We are currently the 3rd largest Lemmy instance in terms of monthly active users. This brings a financial burden and we would appreciate your help about it.
I only pin this post when we drop below $200. I know it’s annoying when the donation post is always at the top.
If you want to donate, here’s donation platforms we use:
- Throne.com: No registration needed, fiat only.
- Ethereum: 0x4e4af5dc2f86235ac496542c2a1c00f3c4de40c6
- Monero: 48VYVWPKk65KiDiBaLhvSggKSbDQ4vtdq6HHbDa2HxWLiBWVcZ65gTgMBu7UeSUcm4dasAMMaKHnJNJSgRKi7Q5R5HN9adg
- Trocador.app (multiple cryptocurrencies)
Donate to the team
@lemmyposter212 does heavy lifting by moderating the instance. Therefore, if you want to donate to them individually, you can use the ETH address below.
- 0xba69716dFa94685bE1302f0f875E8fAA8c180fC2
Financial status
Here is what we have and what we spent.
| date | description | USD | ETH | XMR |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-06-28 | + donation | 190 (+10) | 0.0145 | 0.9264 |
| 2025-06-27 | + donation | 180 (+10) | 0.0145 | 0.9264 |
| 2025-06-25 | + donation | 170 (+20) | 0.0145 | 0.9264 |
| 2025-06-25 | - load balance server | 150 | 0.0145 | 0.9264 (-0.0413) |
| 2025-06-14 | - main server and media storage | 150 (-95) | 0.0145 | 0.9677 |
| 2025-06-02 | - load balance server | 245 | 0.0145 | 0.9677 (-0.0370) |
| 2025-05-27 | + donation | 245 | 0.0145 | 1.0048 (+1) |
| 2025-05-26 | + donation | 245 (+5) | 0.0145 | 0.0048 |
| 2025-05-26 | + donation | 240 (+20) | 0.0145 | 0.0048 |
| 2025-05-25 | + donation | 220 (+50) | 0.0145 | 0.0048 |
| 2025-05-19 | + donation | 170 (+20) | 0.0145 | 0.0048 |
| 2025-05-16 | + donation | 150 | 0.0145 (+0.0055) | 0.0048 |
| 2025-05-16 | + donation | 150 (+20) | 0.009 | 0.0048 |
| 2025-05-15 | - main server and media storage | 130 (-95) | 0.009 | 0.0048 |
| 2025-05-11 | - domain renewal | 225 (-17) | 0.009 | 0.0048 |
| 2025-05-04 | + thanks burger baron | 242 (+20) | 0.009 | 0.0048 |
| 2025-05-04 | + donation | 222 (+20) | 0.009 | 0.0048 |
| 2025-04-25 | - load balance server | 202 | 0.009 (-0.007) | 0.0048 |
| 2025-04-18 | + donation | 202 (+10) | 0.0161 | 0.0048 |
| 2025-04-16 | + donation | 192 (+20) | 0.0161 | 0.0048 |
| 2025-04-16 | + donation | 172 (+5) | 0.0161 | 0.0048 |
| 2025-04-16 | + donation | 167 | 0.0161 (+0.0073) | 0.0048 |
| 2025-04-15 | + donation | 167 (+5) | 0.0097 | 0.0048 |
| 2025-04-13 | + thank you radovic 🙏 | 162 (+30) | 0.0097 | 0.0048 |
| 2025-04-13 | + donation | 132 (+10) | 0.0097 | 0.0048 |
| 2025-04-12 | - main server and media storage | 122 (-95) | 0.0097 | 0.0048 |
| 2025-03-28 | - load balance server | 217 | 0.0097 | 0.0048 (-0.0541) |
| 2025-03-16 | - email credits | 217 (-50) | 0.0097 | 0.0590 |
| 2025-03-14 | - main server and media storage | 267 (-95) | 0.0097 | 0.0590 |
| 2025-03-12 | - media storage | 362 (-20) | 0.0097 | 0.0590 |
| 2025-02-23 | - load balance server | 382 | 0.0097 | 0.0590 (0.0505) |
| 2025-02-15 | - main server and media storage | 382 (-94) | 0.0097 | 0.1095 |
