Builder Spotlight: Steven Gates Wants to Bring Subnets to the World

Builder Spotlight: Steven Gates Wants to Bring Subnets to the World

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Sep 25, 2023 / By Avalanche / 4 Minute Read

Builder Spotlight: Steven Gates Wants to Bring Subnets to the World

Steven Gates and GoGoPool are making it easier to become an Avalanche validator, helping new Subnets launch, and building for widespread adoption.

What if blockchain powered most apps? What if many of these apps had tens of millions of active monthly users, or more? What if some were viral games, with players across the world battling and logging dozens of daily transactions per person? If this possible future were realized today, Steven Gates says that only Avalanche could handle the load. 

Why? Subnets.

“Subnets are the only thing that make sense for creating a global scale experience,” Steven said. “Really nothing in crypto can support hundreds of millions of users now, except for Subnets.”

Steven wants to bring Subnets to the world. This is the mission of GoGoPool, which Steven founded with Johnny Gault after the two met at Avalanche Summit I, hit it off, opened their laptops, started talking shop, and realized that they were building two parts of pretty much the same application. GoGoPool launched the week of Avalanche Summit II. Since then, GoGoPool has helped Subnets launch by lowering hurdles to starting them, all while providing a liquid staking token and Subnet validator rewards. 

GoGoPool’s docs quickly point to the project’s north star: “Our mission is to make it as easy as possible to launch a Subnet. Our vision is to enable the Wordpress moment for Web3 via open source tooling, strong community, and an open staking protocol.”

“Only Avalanche has the TPS, low latency, transaction costs, and flexibility,” he says. “In three to five years, we think the majority of blockchains will be run on Avalanche.”

How does GoGoPool help Subnets launch? The short answer: by lowering the amount of AVAX needed to run a node (through pooled resources and liquid staking), by expanding rewards for Subnet validators, and through decentralized hardware pools. (Read the GoGoPool docs for full details.) 

Critically, Steven tinkers with the idea of liquid staking – the practice of staking a token, locking it up to secure a blockchain network, and receiving a synthetic token in return – to fuel Subnet growth. “Liquid staking so far has been mostly for DeFi degens,” he said. “We approach it from an infrastructure level of where liquid staking can be a community thing that helps bring blockchain to the world.” 

GoGoPool has found early success. Already, some 5% of Avalanche validators are in GoGoPool minipools – a centerpiece of GoGoPool’s incentive structure. 

Steven and GoGoPool catalyze Subnet growth in other ways, too. The app recently rolled out GoGoTools, a step-by-step guide for developers launching Subnets. 

Further, Steven has chatted with 40+ teams building Subnets. “I probably spend 20 hours a week thinking about Subnets, talking to the devs, talking about PRs,” Steven said. He wants to clue them into all the best possibilities. 

The world is still waking up to those possibilities. 

“There’s such a high appetite for Subnets, but the playbook is still being written,” Steven says. “I talk constantly to Ava Labs. We’re all on the same team and we’re all pushing that playbook.”

Steven believes that “Avalanche has consistently been two years ahead of the curve.” What that means today, he believes, is that Subnets can already unlock “rapid experimentation with new business models and ideas.” Longer-term, he sees Subnets serving as the foundation for much of the blockchain universe, for a whole world of new business models and ideas. If the future goes like it might, Avalanche Subnets have the speed, security, and scaling to power it all. 

This post is based on materials provided by GoGoPool. For more information, visit GoGoPool’s website.

Provided for informational purposes only, without representation, warranty or guarantee of any kind. None of this is as an endorsement by Ava Labs, Inc., the Avalanche Foundation Limited or any of their respective subsidiaries or affiliates, nor is any of this investment or financial advice. Please review thisNotice and conduct your own research to properly evaluate the risks and benefits of any project.

About Avalanche

Avalanche is a high-performance blockchain platform designed for builders who need to scale. Engineered with a revolutionary three-part Layer 1 (L1) architecture, Avalanche is anchored by its Avalanche Consensus Mechanism, ensuring near-instant finality for transactions. The platform also features an open-source Layer 0 (L0) framework, enabling the seamless creation of interoperable Layer 1 blockchains with high throughput on both public and private networks.

Supported by a global community of developers and validators, Avalanche offers a fast, low-cost environment for building the next generation of decentralized applications (dApps). With its unique blend of speed, flexibility, and scalability, Avalanche is the preferred choice for innovators pushing the boundaries of blockchain technology.

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