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Session 3 - 19 October 2026

The third teaching session of the Fund 12 cohort, run by Jonathan Adjei and Harry Hellyer on Monday 19 October 2026, 16:00 UTC.

This page is the catch-up record for anyone who could not attend.

tip

Recording: https://youtu.be/BdGGi3lgrJc

What was covered​

Market Biome and Internal Biome: who your delegators actually are and which ones you want, and what your pool is made of.

The biomes are three ways of looking at your environment. The external one used to be the slow one: politics, economics, technology, law, environment and society, the classic PESTLE, which shifted over years. Exponential technologies now wrap around all of it, so change that took years now takes months or less. Most people sit outside that system. Stake pool operators sit inside it, which is both the difficulty and the advantage.

Two ideas carried the session:

  1. Most of the value you create does not show on a balance sheet. GDP and conventional accounts measure what is produced, not whether it is worth producing, and they miss most intangible value: relationships, know-how, community, trust. A pool's strongest asset is its relationship with its delegators, and that is also what makes a pool attractive to projects that want a real connection into a decentralised community.
  2. Find your engine. A value chain works like a theatre: someone writes the play, the cast rehearse and perform it, someone fills the seats, and someone runs the building. Each adds value differently. Decide which part you do best, whether that is running reliable infrastructure, building a delegator community or something else, focus there, and bring in channel partners to reach people you could not reach alone.

What was discussed​

  • Running a pool on its block rewards alone is hard to sustain at current costs. The operators doing well tend to have other activity around the pool that brings visibility and income.
  • Protocol parameters, rather than delegator education alone, may decide long-term pool sustainability. Proposals are under discussion for future hard forks.
  • Pools as collaborators rather than competitors. One example from the ecosystem: a Discord tool whose operators pay for it by delegating to the developer's pool, so the stake stays with its owner and the tool's growth and the delegation grow together. The open question was whether the people who use such a tool are the people inclined to delegate.
  • AI has removed much of the technical barrier to running a pool, which shifts the advantage further towards relationships, service and trust.
  • Crypto still reads as "scam" to much of the public. A suggested route in is a useful service first, with the blockchain underneath discovered later.
  • The tribalism between and within ecosystems, and whether interoperability work can soften it.
  • Revisiting the course after a few years was described as worthwhile: the exercises are meant to be redone as the ecosystem changes, not completed once.

Points raised in the sessions are recorded here; nothing is attributed to a named participant.

What participants need to do​

  1. Complete the feedback form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfcNVeaAPWBHI1g7-lFpYEQMP29E-fENcnJ-RYRQ6QAW6VEkw/viewform
  2. Work through 400 Market Biome and 500 Internal Biome and their assignments if they are still open. Name the one internal constraint that most limits your pool's growth.
  3. Read ahead: 600 External Biome and its assignment, before the final session.
  4. Submit assignments in Andamio as you finish them, so your credential can be issued.

Next session​

Monday 26 October 2026, 16:00 UTC, same Zoom link. UK clocks go back on Sunday 25 October, so that is 4pm UK, not 5pm. Modules 600 External Biome and 700 The Journey, then close.