Today, I would like to go through a list of the best Cardano Stake Pool Operators (SPOs): the ones trying to change the world. Why are stake pools that important, why do they matter? Stake pools are absolutely central for the Cardano network, they are the heart of the ecosystem: publishing blocks but more importantly structuring a parallel economy by the people for the people outside of centralized exchanges.
That’s the cute way to put it. In reality, there is an absolute emergency to escape from a deadly empire composed of VCs, central banks, powerful trusts and family offices who decide where the money flows and why it flows where it flows. The stake pools below are the beginning of a legacy, a map of the solution to give to our children as a crypto toolbox to tackle all the challenges the world is already facing. It’s a dose of hope in the middle of a brutal civilisational collapse.
Just like I did for the best Cardano projects, let’s go through the best SPOs!
1. Chef Stake Pool (ticker: CHEF) – Article Contributor
An actual chef and a tech guy who happen to be brothers, had the idea of creating the chef-pool. Their stake pool aims to be a part in decentralizing all transactions and support the Cardano project. They have been involved with Cardano since 2017 and they are truly passionate about the change that can bring to our future, banking and the overall financial system. Based in Vancouver, this pool will be proudly fundraising 50% of each epoch’s margin into the action against hunger in Africa fund.
2. Alamo Stake Pool (ticker: ALAMO) – Article Contributor
The Alamo stake pool is a small pool of 145 delegators at time of writing. It is targeting strong security. Based in Texas, operators have decades of cybersecurity experience undergoing the painstaking process of hardening and securing server infrastructure and information systems for the Department of Defense. In the spirit of IOHK & Cardano’s “do it right he first time” mentality, Alamo Stakepool operators personally handle the security controls in physical security. A perfect decentralized choice for your ADA and one of the best Cardano stake pools.
3. CarPool Stake Pool (ticker: VROOM) – Article Contributor
CarPool is dedicated to driving blockchain adoption through education. The CarPool stake pool commits 10% of operator earnings towards two non-profits and supports the development of the CarPool Education System. Also, CarPool Education provides LIVE & Interactive learning workshops, courses, and individualized consultation for learners, organizations, and community businesses. CarPool educators deliver a wholistic approach to understanding the philosophical and social underpinnings of this technology while teaching every learner how to interact with this revolutionary technology safely and securely. CarPool Education also aims to bring delegations and revenue to all single-pool stake pool operators through its unique onboarding system.
4. Psilobyte Stake Pool (ticker: PSB) – Article Contributor
The Psilobyte pool is a hybrid baremetal/cloud Single Pool Operator from Edmonton, AB. Canada committed to owning only one pool to help Cardano decentralization. Their mission is to help the community grow, and they are happy to provide technical assistance and help develop community projects. They are involved with various projects like Cardano BSD Alliance, TosiDrop, Koios, and more. They also love helping fellow SPOs, and run testnet pools [PSBT] to help test all the latest Cardano features! Active on Twitter @877PSBYTE6 for assistance. They also drop tokens from time to time to their valued delegators.
5. Air Stake Pool (ticker: AIR) – Article Contributor
Producing blocks since day one! And we will never miss one! AIR | ADABreathes was created so we could contribute to the decentralisation of the protocol – helping to have a more resilient and robust Cardano – and ADABreathes could eventually become a non-profit organisation to help with environmental causes. For now, we are supporting One Tree Plant with 10% of our rewards. We believe we should take care of our home, our planet. We need to create the right environment so we can thrive and build a better future
6. Sagan Stake Pool (ticker: SAGAN)– Article Contributor
Registered in Epoch 246, SAGAN Stake Pool is comprised of 3 Stake Pool Operators (SPOs) with backgrounds in network engineering, cybersecurity, and systems administration. Their infrastructure runs on 100% renewable, geographically diverse, bare metal servers for maximum redundancy. Their mission is to increase general exposure to science and nature by way of Astronomy. 10% of pool profits are donated to Astronomers Without Borders, which aims to introduce young minds to the wonders of the Cosmos. They produce an Epoch Calendar each year as well to help project leaders track Epoch boundaries in an at-a-glance fashion. 25% of their calendar profits benefit more traditional charities.
