ADA 4 Science

Ada4Science is a stake pool in the Cardano blockchain network and is owned by two ex-CERN engineers. If you are looking for a stake pool and science is your thing, then you might just be at the right place. We …

• support the Cardano network by providing nodes and further decentralizing it
• have a high pledge (our own stake) of over 100k Ada. The higher the pledge the more “skin in the game” the owners have
• support science by donating at least 10% of the staking rewards to science related projects
• are based in Switzerland 🇨🇭: Currently, we have one block producer and one relay node in Switzerland. Another relay node is located in Germany.

If you like our mission consider staking to our pool. Know people who’d be interested? Spread the word! The more the merrier… up to a certain point 😉

How to find us?

Use the ticker to find us and optionally the pool-ID to verify you found the right pool:

Ticker: BOSON
Pool-ID: 51694f0d52a25a3ade521472a9c575205651b2c1253410449e1c1de9

Find us on PoolTool

Why the pool name?

The Higgs Boson was discovered while we were at CERN and has been present in our lives ever since.

Support Science

Why support Science?

Science may not be able to answer every question out there, but it is the best tool we as humans have to help us survive in this universe. We’re both huge science and engineering nerds, that’s why we went to CERN anyway, and want to support it by donating to worthwhile projects/funds.

Donation

Donating 10%

In short, we want to donate at least 10% of our rewards to science related projects. If you have interesting causes/fund suggestions for donation, please let us know.

How do we calculate how much we donate?

We try to keep it simple:

• We receive the pool rewards for a created block
• We take at least 10% of it
• Possibly convert it into fiat (CHF, EUR, etc.)
• Within a week or two, donate it to a cause of our choosing
• Once we get the receipt, we add it to the past donations list below

Candidates for Donation

It turns out, donating is actually not as simple as it sounds. Which cause should we donate to? In which country? Will the money really be used for what it was intented to be used? This is probably what donators worry about most. So we think it is important that there is a certain amount of trust in the institution we are giving the money to.

In the past, we already had some experience with the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zürich Foundation and were very happy with their transparancy. For the time being, our default will be one of their funds until we discover or get other interesting suggestions. If there is enough interest by delegators, we will set up a poll for different funds and you will be able to directly influence where the donation money goes to.

Past Donations

Below we will document how much we donated to which cause. It takes roughly 2 epochs (10 days) for us to receive the pool rewards after a block was minted.

What is staking?

In the Cardano network, staking is the act of delegating your “vote” to someone, i.e. a stake pool, in return for rewards. Staking to a pool increases the “vote share” of that pool, which increases its chances of producing a block for the blockchain. And for producing a block the pool gets rewards, which are shared among the delegators (you) and the owners. See here for more details.

Why should I stake my Ada?

You, the delegator, will earn rewards by staking to a pool. So it is better to stake your Ada to a pool than letting it stay idle. In Cardano, staking does not lock your funds and you are free to spend your Ada.

Why should I stake my Ada to Ada4Science?

There are at least two reasons to do so:

1. When you hear the word science your pupils get dilated. You care about science and want to support it.
2. You believe in the fundamental decentralization concept of blockchains. The more nodes there are the more decentralized the network will be. This makes the network more resilient. Ada4Science is effectively a small counterweight to organisations/companies who own multiple big stake pools. For this to work, our pool needs to reach a “critical mass”, which in this context means have enough stake delegated to the pool. If you do not like our mission, at least consider choosing a small stake pool to stake your Ada to.

Is staking (with Ada4Science) safe?

Yes! Because in Cardano you only delegate your vote, not your Ada. Learn more about risks. But…

Please be vigilant: There are a lot of scams out there. Again, staking does not involve sending any funds. You are just delegating your vote to the pool. No Ada should leave your wallet!

Why are the returns lower @ Ada4Science than other pools?

Ada4Science just recently popped into existence and did not get the chance to produce many blocks yet. The amount of blocks a pool produces influences the rewards it can give and the amount of produced blocks are directly influenced by the amount of stake. That’s why we’d be glad if you staked to Ada4Science.

Once we reach 3 Mio ADA consistently, the delegators should be getting around 5% return. Have a look at the curve.

How do I stake my Ada to Ada4Science?

We wrote a more detailed blog post about this topic, but here the short version:

1. If your funds are on an exchange, move them to a place where you control the private key. We would recommend a hardware wallet (e.g. a Ledger device) integrated in Daedalus.
2. In Daedalus, once your wallet is set up, go to Network > Stake pools
3. Search for Ada4Science by typing the ticker name BOSON
4. Delegate to it. The delegation takes 2 epochs to take effect, which is up to 10 days.

Hi, I’m Serki!

I’m the pool operator and one of the two ex-CERN engineers who own the Ada4Science pool. I have a MSc in Computer Science and been a professional software engineer since over a decade now. In this time, I gained experience in writing software, deploying them to servers and maintaining them, which comes in handy when operating a stake pool.

So, why are we here?

There is so much noise in and around crypto these days. Naturally, nobody knows where it is going. It’s also kinda hard to tell which project is worthwhile and which one’s not. How do you separate the wheat from the chaff?

One of the things that impressed us about Cardano is the way the project is set up. Based on peer-reviewed papers and open-minded about the future, giving its users the ability and the power to direct it. This sounded promising to us and it seemed like they are in it for the long run.

We liked that. So, we’ll support that.