This report provides a transparent overview of Ecency's operational scale, infrastructure demands, onboarding systems, and cost structure over the past 12 months.
System Scale & Traffic
Over the past year:
3.84 billion requests served
473 million page views
237 TB bandwidth delivered
~10.56 million requests per day
Observations
Bandwidth per request has increased over time
Cache efficiency fluctuates (10%-60%)
Increased scraper and AI crawler activity impacts performance
Peak Load Events
March 2026:
424 million requests
40 TB bandwidth
Peak day:
- 27.3 million requests
Peak bandwidth:
- 2.66 TB in a single day
Infrastructure must handle spikes, not averages.
Abuse Prevention & Security
Using IPQS and internal filtering:
53,802 verification checks
25,251 fraudulent attempts detected
~46.93% fraud rate
Additional internal protections:
behavioral heuristics
rate limiting
validation systems
Actual fraud pressure is likely higher than measured.
Onboarding System
Monthly onboarding range:
Low: ~217 users
High: ~1056 users
Stable range: ~400-600 users
Key insight
Onboarding is constrained by quality filtering, not demand.
User Support
Ecency provides ongoing user support through:
Email
Discord
Telegram
Helping users:
understand Hive
resolve issues
stay engaged
Retention & Engagement
Retention is improved through:
Support layer
onboarding guidance
troubleshooting
user assistance
Product mechanisms
points system
gamification
engagement incentives
Retention is an active focus area.
Cost Structure Evolution
2025:
Dev: 51.9%
Infra: 22.1%
Other: ~26%
2026:
Dev: ~36%
Infra: ~30%
Other: ~34%
Total cost:
- Reduced from ~$11,550 - ~$9,064
Efficiency Gains
Dev team reduced ~50%
Feature delivery maintained
Infrastructure load increased
Efficiency improved while demand increased.
Core Services Operated
Ecency maintains:
Ecency mobile app (Android, iOS)
HiveSigner (authentication)
HiveExplorer (blockchain explorer)
HiveSearcher (search & indexing)
HiveKeeper (browser extension)
Image hosting infrastructure
Full Hive node
These support authentication, data access, content discovery, and media delivery.
Infrastructure Role
Infrastructure supports:
frontend delivery
APIs and backend systems
indexing and caching
abuse detection
It also absorbs spikes and mitigates attacks.
Key Challenges
increasing bandwidth demand
AI crawler pressure
cache inefficiency
balancing onboarding vs abuse
Strategic Direction
improve caching efficiency
reduce cost per request
maintain onboarding quality
explore partial revenue offsets
Transparency
Full financial breakdown:
Final Insight
Ecency has transitioned from a development-heavy model to an infrastructure-driven system operating at real-world scale.
The majority of cost is now tied to sustaining usage, not expanding teams.
Thank you for providing such a detailed and transparent report,,, Handling 3.84 billion requests while successfully reducing overall costs is a massive achievement. The insights into your abuse prevention (blocking almost 47% of fraud attempts) and the shift towards an infrastructure-driven model really show the dedication of the team. We truly appreciate your hard work in keeping Ecency fast, secure, and thriving for the Hive ecosystem. Keep up the phenomenal work
Security is the most important aspect in the crypt. Scammers are improving and constantly trying to commit a crime.
Thank you for the report, in simple terms that can be largely understood, even for people like me who are not a specialist.
The 46.93% fraud rate stat stands out. Nearly half of signup attempts being fake explains a lot about why onboarding costs stay high. Do you break that down further between bot farms vs individual bad actors? Different solutions for each.
Some bot farms/bad actors will still go through that’s why it is constant battle to keep those out of our signup faucet otherwise account credits are drained easily for no reasons and those signups would end up eating resources from real users. Current system we have in place is quite good and resilient, has taken years to polish and harden, we will keep improving it every year…
473M page views, that’s serious stickiness for a blockchain project.
Impressive numbers, one of the UI that welcomes new users.
Thank you for this really insightful report showing great, consistent effort for continuous improvement.
I guess onboarding quality is one issue, which can be addressed to a certain extent.
Although this is a highly technical issue that has to do perhaps with more solid security, in addition to minimizing fraudulent bots, attracting more crypto users to invest in Hive is essential, I think.
Would the Hive community of users and ecosystem overall benefit from a stronger Hive coin, i.e. higher price, as a result of a higher external demand for the Hive coin?
My answer would be yes, because all Hive users, hodlers, delegaters, and stakers would become richer from a higher price of Hive.
External demand for Hive can increase by promoting the unique advantages of investing in Hive assets.
For example, speaking of Ecency, there is a certain APR percentage that users can earn from following the trail and delegating HIve Power to Ecency.
I think this percentage rate could be attractive to external investors, compared to what they could earn from staking other cryptos in the current market climate, so why not promote this option even more.
Of course, in this case, once more big investors are convinced to invest in Hive, standard procedures, such as KYC and other AML would need to be further and more strictly applied to ensure a healthy inflow of funds, as well as sustainable development and growth of the blockchain.