7. Dionysus Pool (ticker: DIO) – Article Contributor
Dionysus has been created to foster the Cardano eco-system, providing state-of-the-art infrastructure and security for the block production. We are also committed to deliver new dApp projects on the Cardano network. Team is currently working on the solution for decentralised Contracts for Future Difference (dCFDs), being shipped as Web3 service on https://kalyx.io, rolling-out Q3/2023. We do not meld you, as we stand the ground with Cardano Community. Our service is one-of-the-kind and lets you invest, hedge or simply have fun with your family and friends. Stake with DIO and help us to deliver dApps for Cardano. Follow us on Twitter to get the latest information.
8. GranADA Stake Pool (ticker: GRANA)
The GranADA stake pool is a truly decentralized stake pool running on private bare-metal servers. Their computers are hosted in Switzerland and powered with renewable energy. They supported the Cardano Forest and they currently donate 25% of their pool rewards to the CNC Ala project to compensate the carbon footprint of the Cardano network. They also contribute every month to the WFP to help families in need: one of the best Cardano stake pools out there!
9. Scene Stake Pool (ticker: SCENE) – Article Contributor
The Scene Stake pool is a security focused SPO is run by a technically proficient operator, running on high-performance hardware with diverse relays. They currently operate four relay nodes, ensuring maximum uptime. Why do they run a Stake Pool? Simply because they believe in Cardano’s mission.
10. Foster Stake Pool (ticker: FSTR) – Article Contributor
The Foster Pool is running a single pool (currently very tiny pool) with 2 relays and a block producer on bare metals. Their team consists of two people: a data scientist and a highly experienced programmer. Their mission is to help one of the most vulnerable parts of our society, which is foster kids. They participate in the “CASA volunteer program” at the moment, and planning to help the kids in the system with donations from pool rewards in the future.
11. Capital Stake Pool (ticker: CSP) – Article Contributor
Capital Stake Pool has been on Cardano since Jormungandr (the experimental version of the Shelley client) was still in beta test back in 2019. We are proud members of CSPA and partners of Astarter (a project born under the wing of Emurgo). In addition, we will participate in World Mobile with two nodes: here and there. We participated in the incentivized testnet (ITN) with more than 4800 blocks produced and have been on the Shelley mainnet since day 0. Our mission has always been to support decentralization by operating a single pool with a high pledge (currently 1m ADA) and low fees. We also care about having a low environmental footprint. The core of our infrastructure is powered by an 8kWp photovoltaic system and a 12.6kWh LiFePo4 battery pack, and the relay servers are located in datacenters using a mixture of hydro and wind power. To this must be added the donation of 5,200 trees through Veritree (including the donation from the other CSP owner). CSP’s SPO is one of the pioneers of Plutus and has made significant contributions to the development of the leaderlogs by Andrew Westberg, one of the tools most used by other SPOs.
12. Maluiin Stake Pool (ticker: MALU)
A mission driven pool to connect the unconnected in West Papua, Indonesia. We aim to bring free internet to remote villages to be powered with renewable hydro electricity to remove dependence on difficult to transport fossil fuels.
13. Obi Stake Pool (ticker: OBI)
The OBI pool is a SPO running a redundant baremetal Infrastructure in two datacenters in Austria. They take 0% fee from your DelegationRewards and they donate 100% of their OperatorRewards to Ukraine for Medicine/Durable Foods trough http://nachbarinnot.orf.at (Austrian reliefAct).
14. Seaside Stake Pool (ticker: SEA)
The Seaside staking pool (ticker: SEA) is an independent, efficient, family-run stake pool providing affordable staking. Seaside Staking is an official member of the Armada Alliance. The alliance was formed to achieve true decentralization by promoting and enabling the use of eco-friendly low power ARM and RISC-V processors. The most common example is the Raspberry Pi 4, which Seaside Staking uses for one public and one private relay.
