2021 VoltPool Recap

2021 VoltPool Recap

VoltPool had a fantastic first year validating over 3000 blocks and rewarding over 2 million Ada to its 2000 delegators on the Cardano Blockchain. The year 2021 started out running node version 1.24.0 and ended with version 1.31 while supporting over 4 relays and 2 block producers: Volt and Volt2.

VoltPool is hosted in Azure with premium grade solid state drives and architecture supporting 99.95% uptime. There are (4) ways to obtain the status of singing a block:

  • Validated – Block Producer (BP) produced block Missed – Block Producer is down, keys are expired and not able to sign block, or network propagation issues
  • Ghosted – Block Producer is up, but network propagation issues caused the node to miss signing block
  • Stolen – Two Pools were slated to sign a block at the same time i.e., slot battle and lost

Below is a screenshot that represents the status of VoltPool from Epoch 237-319:

alt text for screen readers

Highlights of the year:

  • Cardano had 74 epochs. VoltPool signed blocks and rewarded its delegators on every single Epoch totaling voer 2 million Ada. One of the reasons VoltPool is a top 100 Pool on the network.
  • During those 74 epochs, we had a mixed number stolen, ghosted, and 1 missed block across 74 epochs with a pool performance of 99.28%.
  • Primary issues of the 1 missed block were from the operator’s fault. VoltPool is transparent, and while we boast of being a top 100 pool, our operators are not perfect. The year 2022 will strive to be better than the previous year with defined processes and procedures with performance enhancements and resiliency.
  • Size of the Pool fluctuates throughout the year, but due to VoltPool not being selected to be part of the Sundae Swap ISO, vast outflows to those pools occur. This was in no relation to our past pool performance.

In summary, Cardano has seen a dramatic increase in transaction and network usage. It has caused network congestion issues for its users and propagation issues for its StakePool Operators. Due to the heavy load on the network, SPOs are receiving higher than average ghosted blocks and missed blocks to no fault of on the SPO. Block size will be increased to support the heavy loads, and IOHK is creating a P2P network to support faster block propagation times. Overall, VoltPool is still doing well and has produced rewards for its delegators every Epoch.  
 
Validating Blocks faster than Lightening,

Drew