Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to Tez Talks Radio. I am your host, marisa True, and joining me today is Maria Belishova, the Tezos blockchain manager at Everstake. Everstake is a staking and validator service provider across 70 blockchain networks, including Tezos. So welcome to the show, Maria. How are you today?

Speaker 2: 0:18

Thank you. I'm good and I'm really glad to be here. Thank you.

Speaker 1: 0:22

I'm really glad to be here. Thank you. So, as is tradition on this show, I would love to start off with your personal journey into the world of blockchain, crypto, and how did you eventually end up at Everstake?

Speaker 2: 0:33

Yeah, my personal journey into the world of crypto started, I think, four or five years ago and I began my career in marketing ago and I began my career in marketing. I also always had a passion for new technologies and also I had one of my friends that worked in a blockchain startup and he told me so many information about crypto, blockchain, how it works, and also I was really fascinated about the opportunities blockchain field could give to people and I think it's like an innovation of the century and I thought that I need to join the company, the blockchain company, and my first crypto job was at the crypto exchange. I worked as a marketer. Two years ago. I joined EverStake as a blockchain manager.

Speaker 2: 1:38

Blockchain managers' main responsibilities are to monitor the network upgrades and network, use different proposals, government proposals, communicate with teams, with foundations, with influencers. Also depends on the network we are posting. We are creating different articles, guides and educate people how to stay, and also we are like blockchain managers, like a bridge between the project and, for example, our team, because we know all news, all grades, all tech stuff and etc. And I'm really happy to be a part of such a great company, such a big company. We are developing different things and I'm really happy to be here.

Speaker 1: 2:33

So you kind of have to wear a lot of different hats because, as you said, you need to sort of be the clear communicative bridge between what's actually going on on the network and all of the users who are effectively trying to stake their crypto to EverStake and to support the Tezos network. So tell me a bit more about EverStake itself. What are its functionalities and how does it serve various blockchain communities.

Speaker 2: 2:59

EverStake is the biggest decentralized staking provider. Also, we are the biggest retail validator Now we have more than 735,000 users. And also for the six years, we run more than 11,000 nodes across the 70 plus blockchains, including Tezos, solana, ethereum, cosmos, aptos, polygon, etc. The most famous. Also, in our team we have more than 125 experts worldwide. We are located around the globe 25 experts worldwide. We are located around the globe.

Speaker 2: 3:50

And also we have separate dedicated teams that manage different networks. For example, like Tezos, we have a separate team, mini team in our big team and for each blockchain also. Also, we have more than 400 servers by different hosting providers and also we need different guidelines to select the right server for each specific blockchain, because there are different recommendations. And also I want to highlight that for the past six years we are not only a validator, we are also an active investor in different blockchains, in different projects. Also, we are developing different tools. For example, we have our RPC node for Solana, named ExtraNode. It's also a separate team. We have different staking tools. Also, we have our SDK. We create dashboards, explorers for different blockchains and we are developing in different fields now Not only validating blockchains, but also other different things, and I think now we're something more than just a staking provider.

Speaker 1: 5:14

So EverStake itself is. It's almost like a blockchain network in that it's a massive decentralized network of all of these independent but still connected various efforts across multiple functionalities, multiple communities, user bases, multiple blockchains. So it is. The scale of the operation is quite profound. Is that right?

Speaker 2: 5:39

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And we also have a really great R&D and data science team, because R&D they are looking for new opportunities for us, for new projects, and every day they have a lot of calls, a lot of meetings to bring something new to ourake, to have more partners, to have more networks and also to employ more people, because we are bigger and bigger from year to year and we're proud of it.

Speaker 1: 6:20

I guess that's the thing about blockchain is it's evolving so quickly, so research and development is always going to be changing from, you know, day to day or minute to minute. So when exactly did EverStake integrate with Tezos?

Speaker 2: 6:37

EverStake integrated Tezos in 2018. And we have been actively involved with Tezos from the very beginning. This integration allowed users to stake their tokens and we became Baker. Also by providing our infrastructure. Our stake users could delegate their XTZ and participate in the Tezos network consensus and also, in return, they earn staking rewards. Now, within the Tezos ecosystem, we are the first in the top by our total stake and voting power, and also we are the first by number of stakers and delegators. And it's not only numbers for us, it's the understanding about our weight in the ecosystem.

