Being A Witness Is Cheap, Anyone Can Do It for $30
This post is not sarcasm or humorous; it is not expensive to be a witness. In the beginning, when I started being a witness, I thought it would be costly to keep the server, but that is because I was using the wrong infrastructure.
Having a dedicated server is not required. And a server shouldn't cost over 100 dollars.
Right off the bat, to get this out of the way: you can have a server powerful enough to run a witness node for around 30 dollars at contabo.com
I am not being paid to say this and not getting referrals; I want people to know that being a witness is not expensive, so:
- They can give it try
- They won't take bullshit when the top 19 witnesses justify their actions or lack of, because "oh, poor me, it is so expensive being a witness."
The server comes with plenty of ram, more cores than you need and a fast SSD and connection.
Here, for 30 dollars on contabo.com, you can have a VPS that has more than enough resources for this.
Don't you believe it? I have been running my witness node for one month there, and I didn't say I was changing my server because if it failed no one would know.
But I have been running with them for one month, and I have NOT MISSED A SINGLE BLOCK!
There you go. If someone says, they are spending more than 30 bucks on a server, show that to them. Want to open a node, and someone recommended you to use an expensive server? Screw it, Contabo is cheap and works flawless, ZERO BLOCKS MISSED!
Anyone can be a witness. Being a witness is not expensive, the blockchain is not heavy. Don't let them fool you.
Contabo's network can sometimes be unreliable. I've missed a few blocks in the past with them. However, for starting witnesses they offer good prices.