15. Upstream Stake Pool (ticker: UPSTR)
The Upstream pool (ticker: UPSTR ) is an ADA staking pool dedicated to providing the Cardano community with a reliable and lovingly maintained node 24/7. Simple, accessible financial education is at the heart of their decisions, helping you to join their journey to become financially independent Upstreamers! Their pool is running on 100% renewable energy. Giving 30% of their operator profits back to charities and community driven projects. One of the best Cardano stake pools in the UK!
16. Adria Stake Pool (ticker: ADRIA)
Adria Pool is trusted high-performance ZERO fees Single Stake Pool that has been operating for 1 year on the Cardano mainnet and is a member of Cardano SPA and xSPO Alliance. Pool is contributing to Cardano community through various project. They are educating people in SE Europe (Balkan region) about Cardano and our mission. On development side they are providing an API for Cardano Blockchain Insights (@InsightsCardano) – Twitter. Recently they started new project for insights in to dApps on Cardano network. Website that we are developing is http://dappsoncardano.com – where users can get lot of infos and metrics for dApps. It’s a great place to browse through the dozens of Cardano dapps and discover new ones.
17. Dog Stake Pool (ticker: DOG)
The DOG pool is a group of passionate dog lovers from different countries who also love the mission of Cardano, a project with principles and great academic rigor in the blockchain that aims to generate positive global change and activate a new era of sustainable innovation to distribute around the world. They believe that Cardano can make a better world not only for human but also for animals! Dog Pool will contribute monthly part of the rewards to different canine charities. One of the best Cardano stake pools supporting animals!
18. ADA4Good Stake Pool (ticker: A4G)
ADA4Good pool’s mission is to “Educate, Connect and Empower” children. We support Cardano and World Mobile so that these unbanked and unconnected children can become connected and empowered! This is why we invest in and support both projects by creating awareness for them and by also hosting our own WMT Earth Node WMT4Good (https://twitter.com/wmt4good). Last but not least, these children need to be educated so they have a better chance of seizing the opportunities provided by these systems. That is why we donate to save the children.
19. Euskal Stake Pool (ticker: EUSKL)
The Euskal pool is powered and maintained by IT Professionals with more than 18 years experience. Their main mission is very simple: the Cardano mission. They are a 0% margin pool and proud members of the Cardano Single Pool Alliance (CSPA). Their hardware infrastructure combines cloud-based (main) and in-house environmentally friendly servers (failover), ensuring 99.99% uptime.
20. Hero Stake Pool (ticker: HERO)
The HERO pool is a Cardano Stake Pool which is committed to help changing the world for the better. They will donate 10% of all rewards each quarter to First Responders Children’s Foundation.
21. GRC1 Stake Pool (ticker: GRC1)
A fair and decent pool network, built by a professional engineer. Simple. No big words. Just online.
22. Envy Stake Pool (ticker: ENVY)
Their mission: to aid in improving the lives of children, awareness of adoption for foster care children, and to support this effort financially with stake pool rewards.
23. Hug Stake Pool (ticker: HUG)
HUG is a community and mission driven stake pool, operating since epoch 262. They offer extra tokens on top of the usual ADA rewards by using 80% of the pool fee to payout extra to delegators. 20% of operator profits are also donated to mental health charities. Mark who is the owner and operator of HUG is an IT professional with over 15 years experience in the IT industry. HUG stake pool runs on dedicated bare metal servers built to IOG recommendations.
24. Yoada Stake Pool (ticker: YOADA)
A relay Servers all around the World with professional DevOps experience. 24/7 Monitoring and Support. Top baremetal servers 8cores/32GO. Proud member of the cardano single pool alliance to help decentralized Cardano. Operating since epoch 211.