Speaker 2: 7:41

We are an active participant here in all different governments' proposals, in educational content, and we understand our voting power and that we could give different opinions and changes, for example, to the protocol, to its improvement. Government's decision is a really important thing for us, because we never vote like the majority voted for this and we voted also for this never, because we need to study carefully all changes and how it influences, especially on bakers, on delegators, and what is the mood in the community. We also communicate with our delegators to understand their mood, how they like this proposal, this change or no, and we discuss all these changes internally with our team. Also, our R&D department included in this conversation and we need to study all the pros and cons of each proposal to understand the future the future of Tether, the future of us as Baker and the future for delegators. Always our decision. They are, I think, well communicated and because we need to understand the benefits for the ecosystem.

Speaker 1: 9:19

So EverStake is far more than just, you know, a staking and a validator service. It's actually also a very proactive and embedded part of the Tezos community in that you represent various interests of you know the bakers that exist on the network and understanding what their needs, what their priorities are, and sort of being able to articulate that and bring those interests and have them represented between EverStake and you know, I guess, the broader Tezos development team, which I think is probably one of those things that if you are unfamiliar to, you know the complexities of staking you don't tend to be aware of, like those you know, those that might engage with dApps on the network don't necessarily know how much activity is going on on this level of infrastructure. So to those that might be unfamiliar, can you give us kind of this brief 101 on staking you know, like how does it work, what are the benefits and how does it actually contribute to the security and the robustness of the Tezos network?

Speaker 2: 10:23

Yeah, sure, staking is a process used in proof-of-stake networks and the main goals are to secure the network, to validate transactions and to produce new blocks. In staking, users stake, or in other words, they lock up their tokens to support the network and network operations and in return, they receive rewards, like for newcomers. We can compare it to like this bank deposit, like this bank deposit. It's maybe now it's not the right comparison, but the process and the main idea we have like something the same, but in staking, no one will take your funds and you have the full custody of your tokens. Of course, you need to be aware of scammers, because in blockchain it's so, so, so, and maybe, if you join the crypto field, you need to watch all videos or like, read a lot of information to be ready for different attacks, because we have our Discord server and often users come with not questions but with statements like they stole my tokens or my wallet disappeared or something like that. We try to educate our users, try to produce more articles, more threads on Twitter, etc. But these decisions are so rare. Yeah, and I think the main benefits of staking crypto, of course, it's passive income. It's the main goal for maybe everyone who comes to staking, as a user, it's full custody. As I told earlier, only you have access to your tokens and no one could stake or unstake your tokens. Also, with staking, you could support the project you like and contribute to the security of this project and also you, by staking, you could do your do the blockchain more resistant to different attacks. Also, it's the benefit is decentralization, because staking encourages a larger number of validators and delegators in the network and it's promoting decentralization, and I think decentralization is the main goal and idea of many networks nowadays. And more validators and more delegators. They help to distribute the control of the network and it really reduces the risk of centralization and we could say that the blockchain could be more trustworthy for all users and for all participants. Also, I think one of the benefits is decision-making and governance participation, because if you're a staker, you also, in many networks, you could vote and participate in on-chain governance. For example, you could cast your vote for different upgrades, for different changes to the network and you could influence the development of each project or, for example, different future changes. And it's very cool that you could be a part of the ecosystem and you could be an active participant. I think it's so important to be the part of ecosystem you like, for example, and you could do some great changes for the project.

Speaker 2: 14:52

Yeah, and about security, I could say that staking is very important and it's, I think, the main idea. Because staking is very important and it's, I think, the main idea? Because staking incentivizes honest behavior in the network, because validators they are rewarded only for validating transactions correctly and different, for example, misbehavior or failure. It can lead to penalties, like slashing, and slashing is like when a validator misbehaves in different networks they have different rules and, for example, 5-10% of stake could be slashed, but it depends on the network. Also, staking deters attacks because staking increases the cost of attacking the network, like 51% attack and attackers. They need a significant portion of stake tokens, but it become more expensive.

Speaker 2: 16:12

Also, staking promotes decentralization. As I told earlier, more stakers and mobile daters means more decentralized network. Also, staking ensures reliable operations. Validators maintain high time and performance. And also I want to add that rewards are also connected with it, because in different network your API level depends on the validators at time and the higher at time, logically the higher rewards you receive. And also, staking is a long-term commitment because you're locking your tokens in long-term success. It's also a great influence on the network you're drawing.

