Dilan Asatekin, founder of Imperator.co, described his company as a multifaceted entity extending beyond traditional validator roles. With a background in data engineering, Imperator focuses primarily on validation within the Cosmos ecosystem, though they are actively expanding into other blockchains. Their work encompasses onboarding institutions, offering infrastructure as a service, and acting as a crucial layer for the ecosystem by providing extensive community services such as tutorials, videos, and weekly news updates. Asatekin stated, "We try to be everywhere and doing different kind of jobs. This is not simply validators, but a lot of community services too," highlighting their broad commitment. Asatekin’s journey into Web3 and validation was not a deliberate choice but a gradual evolution. He initially engaged with crypto as an investor, discovering Akash Network, which led him to connect with a validator. Intrigued by the daily operational aspects and the need to foster growth, and leveraging his existing data engineering and DevOps skills, he decided to launch his own validator. He described this path as random, stating, "I guess it's just a question of randomness. I did not choose to be a validator or whatever. It just comes slowly like this." His desire to help the community understand staking and contribute value to the ecosystem was a significant driver. Transitioning from Web2, he found the remote work culture and distinct atmosphere of Web3 far more appealing, asserting, "When you test the Web3, it's impossible to go back to Web2. And that's why I'm here right now, trying to shape the future in Web3." The overarching mission for Imperator is to "make people's life easier, not only the community, but even the builders." This involves simplifying complex projects for the community and bridging the gap between builders and users. He views the educational aspect of their work as a strategic investment, explaining, "You're betting that the education that you are doing will bring you more value after that." While their ultimate goal is to grow into one of the largest validators, he believes this is achieved by delivering value, primarily through education. Asatekin reflected on the sensitive line between education and financial advice, identifying the latter as a dangerous territory. He warned against tempting people to lose money or adopt poor investment habits, emphasizing the crucial need for "awareness about the risk involved when investing, staking or whatever." When discussing Web3's ethos of freedom versus the need for restrictions, he admitted, "It's very, very hard to draw this line in the Web3." While acknowledging the inherent freedom, he expressed a belief that "some regulation happening slowly" is necessary, rejecting the idea of Web3 as a "far west" devoid of rules. He advocated for a balanced approach, stating, "Totally, we need a balance between both sides. We can take the good parts of each part for sure," but stressed that "being free in the web3 as we are speaking is not the right to take risk, if I can say." Regarding their process for selecting chains to validate, Imperator employs thorough due diligence, scrutinizing team members, whitepapers, and project utility. Red flags that would lead them to avoid a project include anonymous teams lacking track records, projects that are merely forks of existing chains, and, notably, projects that are not open source. Asatekin found the lack of open-source code a significant barrier, though he conceded that in some specific cases, teams might wish to protect exclusivity, but this becomes a red flag when combined with an anonymous team. Imperator operates with a distributed team across Istanbul, France, and Vietnam. Asatekin highlighted the challenges of building an efficient remote team, noting differing preferences among teammates. He underscored the importance of hiring individuals who are adept at "working remotely, asynchronously and from different places, time zone or whatever." On the topic of validator decentralization, Asatekin disagreed that validators are currently centralized, pointing to the numerous entities operating globally. However, he identified a critical decentralization issue concerning infrastructure location. He observed that many validators predominantly host their nodes in Europe. He advocates for broader geographical distribution, suggesting that a validator from Australia should also run a node there to enhance global decentralization, even while acknowledging the practical difficulties and the low-latency requirements of some projects. He stated that in terms of individual entities, the ecosystem is "doing good," as he hasn't observed large institutional or state-backed validators. Imperator utilizes a hybrid approach to server infrastructure, employing both bare metal and cloud services. Asatekin views "bar metal servers for me is the right option to adopt for many reasons. First, just for the technical aspects, more reliable, more performant at cloud services." Yet, he values the flexibility offered by cloud solutions for quickly switching nodes if needed. Financially, Imperator prides itself on being "a self-funded entity," without any external investors, allowing Asatekin and his co-founder to make all decisions collaboratively. His experience validating on Ethereum after Cosmos was described as "totally catastrophic," noting that "on Ethereum it's so hard, they made everything so hard compared to Cosmos." He praised Cosmos for its ease of delegation without minimum amounts in a non-custodial manner, contrasted with Ethereum's complex software setup and the requirement of 32 ETH for staking via smart contracts, which non-technical users find hard to verify and trust. He believes this complexity deters broader community engagement. Regarding Cosmos Hub governance, specifically Proposal 848 concerning inflation, Asatekin’s personal stance was to "abstain or no, because I don't see any value on both sides." For Imperator, they conducted a "weighted vote" reflecting the aggregated preferences of their delegators to maintain transparency and respect their choices. His personal skepticism towards the proposal stemmed from the argument that reduced inflation would drive users to DeFi products, an argument he found weak given the current lack of "top tier DeFi product on Cosmos ecosystem" and inadequate branding efforts. He anticipated that without strong alternatives, users would simply "undeligate and go elsewhere, because the only interesting part for Cosmos at this moment was the staking up here." Beyond validation, Imperator has a venture arm that invests in promising ecosystem projects. They have also developed products, notably managing the data backend for InfoOsmosis, indexing and presenting data used by institutions and the community alike. Asatekin attributed Imperator’s successful community building to "luck," emphasizing the importance of being "at the right place at the right time." He shared that their pioneering work with the InfoOsmosis website two years prior, when such data analytics were scarce in Cosmos, garnered significant attention and engagement, ultimately drawing a following of delegators. His general advice to others is simple: "you have to try. If you do not try, you will not see any luck or any results. You have to try whatever you have in your skill set. Just try." In a quickfire round, Dilan could not recall his first token purchase outside of Bitcoin. His primary inspiration is his older brother, whom he admired and sought to emulate. The driving force behind his daily motivation is "the freedom," allowing him to work and travel as he pleases. His favorite film is "Interstellar." Finally, the technology that most arouses his curiosity is Artificial Intelligence, particularly the rapid and profound changes brought about by advancements like ChatGPT within just the last year. He feels we have "entered into a new world" and is keen to understand the underlying mechanisms and anticipate future developments.