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They did officially stated on reddit [1] that they are not supporting crypto related hosting. Just wonder why? Is the GPU/CPU/Network related over use? Or legal

They did officially stated on reddit [1] that they are not supporting crypto related hosting. Just wonder why? Is the GPU/CPU/Network related over use? Or legality related? [1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/hetzner/comments/wucxs4/comment/ilfoj8u/?context=3 https://www.reddit.com/r/hetzner/comments/wucxs4/comment/ilf...

vegardx 3y ago
Wild guess: They use significantly more electricity than the average customer that does just about anything else with their hardware. The GPU can easily run at hundreds of watts, and when you add in the required cooling you're probably at 1.5-2x that in total power usage.
- SEJeff 3y ago
  This is not a proof of work (bitcoin or pre merge ethereum) node and it does not use more electricity. They singled out solana seemingly and I’m unsure why. We moved about 300 services off of dedicated higher end Hetzner nodes within a week.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- mnahkies 3y ago
  What implication does this have for AI workloads - the computation intensity would be similar? (Assuming a popular service saturating the machines) I see some other comments mentioning ssd wear which I don't think would apply to AI stuff, but the utilisation/power consumption certainly would.
SEJeff 3y ago
They stated that AFTER they just cut the network access to the hosts. It isn’t as though we were doing anything ethically or legally wrong. We were running rpc nodes for legit applications and a validator to secure the network. For me, who’s worked in 50,000+ bare metal Linux environments before, it was just so surprising how sudden and violent it was. Their customer support was amazing until it wasn’t. Just let it be a lesson, they will arbitrarily change their mind and put your nodes running your business at risk. Even if you’ve broken no laws and are operating in good faith. We were not running and proof of work nonsense that breaks the hardware or uses excess electricity.
- sgift 3y ago
  > It isn’t as though we were doing anything ethically or legally wrong. Legally? Well, they probably have a "if we think you do something we don't like we can kick you off" clause. Ethically? Eh .. Crypto. Ethical. Opinions differ.
  - shaism 3y ago
    I am not a big fan of crypto either, but don’t understand why crypto (the technology itself) would be unethical. Could you explain?
    - Cryptoanti 3y ago
      I don't know any working thing using crypto in a way that it acutally make sense and couldn't be already be done easier and similiar safe. Even in big companies you always see examples which break the technology like creating something on the blockchain which has a connection to the real world.
      - ajimix 3y ago
        Try to send some big amount of money internationally and you will see why crypto is the future. With regular banks it takes days, weeks and many times months due to intermediate banks, AML questions, reviews, etc and have very high costs associated for simple transfers of money hardly earned. With cryptocurrencies it takes seconds or minutes and no questions asked with very low fees
    - edmundsauto 3y ago
      Energy use that doesn't deliver concrete value to the world. Mostly just speculators and gambling, but uses a a couple hundred TWh of electricity worldwide. Yes yes I know, some applications are lower energy usage but parent comment is asking about the ethics of crypto in general.
      - zrn900 3y ago
gosub100 3y ago
My guess is it's a huge liability if keys are stolen, and it puts a huge target on their back from people around the world who want to steal crypto keys or DDoS crypto systems.
- SEJeff 3y ago
  Most of the Hetzner DdoS come from gaming fyi. They’re pretty good at handling them but we’d get paged every few months due to this. Our uptime is better since we left hetzner. We went with a host that’s more commonly used for electronic trading firms, Teraswitch. They’re great.
  - neoromantique 3y ago
    Thanks for recommendation, we are looking to move our servers off Hetzner for precisely the same reasons.
Croftengea 3y ago
Many hosters banned all kind of crypto after advent of file coins, which wear out ssds too quicky.
- SEJeff 3y ago
  Indeed. Some bad actors (which is most of the industry) ruin it for those of us who just want to build cool tech. Very annoying.
  - stouset 3y ago
    You know what they say, a bunch of bad apples spoils the few.
grw_ 3y ago
AFAIK it's the high disk IO causing wear on the SSDs, since they specifically mention Solana nodes
- SEJeff 3y ago
  Likely. We put the accounts db in memory (on a tmpfs) to mitigate this and were paying them for a beefcake node with 1T of memory.

vegardx 3y ago

Wild guess: They use significantly more electricity than the average customer that does just about anything else with their hardware. The GPU can easily run at hundreds of watts, and when you add in the required cooling you're probably at 1.5-2x that in total power usage.

