Search for how to run an Ethereum or Bitcoin node and you get a hundred tutorials that start with “rent a VPS”. Not one of them checks whether that VPS provider allows it. Then the server disappears, usually with no warning, and the tutorial’s comment section fills up with people who lost a synced chain.
The confusion has a simple root: mining and running a node are different activities, and hosting contracts are mostly written as if only mining exists. This post is what the contracts actually say, quoted from the providers’ own legal pages, plus what a node really costs in disk, RAM and bandwidth.
Mining, staking, and just running a node
Three different things get lumped together:
- Mining burns CPU or GPU cycles continuously to win blocks. It saturates hardware, and it is why hosts care: it makes shared infrastructure slow for everyone and it attracts fraud.
- Running a full node downloads and validates the chain. It is mostly disk and bandwidth, with modest CPU. It earns nothing.
- Staking or validating runs a full node plus signing duties, with capital locked up. Also not CPU-heavy.
A provider that bans “mining” has written a rule about the first one. Whether that rule covers the other two is usually not stated anywhere, and that gap is where people lose servers.
What the contracts actually say
Read on the providers’ own legal pages at the time of writing:
| Provider | Mining | Nodes mentioned? | Exact wording |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hetzner | prohibited | no | “The operation of applications for mining cryptocurrencies remains prohibited.” Elsewhere: “mining, farming and plotting of cryptocurrencies.” |
| Netcup | prohibited | no | “Operation of mining-services such as ‘Bitcoin’, ‘Ethereum’, ‘OneCoin’ or ‘Monero’.” |
| DigitalOcean | prohibited without permission | no | “Mining any cryptocurrency, including but not limited to BitCoin or any similar currency, without explicit written permission.” |
| Scaleway | prohibited | no | “not to engage in any harmful practices, such as but not limited to: cryptocurrency mining, Black Hat SEO, spamming…” |
| Contabo | not mentioned in the terms | sells node hosting | no crypto clause in the terms and conditions |
| OVHcloud | not mentioned in the terms we read | sells node hosting | no crypto clause in the dedicated-server conditions |
Two things stand out.
Not one of these contracts uses the word “node”. Every ban is written about mining. If you run a Bitcoin full node on a provider whose rule says “mining”, you are in a grey area that a support agent resolves, not a lawyer.
DigitalOcean is the only one that leaves a door open in writing. “Without explicit written permission” means there is a process: ask, get an answer in writing, keep it. If you want a node on a mainstream cloud and you want to sleep at night, that sentence is the most useful one in this table.
Hetzner is the clear no
Hetzner’s terms ban mining outright, and in 2022 the company went further than the written text: a spokesperson stated that even running a single node violates its terms, and over a thousand Solana validators went offline when the enforcement landed. The written policy still only says “mining”, but the enforcement record says nodes. Treat Hetzner as off-limits for anything chain-related, however cheap the server is.
That is a genuine loss, because for everything that is not a node, Hetzner is usually the price-performance answer. We say so in our own VPS comparison and we still mean it. Just not for this.
Contabo and OVHcloud sell it as a product
The flip side is the part the tutorials miss. Two of the providers in the table do not merely tolerate nodes, they advertise them.
Contabo has a page titled Cryptocurrency Nodes at Contabo. OVHcloud runs a blockchain infrastructure line whose copy reads “Run your node, chain, or layer 2 exactly how you want to” and “A network that keeps your blockchain nodes synched”. When a provider markets the exact workload you are deploying, your terms-of-service risk is close to zero: you are the customer they built the page for.
What we could not verify
Vultr’s use policy returns an access error to automated requests, so we could not read it first-hand and have left it out of the table rather than quote a figure we did not see. Latitude.sh’s terms defer to a third-party master agreement we did not read. If you are choosing between those two, open the pages yourself before you deploy.
What a node actually needs
From each project’s own documentation, not from forum folklore:
| CPU | RAM | Disk | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bitcoin Core | 1 GHz, any modern core | 512 MB minimum | 750 GB | 740 GB one-time initial download |
| Ethereum (Geth + consensus client) | quad core | 16 GB | 2 TB SSD | grows ~14 GB/week; archive node over 12 TB |
| Solana validator | 12 cores / 24 threads | 256 GB ECC | 1 TB accounts + 1 TB ledger + 500 GB snapshots, separate NVMe each | RPC node: 16 cores, 512 GB |
The Ethereum line is the one most people get wrong. A 2 TB disk is not a comfort margin, it is the requirement, and the chain grows about 14 GB a week underneath you. A node that fits today stops fitting in a year.