Speaker 1: 17:16

So there's basically a lot of benefits on both an individual level and also like a contribution to the network level. So, if I understood it at its simplest, it's basically you commit your TES or whatever cryptocurrency based on whatever blockchain you are supporting, to the network and those are effectively staked, though, as you mentioned, you have full custody over them, so you can still move them wherever you'd like to support the operations of the network, and that gives you benefits in terms of you achieve rewards, you know, you get to participate in on-chain governance, you get to support decentralization and then, in terms of how it actually benefits the network, it enhances decentralization further so that you incentivize honest behavior, you deter attacks and basically, the network can operate more and more efficiently. So the more decentralized, the more nodes there are, the more validators there are that are basically keeping the network operational, the better dApps, the better marketplaces can actually run atop that network. Is that right?

Speaker 1: 18:26

Yeah you're right. So then, when it comes to Tezos, I know recently, following its Paris upgrade, there were quite a few updates that actually happened to the staking mechanism. Can you help us understand what the change looks like and how that impacts staking on Tezos?

Speaker 2: 18:46

Yeah, sure, the Paris upgrade introduced a new functionality for the ecosystem it's staking and also is a new role staker because previously we had only baker and delegator. And staking means that stakers contribute to the baker's security deposit but without transfer and custody of their funds in in return, as they receive for staking rewards, but from the test protocol, because in delegation users receive rewards from Baker and, unlike delegation, staking, state funds frozen and also could be subject to selection because delegation is liquid. Delegation and selection, the status of funds are liquid. Also, stake funds incentivize more because they contribute more to network security and also, but it's more risky because your stake funds could be slaved but your delegated funds can't be slashed. Yeah, and maybe about the main difference is status Delegation liquid is taken frozen. Also, your rewards and baking power count twice. You earn more. Also, delegated funds can be slashed and staked funds could be slashed Also in delegation you receive rewards from Baker in staking, from the TESOS protocol and about the status, for example, when you're delegated and about the status.

Speaker 2: 20:57

For example, when you're delegated, your funds are liquid and you don't have the locking period. You could unstake your tokens immediately. You don't need to wait, but in staking you need to wait for cycles. It's 11 days to unstake your tokens, 11 days to unstake your tokens and also in staking you receive your reward also immediately and it's automatically added to your staking balance. But in delegation the first reward comes in 10 days. I think it's's the main basic difference. I think it's the total.

Speaker 1: 21:47

So what it sounds like is between delegation and staking. Staking is sort of higher risk to the individual, but the trade-off is that there are greater rewards should they participate in that domain versus simply delegating their TES to a baker. Yeah, Since the upgrade, have you seen a difference in sort of the user activity or the user preferences in terms of where they would actually like to stake their TES?

Speaker 2: 22:17

Yeah, we monitored the situation with our stake, with our total stake. Total stake includes delegated funds and stake funds and also we saw an activity that some delegators became stakers and they moved their funds in stake from delegated funds. So, yeah, it's a tendency in the Tethys network but I think we need to promote staking more because not everyone knows about the difference between delegation and staking. Not everyone knows about the upgrades, various upgrades and the introduction of staking, and from our site we created an article about staking. Also a video guide we created and always posting about in our social media about how users can stake, how to do it and what are the benefits or services. We try to educate our community and to inspire them to start staking.

Speaker 1: 23:36

So, basically, since the Paris upgrade was only a matter of a couple months ago, there's still the learning curve when it comes to the way people want to interact with their TES and how they actually want to use it to to benefit the network. Um, especially given, you know, if, if someone was starting out and it was the beginning of their journey when it comes to wanting to stake TES to support their network, you know why should they use EverStake over other platforms Like what are? I know you've just mentioned that. You know EverStake provides a lot of educational materials to help guide the process, but what are sort of the other benefits there are to using EverStake?