25. Gaming Stake Pool (GAME)
Welcome to GAME stake pool! 0% Margins until 5M+, 2K $ADA Pledge. The first “stake-to-play” pool with Cardano. They believe that gaming will be the next wave of mainstream adoption into the blockchain space. Cardano is the best ecosystem to utilize in order to bridge that gap. Their goal is to help gamers to learn about the Cardano network and earn some rewards while doing what they love: gaming!
26. Apex Stake Pool (ticker: APEX)
The APEX pool is a stake Pool run by an IT Professional with more than 24 years of experience, with a lot of experience in IT security and IT best practices. The mission of APEX Stake pool is to help and educate the Cardano community, to bring more people in the Cardano ecosystem, and to contribute to the development and decentralization of Cardano. For the contributions to the Cardano Ecosystem, APEX received until now a community delegation from the Cardano Foundation 3 times and from Input Output Global 2 times.
27. Token Stake Pool (ticker: TOKEN)
The Token Stake Pool is a member of the Armada Alliance @alliance_armada by operating an arm-based block producer and low-powered bare metal setup in Mexico.
28. Pi Stake Pool [ticker: 314]
The 314 pool is working hard to uplift the Cardano ecosystem, including building useful dApps, contributing to open source, pushing for integration across the ecosystem, or explaining Cardano concepts in an approachable way. Stake in this pool if you want to support educational content for the ecosystem.
29. Dad Stake Pool (ticker: DAD)
As Dads, the DAD pool thinks that dads are awesome! That’s why their mission-driven focus is to help combat the fatherless crisis we face today in modern society. DAD Stake Pool will be donating 10% of our profits to help fight the absence of father crisis. Checkout this infographic for some of the additional risks associated with fatherless homes. One of the best Cardano stake pools for us!
30. Demon Stake Pool (ticker: DEMON)
Stake with the Demon pool, in addition to our holders, holders of our friendly projects and ADA holders can earn $demon, with $demon attend ADA/NFT Lottery, Whitelist/NFT Shop.
31. Degas Stake Pool (ticker: DEGAS)
Staking rewards with DEGAS will be used to fight energy waste and reduce GHG emissions with at least 10% of profits donated to selected NGOs and Charities quarterly. They also contribute to support startup projects to reduce CO2 and methane emissions from industrial projects.
32. XYZ Stake Pool (ticker: XYZ)
StakePoolXYZ aims to participate in, support, and expand global decentralization of the Cardano blockchain network & ecosystem. Our focus is on Africa, representing it by establishing & linking nodes on servers based in & across African countries. They are a single pool operation, running reliably & securely, minting blocks routinely. XYZ stands for anyone from anywhere. Not about financial gain today, rather financial freedom for all tomorrow.
33. Lone Star Staking Pool (ticker: LSSP)
Better than a long description, read their about us page, it’s very touching!
34. Bio Stake Pool (ticker: BIO)
Stake ADA to the BIO pool and shape the future of our earth actively by voting for environmental protection projects around the world. You as a delegator choose where and how much of the pool rewards are getting donated to! You can make a difference. The BIO goal is to give environmental and species protection organizations as well as our delegators a voice to support the greatest gift we got: Nature. Their vision is a peaceful world where every being is treated equally and with respect. They truly believe that our future is important and we can only save it by saving our planet. One of the best green Cardano stake pools out there!
35. Harmonic Stake Pool (ticker: ARMN)
Harmonic’s main mission is to allow Developers the best experience on Cardano. They do this by creating opensource tools, that make Cardano integration as easy as an “Hello world”. The node uptime near to 100% since the pool has been created translating in minimized number of blocks lost. NO cloud machines. NO centralized servers.
36. Cardano Center Poland (ticker: CCPL) – Article Contributor
A part of Polish Cardano Community Hub, this Single Pool Operator brings a lot of educational content and support for Polish Cardano Community. Thanks to the owners’ broad network of contacts, CCPL is able to bring interesting cooperations for delegators, including ISPO like Byron Network. Open for everyone, 0% fee and Cardano Native Tokens – is there a better choice? Feel free to contact them on Twitter for any questions regarding the pool.
