Entity name and location
Stake Frites, Quebec, Canada
Links: [Mintscan](Mintscan), Keplr
Infrastructure location
Quebec, Canada
What kind of hardware do you run? Baremetal, cloud-based…?
Our validators run on OVH bare metal servers, offering dedicated resources for high performance and low-latency operations essential for the exchange. We have equipped these servers with robust CPUs, ample RAM, and SSDs. Redundancy is key in our setup, with failover strategies ensuring uninterrupted validation. Monitoring tools are in place for real-time performance oversight, maintaining our validators’ optimal and secure participation in the network.
Technical make-up of team (elaborate on no. of dev ops engineers, experience, etc.)
5 team members. 2 Dev Ops about 10 years of experience
Years of experience
Since December 2021, our team has been operating as a validator for Tendermint/CometBFT/Cosmos chains, leveraging extensive experience in blockchain operations that date back to our engagement in Bitcoin mining since 2017. This background underpins our expertise in managing secure, high-performance infrastructure critical for the integrity and efficiency of blockchain networks.
We have been a validator on Tendermint / CometBFT/ Cosmos chains since December 2021. The team has been involved in Bitcoin mining since 2017.
What other networks are you running validators for?
We are currently on 9 Networks:
Current: dYdX, Akash, Juno , Omniflix, Sentinel, Jackal, Passage, Chihuahua, Mars Protocol,
Past: Cosmos, Evmos
Based on your participation in any previous testnets, mainnets, are there any best practices to be aware of?
Our zero-trust framework ensures rigorous access control, with SSH access restricted to key-based authentication and all logins, including SSH, safeguarded by 2FA. We closely monitor our servers, with any unauthorized attempts triggering immediate notifications through SMS and/or PagerDuty. Additionally, we use a password manager for secure credential storage, upholding our commitment to maintaining a fortress-like security posture for our infrastructure.
Do you have a validator voting framework and process?
Yes, we use a comprehensive voting process and we try to vote on every proposals. Our team diligently reviews each proposal, striving to make decisions that best serve both the network and the community. We engage in collective discussions for most proposals, with a designated team member overseeing our governance responsibilities. We firmly believe that effective governance is as crucial as robust infrastructure for a validator. Additionally, we actively encourage our delegators to participate in the voting process, especially when their views differ from ours. We are here for the decentralized and democratic decision making that web 3.0 offers.
Were you planning to play any additional roles in the dYdX ecosystem (e.g. market maker, trader, indexer, front-end, other)?
We’re certainly planning to create educational content about dYdX. Although we don’t have immediate plans for front-end and indexer development, we’re exploring future possibilities. Some of our team and community members will take on market-making roles. However, as a small validator company, we currently run on tight margins. Our primary focus is on perfecting our processes, developing tools and producing content for the various networks we validate on.
Are there other products or services you want to highlight that could be relevant for dYdX?
Our pledge to the ecosystem is rooted in practicality and growth. We are enhancing our offerings by providing reliable RPC services to ensure seamless interactions with the blockchain. This commitment is the first step in a series of planned expansions aimed at bolstering the ecosystem’s infrastructure, with additional services on the horizon.
Any notable contributions in other ecosystems that you would like to highlight for the community?
We’re proud to contribute to the ecosystem through video content production. Our team was actively involved in covering Cosmoverse 2022, and we’re currently in the post-production process for Cosmoverse 2023. You can find our content on Twitter and on our YouTube channel: Stake Frites on YouTube. This initiative is part of our commitment to keeping the community informed and engaged. We have also been working on frontend projects like an on chain Portfolio Tracker chains (Trakmos) : trakmos.app , new.trakmos.app
Thanks a lot for your support! 
