Bitcoin Forum

The hetzner blanket ban on crypto is taking further effect, in accordance to their terms of service. In the last 3 days, 10,000 bitcoin lightning network nodes were cut from the network. It is very likely that this is due to continued enforcement of Hetzner TOS upon its customers.

The aim of this thread is to maintain and discuss alternatives to Hetzner. I will try to maintain the second post with a table listing each service and its products. Hopefully we can all find a viable alternative.

Reserved for service table (making)

OP, do you mind sharing link to analysis or discussion about this ban? I do not see major decrease of total node[1] and there are about 162 nodes where it's IP is "Hetzner Online GmbH"[2].


Wouldn't many hosting service which accept cryptocurrency as payment method can be viable alternative?

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[1] https://mempool.space/lightning (https://mempool.space/lightning)
[2] https://mempool.space/graphs/lightning/nodes-per-isp (https://mempool.space/graphs/lightning/nodes-per-isp)

Hetzner is one of the most cost effective solutions. Just because a service accepts cryptocurrency that does not mean that it is cost effective. Something that costs 100-200 EUR at Hetzner can cost upwards of 500 EUR somewhere else.


https://bitcoinvisuals.com/ln-nodes - go to 1 month view.

The drop from 17k~ nodes to 7k~ nodes coincides with hetzner recently banning nodes running any crypto full node. This is not officially sourced anywhere, however I have spoken to a few other full node operators who took the risk to use hetzner, all of which have also been locked out. There are hints of complaints on hetzner review pages, though there is no official talk about it yet. It happened very recently (within the last 72 hours). People are probably not going to speak up either due to it being almost expected (since it's against ToS) and also due to the Solana situation, which served as a warning. Anyone who speaks up will be called ignorant of reading Hetzners rules, rightfully, so not many/no operators will post most likely.

What you have sent from mempool space ([2] https://mempool.space/graphs/lightning/nodes-per-isp (https://mempool.space/graphs/lightning/nodes-per-isp)) does not include nodes that do not have open channels. Most of the data has not been updated in 1-3 days either when you look at data specific to Hetzner (https://mempool.space/lightning/nodes/isp/24940,213230)

I will do further work on analysis later.

1ml.com is still showing 16000 or so active nodes and active channels have really not changed.
A few other explorers are also showing the same.

I guess the question is why would you pay to host a node with no open channels you can do that for free on your own hardware?

Yes there is a cost of hardware and bandwidth, but it's far below the cost of hosting it someplace. And if it has issues, if you have no open channels it is not such a big deal to recover, you are not worrying about lost / locked funds.

-Dave

Hmmm... so I guess that chart I saw yesterday from lookintobitcoin website is correct, but I didn't expect to see so many LN nodes being on someone else computers aka ''cloud''.
I think it's much better to use RaspberryPi for this purpose or even old Android phones that I saw recently some people are using.
I know people who are doing this on old laptops and computers, so there are many options to choose.

I wouldn't use any other service that is similar like Hetzner because they are probably going to do the same and ban nodes in future.
For decentrlaization it's much better to run nodes on your own devices.

 

So looking at https://bitnodes.io/nodes/?page=36&q=Hetzner%20Online%20GmbH%20(AS24940)

There are still close to 900 BTC nodes running with public IPs on Hetzner with some checking in as recently as 5 minutes before this post.

Digging into here: https://ipinfo.io/AS24940
And getting some IP addresses for Hetzner you can see that as of now there are a lot of LN nodes still running on their network:
https://explorer.acinq.co/

Digging a bit more I picked 5 random LN nodes on Hetzner IP space and all 5 connected with no issues. So either I am really lucky today or it's not that.

https://i.imgur.com/dwR37cSh.png

If anyone else wants to verify please do, *I* can't see an issue, but if Hetzner messed up some routing or peering setting my node sitting on cable may be fine but someones on a different service may not be able to route to them.

-Dave

They are multiple alternatives to hetzner like Digital Ocean and Linode that you can host your nodes, to ensure 24 hours operations. Though, since these cloud hosting companies are centralized, expect changes in future. It's well clear that choices differ and people may prefer to run nodes on cloud computers, but electronic devices like laptops, raspberry Pi etc, works better, and maintains decentralization; removes fear of getting banned. I've used Hetzner (not for running nodes) and indeed they're quick to ban accounts especially when the IP has been blacklisted for some reasons. In addition, taking a KYC to run a bitcoin node is an unbearable hassle.

