Valters Jansons is the technical lead at KJ Nodes, a Web3 validator primarily operating in the Cosmos ecosystem. KJ Nodes, a two-person team, began its journey in the Web3 space with Agoric in 2021, somewhat late to the initial Cosmos launch. Jansons, who also maintains a day job as an IT architect, focuses on running infrastructure for various projects and developing tools within the Web3 space. His overarching philosophy for KJ Nodes is simply to "try to do what we think makes sense." Jansons explained that individuals' motivations for entering Web3 and validating vary, encompassing ideological, monetary, or a blend of both, alongside desires for building innovative projects, recognition, or fame. For him personally, the main driver is "making something that's useful at the end of the day." This utility manifests in community interaction, explaining complex concepts, providing instructions, and developing helpful tools. While acknowledging the presence of monetary incentives, Jansons clarified that his actions are not primarily driven by them, stating, "I do the things I do without really considering that as a primary thing." He views the validation aspect as a smaller component, with the larger goal being "making something that's just fun for everyone and enjoyable," underpinned by a belief in "the ideology and making good things." His personal mission statement, formulated spontaneously during the interview, is to "maximize the benefit that others can have from what I do." Leveraging his background in IT, software engineering, site reliability engineering, and DevOps, he aims to utilize these skills to benefit the Cosmos community, where he sees himself fitting. The choice of Cosmos for KJ Nodes was partially attributed to "pure luck," but also to the ecosystem's modularity and IBC (Inter-Blockchain Communication) being a native feature, making it "an easy to get started with kind of platform." He noted the significant growth and project activity within Cosmos. Operationally, the similar architecture of Cosmos chains, utilizing a common SDK and tools like Cosmovisor, allows for efficient reuse of automation, which helps keep them within the ecosystem. Jansons described their initial approach to projects, including Cosmos, as experimental: "We just try something we see where it goes. If it turns out great then awesome. If not, then okay. We move on to the next thing." Jansons recognized the human tendency to stick to what's familiar, acknowledging that "it's hard for us to step out of the comfort zone." He noted the difficulty of branching into new projects due to potential lack of comprehensive documentation or specific skill gaps, requiring significant "time, it takes effort." He observed that many "try to find the easy route," resulting in people not putting in the required effort despite their intentions. Historically, KJ Nodes' chain selection criteria for small validators involved "going with the flow" and exploring big upcoming projects, as they are not large enough to be directly approached by projects. Their current approach is evolving to include more specific criteria, prioritizing projects that "improve the community" and show a long-term future, rather than focusing on "pure hype projects." Jansons stated, "If we see future in a project, then we want to go for it," aiming for a long-term vision even if it means foregoing immediate monetary spikes. Regarding "immoral" projects, he emphasized that their criterion boils down to "how good the future outlook is" and whether "new value [is] being added." He views the validator's role as providing "just tools," and believes that if a betting platform, for instance, offers genuine innovation and differentiation, they would consider it. He clarified that they haven't formalized a "clear cut immorality line," approaching such decisions on a "chain by chain, project by project" basis. Discussing infrastructure, Jansons highlighted the "complicated because of the cost involved" nature of the bare metal versus cloud debate, noting that "bare metal costs more." While they use dedicated systems for validation due to the need for predictable performance, they utilize virtual machines for public RPC services. He underscored that decentralizing and adhering to best practices invariably incurs "an associated cost," which is a significant challenge for smaller validators. He also touched upon the complexities of security, especially with multi-cloud architectures and the need for encrypted communication, which current chain services often don't provide out of the box. Jansons views the creation of tools as a core tenet, driven by the belief that "we make tools by validators for validators." Understanding the challenges faced by validators, KJ Nodes develops tools that are most helpful and achievable given their limited resources. He cited the Slash Board as an example, designed to aggregate and publish public data about chain activity, which helps raise awareness and provides historical data not easily accessible through the Cosmos SDK. He sees their tools as an "evolution of what exists," remixing existing ideas to fill gaps. On improving user literacy and validator visibility, Jansons affirmed the need for improvement. He praised user-friendly wallets like Kepler for abstracting away complexity, which is crucial for widespread adoption and good "user experience UX." However, he stressed that sophisticated stakers "should understand what's happening" beyond merely selecting top 10 validators by staked amount. He suggested practical steps like "documentation, about tool tips, about different pop-ups" in staking interfaces to educate users about concepts like decentralization. He acknowledged the challenge of ensuring people actually read such information. Regarding the common practice of sorting validators by TVL (Total Value Locked), he speculated that "the big players might lose out on it" if alternative sorting methods were implemented. He referenced the XKCD comic about competing standards, indicating that any new sorting criterion would likely face resistance and argument, as projects must consider all stakeholders. He believes KJ Nodes has more freedom to address such controversial topics due to not being bound by the "same kind of institutional ties." Regarding security advice for validators, Jansons emphasized that "there is no one single thing you can do to just skip all of the knowledge gaining." Drawing from his Web2 software engineering background, he views security as an ongoing consideration, akin to regulations and audits. He suggested that projects and foundations should conduct comprehensive audits of validators, moving beyond "self-reported evidence." While acknowledging the complexity of integrating on-chain proofs for operational excellence in a decentralized environment, he noted a "counter argument there could be security is overrated" in some contexts, as a single validator breach might not cripple a properly designed chain. His practical advice for validators is to "just read like honestly home lab, build things, try to break them," learning through experimentation, albeit "of course don't do it on main." In a rapid-fire segment, Jansons expressed difficulty in naming one inspiring book or movie, preferring genres like sci-fi and documentaries (e.g., The Phoenix Project for professional insights). He showed curiosity in "machine learning," preferring the term over "AI" for its specificity. The blockchain project currently capturing his interest is Namada, for its "ideological values" and "thought provoking" nature, despite the initial complexity of its account structures. Finally, his primary motivation to get out of bed each day is a "belief in karma" – the idea that "when you do good things and you help others, good things happen to you as well," highlighting the value of time spent on positive contributions. He named KJ, the founder of KJ Nodes, as his personal inspiration, constantly pushing him to strive harder.