Chainstack Leverages AWS to Help Thousands of Web3 Developers Reliably Scale Blockchain Applications

Blockchain continues its rise across the globe. The decentralized and distributed digital ledger, consisting of records called blocks, is used to log transactions for popular cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. According to research firm Transparency Market Research (TMR), the global blockchain market is slated to be worth $20 billion by 2024.

Chainstack supports this market by simplifying developers’ access to cloud-based environments built with Web3, the Internet service used to build blockchains. Launched in 2018, the company hosts blockchain applications using more than 13 of the top protocols including Ethereum, Polygon, and BSC. Today, tens of thousands of global customers create solutions on the Chainstack platform. Eugene Aseev, chief technology officer and cofounder of Chainstack, says, “We provide easy access to blockchain APIs for Web3 developers, startups, and enterprises building blockchain solutions. Blockchain development uses a lot of compute and storage resources, and our solution helps developers overcome those challenges by relying on our managed services.”

Since its founding, Chainstack has run its platform on Amazon Web Services (AWS). “We’re focused on developing Web3 infrastructure, which can be quite demanding, so we rely on AWS to manage a lot of our backend services,” says Aseev. “We wanted to hyperscale and go global quickly to begin with, and AWS has helped us do that. We’re now a multi-cloud and multi-blockchain-supporting platform.”

Because Chainstack uses container-based applications running in the Kubernetes open-source orchestration system, it relies on Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS) to manage and scale those applications. Chainstack also takes advantage of a range of Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instances to run different workloads with their own compute and storage requirements, supporting specific customer workloads like deploying hardware-demanding Solana nodes by running Amazon EC2 Bare Metal Instances.

Additionally, Chainstack uses Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) to increase performance. “We have workloads requiring up to 20TB of storage. Amazon EBS is a reliable service that supports those requirements and helps us to process tens of thousands of requests per second. It has never failed us,” says Aseev. The company also relies on Amazon Route 53 as its Domain Name System web service.  

By running its application environment on AWS and leveraging highly available compute and storage resources, Chainstack provides blockchain developers with a reliable way to build Web3-based applications. “We help developers sleep soundly at night because they don’t worry about things like nodes breaking. Our customers have peace of mind because they know that our environment reliably powers their Web3 applications. Even if you’re a blockchain expert, it can be challenging to run different protocols. With AWS, we can provide the fundamental technology to empower the growth of blockchain applications,” says Aseev.

On AWS, Chainstack can quickly scale its application environment, which has helped the company accelerate business growth. “I can get a virtual machine up and running in 5 minutes to test something new on AWS. We have the elasticity to scale up as required, when required,” says Aseev. With these capabilities, Chainstack has grown its revenue by 50 times over the past year and increased its workforce from 15 employees to 50 in the same period. “Our team is still relatively small, and a service like Amazon EKS helps us maintain our Kubernetes environment without worrying about managing underlying technology.”

The organization can also support any blockchain protocol with a variety of Amazon EC2 instance types. “If we need to support a protocol with unique requirements, we can quickly and easily find something to suit that use case because there are so many ways to run Amazon EC2,” explains Aseev. “We don't need to reinvent the wheel or invest significant time and money into building and configuring a custom solution.”

Chainstack is also reducing operational costs with a pay-as-you-go model on AWS, paying only for the resources it uses. “We launch new projects every day, and we can do that without having to prepay an annual fee for something that might not be used a month from now,” notes Aseev. Furthermore, AWS provides transparency and flexibility to help the business control costs, which is critical for a small company like Chainstack. The business has reduced costs by approximately 30–40 percent, as a conservative estimate, from using Compute Savings Plans because of the flexible pricing.

Chainstack is now exploring ways to expand its use of AWS as it continues to grow its business. “We’re evaluating new elements within Amazon EKS, such as adding external clusters, alongside different Amazon EC2 features,” says Aseev. He continues, “Blockchain is a technology that keeps growing every day, and we trust AWS to help us meet that growth while expanding our business. We’ve had a great experience with AWS, especially in working with the Singapore-based team. They’ve been very responsive and helpful in resolving any issues that emerged throughout our communication.”

To learn more, visit aws.amazon.com/blockchain/