SEJeff 3y ago
This is not a proof of work (bitcoin or pre merge ethereum) node and it does not use more electricity. They singled out solana seemingly and I’m unsure why. We moved about 300 services off of dedicated higher end Hetzner nodes within a week.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
mnahkies 3y ago
What implication does this have for AI workloads - the computation intensity would be similar? (Assuming a popular service saturating the machines) I see some other comments mentioning ssd wear which I don't think would apply to AI stuff, but the utilisation/power consumption certainly would.

SEJeff 3y ago

They stated that AFTER they just cut the network access to the hosts. It isn’t as though we were doing anything ethically or legally wrong. We were running rpc nodes for legit applications and a validator to secure the network. For me, who’s worked in 50,000+ bare metal Linux environments before, it was just so surprising how sudden and violent it was. Their customer support was amazing until it wasn’t. Just let it be a lesson, they will arbitrarily change their mind and put your nodes running your business at risk. Even if you’ve broken no laws and are operating in good faith. We were not running and proof of work nonsense that breaks the hardware or uses excess electricity.

sgift 3y ago
> It isn’t as though we were doing anything ethically or legally wrong. Legally? Well, they probably have a "if we think you do something we don't like we can kick you off" clause. Ethically? Eh .. Crypto. Ethical. Opinions differ.
- shaism 3y ago
  I am not a big fan of crypto either, but don’t understand why crypto (the technology itself) would be unethical. Could you explain?
  - Cryptoanti 3y ago
    I don't know any working thing using crypto in a way that it acutally make sense and couldn't be already be done easier and similiar safe. Even in big companies you always see examples which break the technology like creating something on the blockchain which has a connection to the real world.
    - ajimix 3y ago
      Try to send some big amount of money internationally and you will see why crypto is the future. With regular banks it takes days, weeks and many times months due to intermediate banks, AML questions, reviews, etc and have very high costs associated for simple transfers of money hardly earned. With cryptocurrencies it takes seconds or minutes and no questions asked with very low fees
  - edmundsauto 3y ago
    Energy use that doesn't deliver concrete value to the world. Mostly just speculators and gambling, but uses a a couple hundred TWh of electricity worldwide. Yes yes I know, some applications are lower energy usage but parent comment is asking about the ethics of crypto in general.
    - zrn900 3y ago

gosub100 3y ago

My guess is it's a huge liability if keys are stolen, and it puts a huge target on their back from people around the world who want to steal crypto keys or DDoS crypto systems.

SEJeff 3y ago
Most of the Hetzner DdoS come from gaming fyi. They’re pretty good at handling them but we’d get paged every few months due to this. Our uptime is better since we left hetzner. We went with a host that’s more commonly used for electronic trading firms, Teraswitch. They’re great.
- neoromantique 3y ago
  Thanks for recommendation, we are looking to move our servers off Hetzner for precisely the same reasons.

Croftengea 3y ago

Many hosters banned all kind of crypto after advent of file coins, which wear out ssds too quicky.

SEJeff 3y ago
Indeed. Some bad actors (which is most of the industry) ruin it for those of us who just want to build cool tech. Very annoying.
- stouset 3y ago
  You know what they say, a bunch of bad apples spoils the few.

grw_ 3y ago

AFAIK it's the high disk IO causing wear on the SSDs, since they specifically mention Solana nodes

SEJeff 3y ago
Likely. We put the accounts db in memory (on a tmpfs) to mitigate this and were paying them for a beefcake node with 1T of memory.