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Curated List
Quick Take
Blockchain infrastructure costs vary by deployment type: Hyperledger Fabric multi-org enterprise network: ~$3,779/month ($45,348/year) including EKS nodes, CouchDB, CloudHSM, and monitoring. Ethereum L2 application (Arbitrum/Polygon): ~$833/month ($9,996/year) plus variable gas costs ($50–$5,000/month). Centralized crypto exchange: ~$10,390–$12,890/month ($124,680–$154,680/year) including HSMs, Chainalysis, and KYC costs. The biggest surprise: CloudHSM for exchanges at $2,100/month — often excluded from initial estimates.
Infrastructure Cost by Deployment Type
Hyperledger Fabric — Multi-Organization Enterprise Network
| Component | Unit Cost | Typical Qty | Monthly Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| AWS EKS — peer nodes (m5.xlarge) | $145/node/mo | 6 (3 orgs × 2 peers) | $870 |
| AWS EKS — orderer nodes (m5.large) | $72/node/mo | 3 | $216 |
| CouchDB state database | $58/instance/mo | 6 | $348 |
| AWS CloudHSM (CA key protection) | $1,050/unit/mo | 2 | $2,100 |
| VPN/peering (inter-org) | $120/mo | 1 | $120 |
| Monitoring (Grafana, Prometheus) | $80/mo | 1 | $80 |
| S3 backup (ledger snapshots) | $45/mo | 1 | $45 |
| TOTAL | $3,779/mo | ||
| Annual | $45,348 |
Ethereum L2 Application (Arbitrum/Polygon)
| Component | Unit Cost | Monthly Total |
|---|---|---|
| Alchemy (Growth plan) | $199/mo | $199 |
| Infura (fallback RPC) | $50/mo | $50 |
| Tenderly monitoring | $99/mo | $99 |
| The Graph (hosted subgraph) | $49/mo | $49 |
| Immunefi bug bounty (platform fee) | $416/mo ($5K/yr) | $416 |
| Vercel (frontend) | $20/mo | $20 |
| TOTAL | $833/mo | |
| Annual | $9,996 | |
| Plus: gas costs | Variable | $50–$5,000/mo |
Centralized Crypto Exchange — Full Infrastructure
| Component | Unit Cost | Monthly Total |
|---|---|---|
| AWS EKS cluster (matching engine, API, services) | $2,400/mo | $2,400 |
| AWS CloudHSM (hot wallet keys) | $2,100/mo (2 HSMs) | $2,100 |
| RDS PostgreSQL (Multi-AZ) | $480/mo | $480 |
| ElasticSearch (order history) | $380/mo | $380 |
| Redis cluster (real-time order book cache) | $290/mo | $290 |
| CDN + WAF (CloudFront + Shield) | $350/mo | $350 |
| Chainalysis (AML compliance API) | $4,000/mo | $4,000 |
| Jumio KYC (per verification) | Variable ($1–$3/user) | $500–$3,000 |
| Sendgrid (email notifications) | $90/mo | $90 |
| Monitoring + logging | $200/mo | $200 |
| TOTAL | $10,390–$12,890/mo | |
| Annual | $124,680–$154,680 |