Validator Introduction - Cosmos Spaces

Entity Name and Location

Cosmos Spaces provides some of the most reliable and widespread infrastructure in the Cosmos ecosystem. We validate on approximately 20 chains, are currently the 2nd most active relayer by packets relayed across the Cosmos covering all major channels, we provide highly available RPCs, and are beginning to offer snapshot and block explorer dashboards for chains. We are also deeply rooted in the community hosting twitter spaces with projects and helping educate users in the Cosmos.

It would be our privilege to become a validator on the dYdX chain and provide all of our infrastructure services.

Infrastructure Location

To ensure high availability and the utmost security, we spread have servers that are geographically spread across Europe and North America.

What Kind of hardware do you run?

We use dedicated Bare Metal servers that exceed chain requirements. We also run a Horcrux Cluster architecture to ensure the highest level of availability, security, and scalability.

Technical make-up of team (elaborate on no. of dev ops engineers, experience, etc.)

We have team members spread across the US and Europe. The team breakdown:

2 DevOps
1 Software Engineer
1 Cryptographer
3 community/marketing

Years of experience

Cosmos Spaces has been validating and providing infrastructure services in the Cosmos Ecosystem for over a year.

What other networks are you running validators for?

We currently validate for numerous chains throughout the Cosmos, and continuously look to expand our supported chains. Below are a list of some of the chains we Validate on, but relay and provide RPC endpoints for even more:

Cosmos Hub, Osmosis, Evmos, Neutron, Stride, Stargaze, Band, Canto, Composable, Juno, Passage, Kyve, Gitopia, Iris, Omniflix, Quesar, Quicksilver, Whitewhale.

Based on your participation in any previous testnets, mainnets, are there any best practices to be aware of? What are some things that made previous testnets, mainnet launches successful and/or things to avoid that have gone poorly?

-DO NOT rush genesis. Ensure a smooth launch, possibly even delaying inflation for the first hours/days.
-Properly coordinate upgrades, especially when there are any major changes.
-Establish emergency channels for private, emergency situations where validators can act quickly.
-Ensure timely and propper support for providers supporting the chain infrastructure that may not have gotten a gensis allocation.
-Provide clear documentation for validators with regards to upgrades and important changes.
-Take in feedback from community and stakeholders to avoid any major issues unfolding.

Do you have a validator voting framework and process?

We review every vote as a team, and make sure we look at it from all angles including the proposer, the community, and the core development team. Our goal is to properly represent our stakeholders, but to fulfill our ultimate duty of protecting the chain and supporting its success. Without proper alignment between governance and the guiding foundation, the project can easily get off track so we do our best to balance those factors and digest all the available information in a non-biased way.

We attempt to vote on all proposals without abstaining unless there is due reason or an internal conflict of interest.

Are you planning to play any additional roles in the dYdX ecosystem (e.g. market maker, trader, indexer, front-end, other)?

From day 1, we will provide robust relaying, highly available endpoints, snapshots, and plug in wherever we can be of support. We will make sure to everything needed for a healthy and successful dYdX chain.

We will also be able to help market and educate users as they get more familiar with a fully dedicated dYdX chain that comes with its own governance mechanism. We maintain a Spanish community that we will market to and educate on how to utilize dYdX.

We hosted the first Cosmos x dYdX Twitter Space, and will continue to show our support for dYdX however we can through infrastructure, governance, education, and marketing.

Are there other products or services you want to highlight that could be relevant for dYdX?

Relayers:

We are the 2nd most active relayer in the entire Cosmos ecosystem provide relaying services to over 25 chains including all the major channels with over 35000 packets relayed in the last 30 days. That coverage continues to expand as new chains come online and more demand grows for smaller chains. We believe this will be of tremendous value to the dYdX chain and its users.

RPC provider:

We provide enterprise-grade RPC endpoints for all chains we’re operating on and more. We provide these publically, as well as through Lava network as a private RPC provider. We make sure to provide the highest quality services to ensure the best user and developer experiences.

Snapshots

We will provide daily snapshots to ensure timely node syncing for dYdX node operators and in case of a chain emergency.

Community & marketing:

We are deeply rooted in the Cosmos community as we started out as a marketing and educational focused group in both English and Spanish. We can host interviews, provide community updates, engage community governance, and educate users on both dYdX and the larger Cosmos ecosystem.

We want to congratulate the dYdX team on all of their hard work to get to this point, and the community for voting to make this exciting move!!