Pi-Pool VS cardano-node

Literally: https://github.com/alessandrokonrad/Pi-Pool

It ain't "substantially more" for a blockchain node. Using Cardano as an example again, people have successfully run Cardano nodes off Raspberry Pis. Even going by the official recommendation of 2 cores / 12GB RAM / 50GB disk is pretty modest compared to what Gucci would need to replicate that; the "worst" thing there is the RAM use (which is a gross overestimate; this laptop on which I'm typing this comment is running a Cardano node and its Electron-based wallet GUI and Firefox with 30-ish tabs and KDE and all that is coming in at less than 9GB), but when you factor in the database servers, the application servers (unless you're giving customers direct access to the database, which for something that's not a blockchain is typically a very terrible idea), load balancers, gateways... you'd quickly surpass that 12GB mark (or even 24GB mark, if you want to keep two nodes running for fault-tolerance) while blowing the core count and disk use sky high out of the water.

I know that Alessandro has developed a workaround for Raspberry Pi (https://github.com/alessandrokonrad/Pi-Pool) but I believe Charles was super vocal about having Pi support for nodes.

u/MajorPool_ already provided good sources, if you are more interested in the tech part and do not have a lot of ADA for pledging, it might be a good idea to set up servers on raspberry pi, this keeps your running costs low which means that you can let them run for a long time until eventually the network parameters change to increase the number of pools, for example: https://github.com/alessandrokonrad/Pi-Pool

Maybe this helps you: https://github.com/alessandrokonrad/Pi-Pool but to be honest: Pools shouldnt run on a single Pi in a Living room. For PoC or maybe to tinker around for example with the testnet, but serious productive net should be done in another more professional environment. With 99.9% uptime, No issue when power turns off somehow and other stuff. Please learn more the basics of a system engineer before thinking about to do this on the main net. Testnet is a great way to start, the academy/SPO School a good place to learn.

Cardano (ADA) – The Sustainability-Focused Blockchain

Hoskinson decided to support Ethereum classic after that and also launched Cardano.

This sluggish activity is hitting smaller cryptocurrencies like Cardano and Solana, which are seeing much slower growth than bitcoin. Trading platforms popular with retail investors, such as Robinhood, are moving to end support for trading these tokens, and the risk of an SEC crackdown has made institutional investors even more leery of them.

Cardano Node 8.1.1 is out. https://github.com/input-output-hk/cardano-node/releases/tag/8.1.1

Documentation on that can be found in https://github.com/input-output-hk/cardano-node/blob/master/doc/reference/configuring-a-node-using-yaml.md and https://github.com/input-output-hk/cardano-node/blob/master/doc/reference/cardano-governance.md.