Blog/Article
Real-life stories of Web3 companies leveraging bare metal
Web3 companies are redefining how applications, transactions, and digital interactions operate—leveraging blockchain technology, AI, and decentralized computing to build the future of the internet.
But this innovation comes with significant infrastructure challenges: high-performance requirements, cost-efficiency, and scalability.
Summary
For many Web3 businesses, traditional cloud providers fall short, leading them to seek more powerful alternatives.
This is where bare metal infrastructure comes in. Unlike traditional cloud hosting, bare metal servers provide dedicated resources without virtualization overhead, making them ideal for high-performance computing, blockchain validation, and AI-driven workloads.
Companies like BTCS, xLabs, and Neon Labs have turned to Latitude.sh for a more scalable and cost-effective approach, yielding remarkable results.
BTCS: Doubling Performance and 100x Faster Queries
For blockchain companies like BTCS, high availability, and low-latency infrastructure are non-negotiable.
BTCS, a publicly traded blockchain technology company, was running its ChainQ platform on a traditional cloud setup but encountered severe limitations in performance and cost-effectiveness.
After switching to Latitude.sh’s bare metal servers, BTCS achieved twice the performance, 30% savings on cloud billing, and 100x faster blockchain queries on its ChainQ platform.
"We're seeing around a hundred times faster queries than what we originally had on AWS, as a result of our shift to Latitude and other proprietary improvements," Michal Handerhan, Chief Operating Officer at BTCS, noted. "We were spending a fortune on traffic and even more on logs. AWS has so many cost factors that can add up, sometimes without you even realizing it."
These improvements were game-changing for a company relying on real-time blockchain indexing and query performance.
"We estimate we’re currently saving approximately 30%, but expect our savings to grow as we migrate additional machines run on AWS to Latitude.sh," he noted.
Bare metal provided BTCS with the raw computing power needed to process blockchain transactions without the bottlenecks associated with virtualized cloud environments.
xLabs: 100% Uptime and 0% Skip-Rate for Blockchain Validation
In the Web3 space, uptime and consistency are paramount, especially for companies running validator nodes. xLabs, a leader in the Solana ecosystem, faced ongoing challenges with traditional cloud-based solutions.
Their validators and RPC nodes required a highly reliable environment with minimal downtime to ensure the smooth functioning of their network.
After migrating to Latitude.sh’s bare metal infrastructure, xLabs achieved a 0% skip rate—ensuring no transactions were lost due to latency or processing delays. Additionally, they reached 100% uptime, a crucial factor for validator performance.
“We're very surprised with the platform, service UI, and with all of those options to quickly request a service and customize it. So all the functionality that you put in the UI for the billing, for the expenses, are all there,” said André Claro, Team Lead for Blockchain Nodes at xLabs.
These improvements highlight a fundamental advantage of bare metal for blockchain companies: dedicated resources ensure predictable performance and network stability, eliminating the variability that comes with shared cloud environments.
Neon Labs: 60% Reduction in Cloud Costs
Neon Labs, a Web3 company focused on blockchain interoperability, faced significant challenges operating on public cloud infrastructure. High data egress costs and transaction latency made their operations complex and expensive.
Seeking alternatives, the Neon Labs DevOps team evaluated several options and found the ideal solution in Latitude.sh. Migrating to blockchain-optimized bare metal servers reduced infrastructure costs by 60% and increased workload performance by 3x.
"On AWS, we experienced delays of up to 14 seconds between writing a block and displaying it on our dashboard. With Latitude.sh, we reduced that latency to just 3.4 seconds, making Neon Labs a truly real-time solution," Juliano Souza, Cloud and DevOps Manager at Neon Labs.
Beyond performance improvements and cost savings, Neon Labs highlighted Latitude.sh’s specialized technical support as a key differentiator.
From the initial conversations, Latitude.sh demonstrated flexibility and deep expertise in blockchain infrastructure, ensuring a smooth and secure transition to the new servers.
With dedicated and optimized infrastructure, Neon Labs eliminated operational bottlenecks and scaled its solution more efficiently and cost-effectively.
Why Web3 Companies Are Turning to Bare Metal
The challenges faced by BTCS, xLabs, and Neon Labs illustrate why bare metal has become the preferred choice for Web3 companies. Unlike traditional cloud solutions, bare metal offers:
Dedicated, high-performance hardware: Eliminating the overhead of virtualization leads to better resource utilization and faster processing.
Predictable costs: Many cloud providers charge high egress fees and unpredictable billing models, whereas bare metal offers straightforward pricing.
Greater control: Web3 companies require fine-tuned configurations for blockchain validators, RPC nodes, and new AI workloads—something cloud providers often lack.
Lower latency and improved stability: By running on dedicated machines, companies experience fewer network disruptions and faster transaction processing.
As the Web3 ecosystem continues to expand, the need for robust infrastructure will only grow. Companies building blockchain networks, AI-driven applications, and decentralized computing solutions need infrastructure to keep up with their ambitions.
Bare metal provides the raw power, scalability, and cost efficiency needed to fuel the next generation of Web3 innovation.
What Latitude.sh Has to Offer
Bare metal servers play a vital role in enhancing the performance and scalability of high-throughput blockchains.
Whether supporting proof-of-stake networks, layer 2 scaling solutions, or permissionless smart contract platforms, dedicated hardware provides the raw computing power and low-latency network configurations necessary for rapid transaction processing and efficient data propagation.
One of the key advantages of bare metal in blockchain environments is its ability to handle large-scale workloads with high efficiency.
Running a validator requires substantial hardware resources to maintain optimal performance, including a modern CPU with multiple cores and threads, a minimum of 128GB RAM (or more for future-proofing), NVMe SSDs with high IOPS capable of handling terabytes of rapidly growing ledger data, and a reliable network connection with low latency and high bandwidth.
All Gen4 instances available at Latitude.sh can meet these requirements with ease, ensuring validators can keep up with high-performance blockchain demands, including rapid block processing and transaction validation.
By leveraging bare metal servers, Web3 companies can save up to 70% on cloud costs compared to hosting the same workloads on virtualized servers at hyperscalers like AWS.
Additionally, bare metal servers offer a level of security and isolation that virtualized environments cannot match. Network latency plays a crucial role in validator performance, as fast block propagation is essential to prevent missed slots and maintain network integrity.
Ideally, network latency between validators should be minimized to ensure efficient consensus participation.
Geographic location, while important for decentralization, must be balanced with network topology considerations. Validators need to maintain excellent connectivity with a significant portion of the network to operate effectively.
At Latitude.sh, validators can deploy bare metal servers across 16 major global cities while leveraging carrier-grade network topology on each site.
By dedicating physical hardware to blockchain operations, validators minimize risks associated with multi-tenant systems, ensuring greater stability and predictability.
With optimized resource allocation, enhanced networking capabilities, and consistent performance, bare metal servers are essential for sustaining the speed, security, and efficiency that define high-performance blockchain ecosystems.
In other words, for any Web3 company aiming for reliability and scalability, bare metal isn’t just an option—it’s a necessity.
A Future Built on Performance and Scalability
Latitude.sh has proven to be a key infrastructure partner for leading Web3 companies, offering the reliability and power necessary to support blockchain networks and decentralized applications at scale.
The success of BTCS, xLabs, and Neon Labs is a testament to bare metal's impact on the Web3 landscape. Whether reducing costs, improving uptime, or boosting performance, bare metal infrastructure is not just an alternative to the cloud—it’s the backbone of Web3’s future.
Are you ready to build the future of Web3 on bare metal? Start using Latitude.sh today!