Wallet. They won’t be airdropped to your wallet. There will be plenty of time to claim them. Most likely one year.

What other ways are there to get Sundae Tokens?
So far there are 3 announced ways to get the token:

  • ISO
  • Swapping either on our protocol or some other exchange
  • Providing liquidity to the protocol

Providing liquidity will likely generate the greatest rewards.

What will the starting price be of the SundaeSwap token?
The initial price of the token is not determined yet. SundaeSwap will not be setting the price.

SundaeSwap Public Testnet

The SundaeSwap Public Testnet will launch on the evening (EST) of Sunday, December 5th. This is an excellent chance to play around with the DEX in a risk free environment and test out the features before the mainnet launch. Read this article to get all the latest information: Let’s Sample Some Flavors: SundaeSwap Testnet Announcement!

Important: This is a testnet. There will be bugs. It won’t be a perfect product. High volume and congestion is expected on the testnet. All of this is intended, this is what a testnet is for. It serves to improve the product, so we will not experience these problems in the mainnet.

Also take a look at this video where Pi (Sundaeswap Labs Chief Information Officer) talks about the ISO and the approaching launch, the team’s open-source philosophy and their plans for the future.

New IOHK Blog posts

Slow and steady wins the race: network evolution for network growth

Welcome to the age of RealFi

Network traffic and tiered pricing

Cardano360 – November 2021


Performance and assigned slot

EpochLeaderIdealLuckConfirmed LuckProducedConfirmedMissedGhostedStolenInvalid
3034245.5592.21%83.42%41381030
3045445.82117.85%111.31%54510030
3056259.37104.43%99.38%62590030
3065755.01103.62%

Epoch 303 was rather unlucky with only 42 assigned slots. We in addition lost 3 blocks due to slot battles and missed to produce one block. We never missed a block before during a regular epoch. Sometimes a pool randomly misses a slot leader check which in very rare cases (if exactly this slot is assigned to the pool) leads to a missed block. However to mitigate this issue I again upgraded the block producing nodes to more powerful machines that far exceed the requirements. I’m confident that we won’t see any more missed blocks in the future.

Epoch 304 was a lucky one with 54 assigned slots. We produced all 54 but lost 3 due to slot battles. That leaves us with around 111.31% confirmed luck.

Epoch 305 was on point with ~100% confirmed luck. We were assigned 62 slots, produced all 62 but again lost 3 due to slot battles.

In Epoch 306 we are looking for 57 leader slots which means 103.62% luck. Some blocks may be lost due to slot or height battles again which will reduce our confirmed luck. But we’ll say how the epoch will play out.

Please let me know if you have any questions or just want a chat. All the contact options are in the footer below.

That’s all I have for you today. Talk to you soon πŸ™‚

[Pool Update] Epoch 301, 302 & 303

Hi people! πŸ™‚

It’s Pool Update time again. Let’s dive right in.

SundaeSwap ISO

Most of you will have noticed: We have applied for the SundaeSwap Staking Pool Operator Voting. It’s only because of you that we were able to compete against big pool farms and influencers and make it into the top 30 (official voting results). Huge thanks to every single person who voted. I appreciate each and every one of you and would like to thank you again for your continuous support.

Many will be interested in what this means now and what the next steps are. Currently we are waiting for the release of the exact ISO period. During these 5 epochs, you will earn Sundae Rewards in addition to your ADA Rewards. However, your Sundae rewards will not magically appear in your wallets like your ADA Rewards, but will need to be claimed. The claiming process will probably be done via a dApp. I will announce the exact procedure as soon as I know more about it. One thing is for sure: You will have enough time to claim the rewards and don’t have to hurry. But for now you do not have to do anything.

If you have any questions regarding the SundaeSwap ISO don’t hesitate to join our Telegram or write me personally.

New IOHK Blog posts

Empowering a new generation of innovators in Ghana

Optimizing Cardano

Introducing Catalyst Natives – How any business can leverage the Cardano innovation engine

Architecting DApps on the EUTXO ledger

Mid Month Development Update – November


Performance and assigned slots

EpochLeaderIdealLuckConfirmed LuckProducedConfirmedMissedGhostedStolenInvalid
3004847.02102.08%102.08%48480000
3014745.76102.71%100.52%46461000
3024845.598.9%92.31%42420210
3034245.5592.21%

Let’s have a brief look at the past epochs. 300 and 301 were pretty good epochs, both with around 100% confirmed luck. In Epoch 301 we can see one missed block. This happened due to bad luck as we were assigned a slot very early in the epoch (to be exact slot 44668860, which is slot 60 of the epoch, so 60 seconds after epoch change). At the beginning of each epoch there is currently a situation where due to calculations the network is not producing and distributing any blocks for a few minutes. So if you are assigned a slot during this time it is most likely lost/missed although the pool was running perfectly fine. Unfortunately, this is something I can not influence. The resources of the pool were not exhausted at any time. We have to hope that this long known problem will be fixed in the future and that we will not be allocated more slots early in the epoch.

Epoch 302 was a bit unlucky again. 98.9% assigned luck looked quite good but we have lost three blocks. One due to a slot battle and two blocks were ghosted. Both things we can’t really influence.

Finally Epoch 303: again rather unlucky. Only 42 assigned slots out of 45.55 expected slots. It is very likely that we’ll lose additional blocks due to slot battles or ghosting. Hope it plays out nicely. Looking at our Lifetime Luck we are still below 100% even though we never missed to produce an assigned slot. Future epochs should level out the more unluckier ones though to get us to 100% again.

If you have any questions, please contact me. I would really appreciate if you follow me on Twitter or join the Telegram group to always stay up to date.

That’s all for today! Thanks for stopping by and talk to you soon πŸ™‚