37. Amint Stake Pool (ticker: AMINT)
AMINT is a pool of passionate people driving blockchain adoption through education and community engagement. As a Lead Educator & Developer for the CarPool Education System, all delegations with AMINT helps support the development of LIVE & Interactive Learning Workshops, Courses, and consultation for learners and organizations such as TechAlley, BlackFire Innovations, the University of Las Vegas, and numerous others. CarPool educators focus extensively on a wholistic approach to understanding the philosophical and social underpinnings of this technology while guiding every learner through the process of working with this revolutionary technology safely and securely.
38. A3C Stake Pool (ticker: A3C)
A3C Pool airdrops it’s 2.5% margin rewards and popular NFTs. In their spare time they help other SPOs, devs, nft artists with free branding / marketing advice. A3C has also solidified many partnerships which delegators can leverage to get free tokens, i.e. dripdropz, tosidrop, and vending machine. Also, everything they giveway is public knowledge.
39. Bitterbal Stake Pool (ticker: BITB)
Cardano stakepool which focusses on building the Dutch Cardano Community by creating video and blog content in Dutch. Teaching people about blockchain and Cardano in a simple way. Our stakepool donates to the Dutch Food Bank which collects food surpluses and donates them to people in need. Less food waste and helping people in poverty. So good for people and planet by reducing waste. Stake with us and join the Dutch Cardano Community!
40. Flux Stake Pool (ticker: FLUX)
The FLUX pool has been operating since the ITN on Cardano as a single pool operator. They value decentralization of the network and have been using 100% bare metal nodes and relays since inception. Both partners of the pool are highly involved with cardano on a technical and social level working to educate the community.
41. Valhalla Pool (ticker: VLHLA) – Article Contributor
This is the Valhalla Pool: a member of the Cardano Single Pool and xSPO Alliance! Our mission is to educate community and promote Cardano decentralization. We also donate 10% of operator rewards every month to the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, to fight against illegal fishing and ocean pollution around the globe. We also donate 10% of operator rewards every month to the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, to fight against illegal fishing and ocean pollution around the globe. VLHLA Pool delegators can win CNFTs and tokens by staking ADA with us.
42. AdaSquirrel Pool (ticker: SQRL)
Welcome to ADASquirrel, the cutest Stakepool on Cardano! We are a team of three Cardano enthusiasts from Italy with 20 years of experience in IT and marketing. Thanks to our daily activity in the Cardano Community we can count on many collaborations with the best Defi and NFT projects in the space! We organise weekly giveaways for our stakers and we are currently working on our own NFT collection. Don’t miss out our last updates, follow us on twitter and become a member of the Squirrel fam!
43. Able Pool (ticker: ABLE)
Able Pool is a Mission Driven Single Pool operator from Quebec, Canada aiming to show people that it is within everyone’s reach to build on the Cardano blockchain by teaching and providing the necessary tools to enable the community of Abidjan in Africa by financing their work equipment. Regardless of the profession you practice, they believe that understanding the fundamentals behind this technology should be easy and accessible. Each of their public and private relays are all Bare-Metal, owned by them, have their own dedicated operators, are located in 5 different locations and are currently powered by hydroelectricity and wind power. Active on twitter @Hornan7 to answer your questions whether you are French or English speaking.
44. Monad Stake Pool (ticker: MONAD)
MONAD is operated by monad_alexander. He chose to open a stake pool because he wants to make Cardano more decentralized. He will not open a second pool because that would make Cardano more centralized. Alexander is a functional programming enthusiast who is interested in the core fundamentals of blockchains. He describes himself as not a Cardano maxi, but a Crypto maxi who believes Cardano is the best crypto we have.