Leaseweb also works. I've been running my node on it without any issues or complaints.

At the time I'm writing this, there are fewer than 10 Bitcoin nodes on Leaseweb (including my own), so you won't centralize the Bitcoin network by moving your node there from Hetzner.

Looking here: https://ipinfo.io/AS396190
And then searching the through all IPs I see more then 10, but still not a lot.

But still, I think with the cost of hardware dropping like a rock at the moment the cost of self hosting vs. paying every month to have it hosted someplace is becoming a larger number.
This is not taking bandwidth costs and reliability into the picture, but still is it really work not having it on your own hardware.

-Dave

Contabo is probably the most crypto-friendly host and not expensive too. Hetzner really shoot in our herz :D

I spend few minutes checking their website. While their server is cheap (compared with Linode or AWS), i disagree this provider is one of most crypto-friendly host when they don't accept cryptocurrency as payment method.

I meant this (https://contabo.com/blog/can-i-use-contabo-servers-for-crypto/). Otherwise, yeah, that doesn't look friendly but actually their services are :D

I believe it was this. After communicating with those who had reported their shutdown, all of them are back online a day or two later.

Yes. Just because a service does not accept bitcoin, that does not mean that they aren't bitcoin friendly in terms of things like running nodes on their servers. According to contabo docs, they are definitely bitcoin/blockchain node friendly. It's a shame they do not accept bitcoin, but yet again not many decent providers do.

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I planned to update the OP with solutions a little prompter. I have not gotten around to it yet, though will soon.

Did they ever comment on it?

Usually providers will at least make some sort of comment somewhere when they have an issue like that.
Otherwise rumors start to build. Does not even have to be their fault, a blown route in one of their peering partners can be a pain to trace out. Dave on cable can get to them but Dave on FiOS can't. Do you blame FiOS or the people that FiOS themselves are connected to. And so on.

For all it does BGP routing is simple when it works, tracking down odd issues can take a while.

-Dave

Not sure what is crypto, nor do I give too many fucks.  I would think that a service provider should try to accept bitcoin and/or lightning network payments... .

...and yeah maybe they can accept some shitcoins and convert them to bitcoin or to dollars right away.. and sure some shitcoiners would maybe want to find some ways to off-load their shitcoins, but I am not sure how that would be bringing much meaning towards the various kinds of concerns that bitcoin users may well be attempting to address in terms of decentralization and various attempts at self-autonomy.... except surely there could be some deflection values in terms of the various shitcoins that are out there and are being promoted, talked about in ambiguous ways as if there was meaning therein and/or used.

Regarding any business needing to accept bitcoin in order to be bitcoin-friendly, sure it is understandable that some businesses may well have some constrains towards being able to receive depending on their jurisdiction (tax, accounting, reporting and maybe others, perhaps?), but I would imagine that any companies doing business in and around bitcoin should attempt to address the issue in regards to explaining their payment methods and maybe mentioning if they intend to accept bitcoin in the future or if they feel that they are restrained from being able to accept bitcoin (and provide a reason for why they are not accepting bitcoin, if that is their current status)... of course, if they choose to accept some shitcoin then maybe they should specify, and hopefully they are not using dumb-ass vague language that hardly means anything, unless there is some specification regarding what it means.. .. "crypto-friendly?" what the fuck is that?

By the way, the Contabo statement (See below) (https://contabo.com/blog/can-i-use-contabo-servers-for-crypto/) about how they are not currently accepting bitcoin payments is a bit lame.. but at least they have an explanation to help to inform their clients regarding the extent to which they seem to have a decently good explanation or some lame one, like Contabo (from my perspective) has a fairly lame one (at this time).

>>>>>>What About Paying with Bitcoin or Other Crypto?
We don’t have plans to start accepting Bitcoins or other cryptocurrencies as a form of payment in Contabo. The main reason is volatility of most coins, which means that we would have to adjust the prices multiples times a day. Second, more important reason is the fact that many coins have a negative impact on the climate. Even Tesla eventually decided to stop accepting Bitcoin. <<<<<

You can have a look at our offshore dedicated host as an alternative and BTC is also accepted as a payment, https://www.zakservers.com

Your services are no where near the level of Contabo or Hetzner. $149 per month is your base model for 200GB SSD, 16gb ram and inferior hardware. Hetzner provides 10x+ more than this for a lower price.