The ADAvault founders bring deep software and infrastructure development experience, gained from protecting some of the largest insurers, banks, exchanges, and payment services.

We run a limited number of pools, and our fees will always be fair. As the Cardano system grows we will extend our services to include non-custodial vaulting and escrow options. We participate and contribute to the Cardano community.

Pool Details

ADAvault is an independent operator focused on delivering highly secure, decentralised and reliable Stake Pool infrastructure.

Design

ADAvault uses bare metal servers, linux hardened builds, dedicated secure racking, low latency fiber optic connectivity, hardware firewalls, fault tolerant design and UPS protection. Infrastructure is built in line with the Cardano reference architecture with multiple relay nodes, separate Block Producing Nodes (BPNs), and cold storage for keys.

Power

All ADAvault components are powered by 100% carbon neutral renewable energy from a certified green energy supplier tariff. We also pay for trees to be planted each year each of which will absorb 300kg of carbon as they grow as well as providing a habitat for wildlife.

We have donated 5,000 trees to the Cardano Forest.

Security

We are very focused on privacy and security. System operations and design is aligned to the NIST Cybersecurity Framework. We use Qualys for vulnerability scanning and Cloudflare as our Web Application Firewall. Our SSL Labs security scan passes with rating ‘A’.

Resilience

We operate using a resilient topology with a cluster of relays connected to active Block Producing Nodes (BPNs), with passive BPNs in warm standby (synching but not producing blocks). We swap the active nodes for maintenance (security patching, node upgrades, and hardware changes).

We have a secure Disaster Recovery site which can be used in the event that the main site is affected for a prolonged period. We regularly failover to the DR site to ensure that the process operates as designed.

Software versions

The relays and BPNs are running Node 10.1.2. All hardened builds used for ADAvault infrastructure are based on stable (long term support) operating system versions. We use a combination of Ubuntu, FreeBSD & Rocky Linux.

Why Cardano?

Cardano takes the best aspects of Bitcoin (UTxO, Decentralisation, Strong Security Guarantees) and Ethereum (Smart Contracts), bringing them together with a highly energy efficient proof of stake design.

These technical choices combined with a decentralised approach and open source philosophy increases confidence in long term success and wide adoption. Some of the major competitive differentiators include:

• A scientific and mathematical basis to the design with academic peer review
• The Proof of Stake protocol Ouroboros (with no lock-in or slashing) uses game theory to guarantee a minimum level of decentralisation and is environmentally sound
• The Plutus Smart contract language supports formal verification (based on Lambda calculus) and is made widely accessible through high level compilers such as Aiken
• Interoperability via side chains and bridges helps Cardano act as an inter-network of blockchains, with Layer 2 isomorphic scaling technology such as Hydra heads permitting high transaction throughputs
• Transparent and scalable governance mechanisms facilitate ongoing development and innovation

The Cardano community is diverse, focused on positive outcomes, and willingly share knowledge. The leadership and vision from the founding entities is strong. This will nurture the decentralised ecosystem to the point where it is fully self sustaining.