The Solana line is not a self-hosting project at all. 256 GB of ECC memory and three separate NVMe drives is a dedicated machine, and Solana’s own docs add a line worth quoting to anyone planning it on a cheap VPS: running in the cloud “requires significantly greater operational expertise to achieve stability and performance”.
The bandwidth bill nobody mentions
This is the number missing from every node tutorial. A Bitcoin Core node with default settings uploads 5 GB a day, about 150 GB a month, serving blocks to other peers. It is not an accident, it is the job.
What that costs depends entirely on how your host bills traffic:
- Unmetered or generous included traffic (most European VPS providers): free.
- Metered cloud egress: 150 GB a month at $0.09/GB is about $13.50 a month in bandwidth alone, which is more than the server on most plans.
So the hosting decision for a node is not “which VPS has the best CPU”. It is “which VPS does not meter the 150 GB a month my node will push out by design”. You can cap it (Bitcoin Core takes a bandwidth limit), but then you are a worse peer and a slower node.
Does any of it pay?
Worth saying plainly, because the search results around this topic are full of promises:
- A plain full node earns nothing. Bitcoin, Ethereum, anything. It is infrastructure you run for sovereignty, privacy or an application you are building, not income.
- Ethereum staking needs 32 ETH locked up. At the time of writing that is roughly 74,000 USD of capital for a yield in the low single digits, before the server bill. The yield is denominated in an asset whose price moves more in a week than the yield pays in a year.
- Solana validating costs money before it earns any: the docs state that voting “can cost up to 1.1 SOL per day” in vote transactions. At today’s price that is about 110 USD a day, roughly 40,000 USD a year, paid regardless of what you earn, and you need a large delegated stake to cover it.
Run a node because you want your own view of the chain. Do not run one as a side income: the economics only work with capital or scale you do not have if you are reading a self-hosting blog.
Before you deploy, do this
- Open the provider’s acceptable use policy and search it for “mining”. Thirty seconds. If the word is there and “node” is not, you are in the grey area.
- If it is a grey area and the server matters, ask support in writing. On DigitalOcean this is explicitly the documented path. Keep the reply.
- Check how egress is billed before you check CPU benchmarks. 150 GB a month is the baseline for Bitcoin.
- Size the disk for next year, not for today. Ethereum adds roughly 14 GB a week.
- Prefer a provider that advertises the workload. A marketing page about node hosting is a stronger guarantee than silence in the terms.
FAQ
Can I run a crypto node on Hetzner? No. Hetzner’s terms prohibit mining applications, and in 2022 the company stated that even a single node violates its terms, removing over a thousand Solana validators in the process. The written text still says “mining”, but the enforcement record is clear.
Is running a node the same as mining? No. Mining burns CPU or GPU continuously to win blocks. A full node downloads and validates the chain: mostly disk and bandwidth, with modest CPU, and it earns nothing. Most hosting contracts only ban the first and say nothing about the second.
Which hosting providers allow blockchain nodes? Contabo and OVHcloud both market node hosting as a product, which is the strongest signal you can get. DigitalOcean allows crypto workloads with explicit written permission. Hetzner, Netcup and Scaleway prohibit mining in their terms.
How much disk does an Ethereum node need? 2 TB SSD for a full node running Geth plus a consensus client, per Geth’s own documentation, and the database grows about 14 GB per week. An archive node needs over 12 TB.
How much bandwidth does a Bitcoin node use? About 5 GB per day of upload, 150 GB per month, with default settings, plus a one-time 740 GB download for the initial sync. On a metered cloud that traffic can cost more than the server.
Can I make money running a node? Not from a plain full node: it earns nothing. Ethereum staking needs 32 ETH of capital. Solana validating costs up to 1.1 SOL per day in vote fees before it earns anything. Nodes are infrastructure, not income.
What’s next
If you are picking a server for something that is not a node, our VPS comparison has live pricing from three vendors, and the backup storage comparison covers where the chain snapshots should go.