Cardano SPO Column: Falcon Stakepool [FALCO]

This week’s guest on the Cardano SPO Column is a stake pool that is working on ALDEA, a DAO for spanish speakers: Falcon Stakepool [FALCO].

Last week’s guest was a stake pool operated by someone who has been in the crypto space since 2011.

This initiative is a point of reference for everything Cardano and every week or two we will invite a Stake Pool Operator (SPO) to answer some questions and give us an update directly from within the Cardano community.

Considering that many of our readers are new to the crypto space, we will have a mix of simple and technical questions.

Cardano SPO Column, interview with Falcon Stakepool [FALCO]

Hi, thanks for your time. Tell us something about yourself, where are you based and what is your background?

First of all thanks for this interview and for the interest shown in FALCO and the projects we are developing. My name is Matías and I’m from Buenos Aires, Argentina. Currently I’m based in Melbourne, Australia. I am a Senior Tech Lead and Backend Engineer with 12+ years of experience in IT development and production support in the Banking Industry. I work as Blockchain Engineer for an Australian company, where I am responsible for researching, designing, implementing and supporting all blockchain-based solutions using mostly Algorand.

I am Founder & Operator of Falcon Stakepool, a pool that leads many different initiatives in the Cardano space, being ALDEA the main one, as it represents the values ​​that we want to encompass and aims to generate greater participation by the Spanish-speaking community.

What’s the path that led you to Cardano and to become a Stake Pool Operator (SPO)?

It’s been a long ride, for sure. At first I got interested in blockchain technology around 2019, and I decided I wanted to reorient my efforts into this industry. I became an SPO in October 2020. I learnt about Cardano after reading about Blockchain 3.0, and got captivated by the idea of building a new financial system. 

I immediately fell for its mission and wanted to do as much as possible to support the network. I found the perfect opportunity to do so by creating the first Stake Pool 100% dedicated to promoting the adoption of Blockchain, cryptocurrencies and smart contracts in Latin America. 

You’re working on several projects on Cardano, please introduce them and explain what they do.

Stake pool operation is a business itself, with its own complexity, and my personal vision includes working on projects that raise awareness. Like any small business – and that’s what this is – it requires clear objectives, and goals that add value to the community.

I am actually working on ALDEA, a DAO for Spanish speakers to collaborate and solve local problems. GameChanger, which is in my opinion the best wallet for developers, entrepreneurs, students or anybody who wants to have a great user experience on the Web. I am also working on MAYZ Protocol: a decentralised finance protocol that aims to simplify the challenges of managing a well-diversified portfolio in a fast-evolving ecosystem and bring Cardano exposure to a wide range of different investors.

All these projects are 100% aligned with the mission and the vision of my pool, since they are focused on solving real problems to help people, with a particular focus on Latin America. And, as a recognition for all these contributions to the ecosystem, Falcon was selected by IOG on its Delegation Strategy, in May 2021, and in April 2022 we were selected again, this time by the Cardano Foundation.

However, nothing can be achieved alone: I had the chance to work with a great team of SPOs, such as MOXIE, QXT, CHIL, WHITE, ONE1, TOPO, APOLO, PEACE, TANGO and ITZA, to name a few.

You’re committed to promoting the adoption of blockchain and smart contracts in Latin America, how is it going? Is Cardano gaining traction there?

The adoption of blockchain and crypto in general I think is doing well in Latin America. Without a doubt, the most active community there is Ethereum’s. Cardano is getting more traction but I think we won’t see many use cases of its technology there until 2028. 

This may seem a pessimistic vision but I think it is more of a realistic one, since it is very early for Cardano: we are still defining the foundations of what we believe should be a much better and fairer system for everybody willing to take part in it. This is why more projects like our pool are what we need to raise awareness about everything that can be learned and achieved by using the Cardano network.

Awesome. Any final words? Where can people find you?

As previously mentioned, I wanted to thank you for the opportunity to share some of our work, as these kinds of opportunities are very important for small pools like mine. We are fueled by content writers and we are proud to use their words and our own vision to invite anyone interested to get involved. 

It is important to mention that when you have a vision of this magnitude, you have to establish objectives and understand the work around them. Surround yourself with people who share your vision with responsibility and ethics, and above all, have the support of your beloved ones. FALCO develops various projects and is also part of a much larger vision itself, which aims not only to be a spokesperson for Cardano’s values, but also to grow in this ecosystem until it has its own voice.

If you are interested in learning more about my pool, you can visit my website. If you want to participate (delegate) with FALCO, we encourage you to do so! The stake pool node does all its job on your behalf. As the Cardano Foundation states, ”stake pools are responsible for processing transactions and producing new blocks and are at the core of Ouroboros, the Cardano proof-of-stake protocol”.

For any enquiry or doubt you may have about Cardano or blockchain in general, you can find me on Telegram or you can also follow me on Twitter.

See you all on the next block!

Disclaimer: The opinions and views of the SPOs are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Cardano Foundation or IOG.