45. Nova Stake Pool (ticker: NOVA)
NOVApool.io has been operating since the beginning and is dedicated to educating the community about the Cardano ecosystem through comprehensive video content on our YouTube channel. As advocates of decentralization, we operate a single stake pool and encourage delegators to support reputable single stake pool operators. Our team includes TurboEgon, who pioneered the creation of the first fully on-chain interactive cNFTs, known as StellarHood NFTs, showcasing the capabilities of the Cardano blockchain and its emphasis on scientific principles.
46. Cardaspians Stake Pool (ticker: CASP)
Cardaspians is a Belgian/Dutch based staking pool with a focus on web and app integrations. The Cardaspians Staking Pool commits giving everyone the utmost chance to get their earnings by contributing on the Cardano ecosystem. That’s why we offer a 0% variable fee. Our delegators and community are our most precious asset. With a 100% online relay time, we’re proving to do everything possible to stimulate the network. Our team has just expanded and we are rebranding as we speak. Next to the launch of a brand new website, we’ll be putting a focus on crypto/blockchain and cardano-ecosystem education. In Q1 2023 we’ll be launching a brand new youtube channel focussing on just that. For more news/partnerships/epoch updates and releases, follow our social channels on Twitter and Instagram.
47. RCADA Stake Pool (ticker: RCADA)
Are you looking to delegate your Cardano (ADA) to a stake pool that is committed to sustainability and making a positive impact on the world? Look no further than the RCADA pool! As a member of the Cardano Single and Extra Small Pool Alliances, RCADA operates a single pool on the Cardano network with bare metal servers that is powered by 100% renewable energy. But their mission doesn’t stop there – they also actively support causes such as permaculture and sustainable energy technology through direct involvement and education. And as a member of the Climate Neutral Cardano Alliance, RCADA donates a minimum of 20% of their pool’s margin to the CNC Ala Project. By delegating to RCADA, you can earn your share of the block reward in ADA and CNC Ala tokens, which can be redeemed for unique non-fungible tokens. Choose the RCADA pool and make a positive impact while earning rewards on the Cardano network.
48. HAWAK Stake Pool (ticker: HAWAK)
HAWAK Pool is run by a team of Cardano Enthusiasts that embarked to support the Cardano Network. Running a system of multiple Baremetal servers. HAWAK Pool is dedicated to helping new users get started with cryptocurrency in a secure and efficient manner. Onboarding and guiding throughout all the steps to help every user manage their own crypto journey.
49. Dyno Stake Pool (ticker: DYNO)
DYNO Pool is a bare metal stake pool operating on dedicated servers since 2021. DYNO is family operated and was created out of a desire to contribute to the geographical decentralization of the Cardano network. We run 0% fee and have generated over 4k ADA rewards for our delegators. With sustainable infrastructure, DYNO is set up for the future.
50. Beer Money Stake Pool (ticker: BEER)
The Beer Money stake pool is run by a single individual, working in the IT security sector for a global telecommunications provider, to provide a fully decentralized node in the Cardano network. The stake pool is completely self-hosted outside of traditional cloud providers with the intent to steer away from centralizing the network by using cloud infrastructure. We operate the stake pool for mainnet, the preview test network, and we’re currently working on a procuring the hardware for the preprod test network and will begin that deployment in the near future. To find out more about Beer Money stake pool swing by our website at http://beerpool.io to catch up on our latest progress.
51. Snake Stake Pool (ticker: SNAKE)
SN₳KE Pool is a single pool running since first Shelley Epoch. Is hosted on a cloud infrastructure, I’m proud to run our pool on NixOS, the more powerful Linux distribution in our opinion, used by all IOG Dev Team, as far as I know the other pools running on that platform are NUTS (Blockfrost Team) and MONAD (Alexander Monad). I love the idea of decentralisation both on technological and ethical application, therefore I’ll run only one stakepool. Member of CSPA and xSPO (soon Armada Alliance too) stakepool operators alliances, we share the same vision and they are all super cool persons.
SN₳KE Pool is also part of TosiDrop tokens offering. Aside of stakepool activity, I’m certified Cardano Developer Professional with Emurgo Academy.
Thanks for reading.
n.b: this is not financial advice
