Know Your Indexer #10 | Dan - Blocksteady.xyz


We are excited to introduce Blocksteady.xyz team in this new segment called “ Know Your Indexer ” in this 10th edition.

They are always prepared in The Graph’s communities like Telegram and Discord to help the new delegators and answer any questions regarding the protocol.


Blocksteady.xyz team interview

Ghostym:

  1. How did you get into Blockchain ? How long have you been running nodes or participating in the blockchain ecosystem?

Dan: I first started to explore blockchain in 2016 while working for a company that facilitated identity verification and client onboarding for financial services companies, they were looking at Ethereum as a solution to store records related to identity. I was fascinated with the technology and began looking at applicable use cases and also began mining Ether using GPU’s. I have run nodes for various networks since 2018, however these were usually simple validators which held stake for a share of the network.

Zuni:

  1. What was your first experience with The Graph and why did you choose to participate in The Graph ecosystem?

Dan: I came across The Graph via social media channels and immediately loved it, when I understood that many of the decentralised apps that I used every day were driven using data from subgraphs I recognised this will be a foundational part of web3. The fact that anyone can join the permissionless network in a variety of roles is so empowering, you don’t need to climb a corporate ladder nor be judged on the credentials on my CV to play a vital part in the ecosystem.

Ghostym:

  1. Did you participate in the Mission Control testnet?

Dan: Yes, I felt very fortunate to have been accepted into the program and was so glad that I applied. I was unsure at the time whether I would have the technical know-how to make it through but thought I’d throw my hat into the ring anyway and it ended up being a fantastic learning process as well as a good way to get to know the community.

Zuni:

  1. How many indexers do you currently have in mainnet?

Dan: I have a single indexer operating on the mainnet, it can be found at blocksteady.eth on the network explorer.

Ghostym:

  1. Are you currently participating in the current testnet?

Dan: Yes, I see it as a way to experiment not only with new software releases that are coming from the team but also (hopefully soon!) a way to identify subgraphs that will be making their way to mainnet and planning how stake will be best utilised. It’s a great sandbox for testing out new processes with my infrastructure too.

Zuni:

  1. How do you stay connected with your delegator community?

Dan: I have a telegram channel that my delegators are welcome to join, where I provide updates on changes to infrastructure as well as anything allocation or rewards/fees related. I’m also active in the discord

Ghostym:

  1. How many people from your team are participating in The Graph’s community?

Dan: I established blocksteady after implementation of GIP0002 afforded me the ability to dedicate myself fully as an Indexer on The Graph, currently I am a one man team but will look to expand this out as the demands of this role on the network increase. While we await further subgraphs to index I spend a lot of my day researching best dev ops practices and learning more about subgraph development, deployment and building for web3.

Zuni:

  1. What are you excited about the future of The Graph?

Dan: My most recent place of employment was a large bank where more time was spent on getting agreement on the work to be done rather than the work itself. The fact that so many innovative apps are springing up within the decentralised web and that anyone can play a part in the permissionless nature of serving data with The Graph is exemplary of just how much friction has been removed in this model when bringing a product to market. As the backbone for this ecosystem, The Graph is extremely exciting for me.

Ghostym:

  1. Which blockchain networks are you excited to index for The Graph?

Dan: Wherever innovation is being fostered, and the ecosystem is maintained in a fair decentralised manner. I have begun hosting a node for Terra as their Mirror and Anchor Protocol apps are nice DeFi solutions, and I like the outlook on Solana and am also hosting a node on that network. In the NFT space I would like to see Flow supported by The Graph as it seems truly built from the ground up for NFT exchange.

Zuni:

  1. Why should delegators choose you?

Dan: I am open, honest and am focussed on delivering steady rewards for my delegates on the network. I’m excited about new subgraphs arriving to mainnet as this will give myself an opportunity to attempt to squeeze as much out of indexing rewards and query fees on the network. The task of balancing your stake according to curation signal and tuning your cost models to net query traffic will be an opportunity for smaller indexers like myself to gain an edge among some of the bigger stakes on the network. I am very approachable and open to answering questions both related to delegation, my indexing service or the network in general. You can find me on the discord as dancube#8939 on telegram as @dancube or in my telegram channel.


INFORMATION ABOUT THE INDEXER

Social Networks
Twitter
Web page
Wallet address: 0xf3f182e859f789af8d6c2223d15c691471c79a2b


If you want to participate in this segment, follow the next steps:

1 . Ask your questions in this post by leaving a comment
2 . You can review the other comments and see the answers directly from the Indexer
3 . Don’t forget to share this with your friends and colleagues to learn about the exciting ecosystem of The Graph ! :man_astronaut: :stars:

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What is your strategy for optimizing your delegators rewards?

Thanks for the question @Topher66. From an indexing rewards perspective, my plan is to allocate stake according to the current picture of signal to already allocated stake ratio (from other Indexers on the network).

There has been a tool published within the discord community for programmatically calculating the optimal weighting to place stake accordingly to available subgraphs, I plan to experiment and produce a model with this prior to the next time I make my allocations. I will update my findings using this approach within this thread and in my telegram channel.

When queries are live this approach will obviously change as traffic density per subgraphs will come in to play.

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