Speaker 2: 24:15

Yeah, as I told also earlier, we have different teams for each blockchain to do the staking experience, do our best for our users' staking experience and we maintain high performance and security level. And we maintain high performance and security level. And also we ensure maximum rewards level for delegators, because in some networks it's connected with validators uptime. Also, I think our validator has really competitive fees. For example, in Texas we have only 8% fee for staking and now it's, I think, from the top of the legators of bakers is the lowest fee and this way we try to attract more people to Tethys Staking and to share our idea of promoting T. We validate and get information about our performance, about our notes, stake delegators, uptime, server location and I think we are really open and transparent for our users. Also, we have experienced team and everyone knows what to do in different situation, in different strange situation, for example, because there are are some I don't know how outage in networks sometimes and we need to do our best web DevOps that monitors the situation in the blockchain. Or, for example, with one of the team, they were the first from all validators and tried to figure out what happened, not to stop the blockchain and the operations. Also, we have active our governance position, as I told it's really important for us to vote to. As I told it's really important for us to vote, to be a part of community, to monitor updates and to be a part of improvements of each network.

Speaker 2: 27:27

Also, we support institutional staking and retail staking for individual users and institutional clients and we could offer also customized services. And also we are flexible for different opportunities. And also we have a wide range of networks 70 plus networks we validate and users, for example, could stake Tezos and other blockchain in one place. They don't need to go to other validators, other platforms and to do everything in one place. Also, we are always ready to help for our users. Also, we are always ready to help our users. We help our Discord when we have a ticketing system. If users have some problems or questions, they always could come to our Discord and we are always happy to help and to provide the necessary information. And we are always with our users. And we are also active in social media in Twitter. We always post our updates in different networks in different subjects, subjects, for example, when we have Paris upgrade, oxford upgrade and all governance decisions communicate with our users and users know where to find us.

Speaker 1: 29:13

So there's a whole bunch of benefits to basically participating when it comes to everstake. So, just to run through some of the top ones that you mentioned, you know whether you are an institutional or retail investor, education and support seem to be two really prominent features in terms of there's a lot of material that's out there to help guide users through the process. Competitive fees, which I think, given the current landscape, are very critical and very important, because everyone wants to make sure that they're sort of getting the best deal out of this. And especially, as you were alluding to earlier, also understanding. You know how important things like fees and transparency are, because there is a lot of risk, um within the blockchain industry and basically making sure that you are putting your, your well-earned crypto somewhere safe and somewhere secure, um. And you know, especially when it's to the benefit of the broader network, you want to make sure that that's guaranteed.

Speaker 1: 30:12

And then I think it also helps to know that you know everstake is also active in each of these networks. It's not just you're not strictly sitting on an operational level. You fundamentally know what's going on within these different networks, how the technology impacts these processes and then how you can basically best cater to stakers and validators. And then, last but not least, you know, as you said, there's a multitude of channels that people can reach, whether it's Twitter, whether it's Discord, whether it's the website. So anyone who's looking for more information, all of the resources are out there. So it makes EverStake, I guess, a very, very well integrated system in terms of anything users need. It's sort of developed for them.

Speaker 2: 30:58

Yeah, and as I told about blockchain managers, we have a separate blockchain manager who interacts with community, with the foundation, with team and with our team, and because we are not just have this network and validation, but we are aware of everything that happened in this network and it's important for us to be as a part of this ecosystem. Yeah, not just validating and say goodbye and we don't know nothing, but we really need to be aware of everything.

Speaker 1: 31:34

So then, on a personal level, how do you make sure that you stay up to date on everything?

Speaker 2: 31:42

My everyday beginning Twitter. I scroll all the news. Also, it's a Discord service all the channels, all Slack channels with different teams.

Speaker 1: 31:54

Yeah, my everyday starts with scrolling all the news across my page and, last but not least, are there any sort of exciting announcements or things that are coming up within EverStake that you'd like to share for our audience?

Speaker 2: 32:11

Yeah, our 8% fee for staking. It's our main announcement for the past month, I think, and also soon we want to do an interview with a TELUS expert to navigate all staking questions. We also want to do a Google form for our users and to share it on Twitter and users could ask all questions they want to know about TESA staking. And then we are planning to do an AMI session, like Twitter space, with a Tesla expert to give the new vision about staking and all the important questions Amazing.

Speaker 1: 33:05

Well, maria, this has been thoroughly educational. Thank you so much for running us through not only whatever stake does, but also just giving us a bit of a primer on how people can start on their you know, their tesla staking journey, whether it's delegation or whether it's staking. I'm so thankful that you managed to run through all of the critical differences so that people can can make the best decision for them. But I hope everything is otherwise well and thank you so much for joining me today thank you.

Speaker 2: 33:32

Thank you for the invitation. Yeah, I'm really happy to be here and to share information about staking and especially TESA staking my pleasure.