Chainflow's applying to the PolkaDot Thousand Validators program. We're required to submit this case for good intentions because we don't own 10000 dots. In the interest of transparency, here is our case.
Chainflow has been validating since joining the Cosmos Validator Working Group in 2017. At the time, Chainflow was a one person operation. Chris, Chainflow's founder, was very interested in both Cosmos and PolkaDot at that time.
Cosmos commanded most of his time and attention during that time. As a result, we had to unfortunately delay our support of PolkaDot.
This changed when Alex joined Chainflow in mid-2020. He's been operating our Chainflow Kusama node named Novy since March 2020. Our current rating is 112 points. He's also participating in the Polkadot Ambassador program @alexnovacovschi.
Chainflow has been operating on many networks since that time. We've emerged as a leading Web3 infrastructure provider. We've done this as an independent, boostrapped, i.e. self-funded and no VC, team of two people, after Alex joined Chainflow.
You can see our full 2020 recap here -
https://chainflow.io/chainflow-2020-recap/
As a smaller, independent, yet very capable and dedicated operator, we work hard to advocate for the survival of validators like us. We don't see staking as a zero-sum game. We feel that centralization is a big threat to the staking economy in these early days.
We work to counter that by advocating for smaller operators in all we do. Once tangible example is Staking Defense. Staking Defense started as a discussion forum to have the uncomfortable stake-centralization conversations that many pay lip service to, yet don't address. It's a place to walk the walk and not only talk the talk. Since then, we've added a Telegram group and started a podcast in 2020.
https://forum.stakingdefense.org
https://stakingdefense.substack.com
Chainflow has 4k DOTS to stake to our node. As a smaller, independent and bootstrapped operator, we don't have the resources to invest in the networks we support by buying tokens. Instead, we devote our time, attention and resources to supporting the network by operating validators. We take the income we earn from these efforts and then stake them to our validators.