| 2025-01-26 | - load balance server | 476 | 0.0097 | 0.1095 (-0.0528) |
| 2025-01-20 | / XMR to USD | 476 (+355.6) | 0.0097 | 0.1624 (-1.8001) |
| 2025-01-15 | + donation | 120 (+50) | 0.0097 | 1.9625 |
| 2025-01-14 | - main server and media storage | 70 (-94) | 0.0097 | 1.9625 |
| 2025-01-03 | + donation | 164 (+50) | 0.0097 | 1.9625 |
| 2024-12-29 | - load balance server | 114 | 0.0097 | 1.9625 (-0.0598) |
| 2024-12-24 | + dec overall, 4 donations, thx 🙏 | 114 (+55) | 0.0097 | 2.0224 |
| 2024-12-14 | - main server | 59 (-75) | 0.0097 | 2.0224 |
| 2024-12-12 | - media storage | 134 (-18) | 0.0097 | 2.0224 |
| 2024-12-11 | + donation | 152 | 0.0097 | 2.0224 (+0.0106) |
| 2024-11-28 | + donation | 152 (+20) | 0.0097 | 2.0118 |
| 2024-11-26 | + donation | 132 (+5) | 0.0097 | 2.0118 |
| 2024-11-25 | + donation | 127 (+20) | 0.0097 | 2.0118 |
| 2024-11-24 | - load balance server | 107 | 0.0097 | 2.0118 (-0.0707) |
| 2024-11-16 | + donation (from 11-15) | 107 | 0.0097 | 2.0825 (+0.0569) |
| 2024-11-16 | + donation (from 11-07) | 107 | 0.0097 | 2.0256 (+1 🙏) |
| 2024-11-14 | - main server | 107 (-75) | 0.0097 | 1.0256 |
| 2024-11-12 | + donation | 182 (+20) | 0.0097 | 1.0256 |
| 2024-11-12 | - media storage | 162 (-18) | 0.0097 | 1.0256 |
| 2024-11-08 | + donation | 180 (+10) | 0.0097 | 1.0256 |
| 2024-11-01 | + donation | 170 (+10) | 0.0097 | 1.0256 |
| 2024-10-25 | - load balance server | 160 | 0.0097 | 1.0256 (-0.0770) |
| 2024-10-17 | + donation | 160 (+10) | 0.0097 | 1.1026 |
| 2024-10-15 | + donation | 150 | 0.0097 (+0.0073) | 1.1026 |
| 2024-10-14 | - main server | 150 (-75) | 0.002 | 1.1026 |
| 2024-10-12 | - media storage | 225 (-18) | 0.002 | 1.1026 |
| 2024-09-24 | - load balance servers | 243 | 0.002 | 1.1026 (-0.1270) |
| 2024-09-14 | - main server | 243 (-75) | 0.002 | 1.2296 |
| 2024-09-12 | - media storage | 318 (-17) | 0.002 | 1.2296 |
| 2024-08-30 | + donation | 335 | 0.002 | 1.2296 (+0.0318) |
| 2024-08-26 | - load balance server | 335 | 0.002 | 1.1577 (-0.1153) |
| 2024-08-16 | + donations (one from July 29) | 335 (+20) | 0.002 | 1.2731 |
| 2024-08-14 | - main server | 315 (-75) | 0.002 | 1.2731 |
| 2024-08-12 | - media storage | 390 (-15) | 0.002 | 1.2731 |
| 2024-07-26 | + donation | 405 (+5) | 0.002 | 1.2731 |
| 2024-07-26 | + donation | 400 (+20) | 0.002 | 1.2731 |
| 2024-07-26 | + donation | 380 (+50) | 0.002 | 1.2731 |
| 2024-07-25 | - load balance server | 330 | 0.002 | 1.2731 (-0.0729) |
| 2024-07-14 | - main server | 330 (-75) | 0.002 | 1.3460 |
| 2024-07-12 | - media storage | 405 (-25) | 0.002 | 1.3460 |
| 2024-06-24 | - load balance server | 430 | 0.002 | 1.3460 (-0.0731) |
| 2024-06-14 | - main server | 430 (-75) | 0.002 | 1.4192 |
| 2024-06-13 | + donation | 505 (+20) | 0.002 | 1.4192 |
| 2024-06-12 | - media storage | 485 (-25) | 0.002 | 1.4192 |
| 2024-06-06 | + donation | 510 (+20) | 0.002 | 1.4192 |
| 2024-06-04 | / ETH to USD | 490 (+473) | 0.002 (-0.125) | 1.4192 |
| 2024-05-22 | - load balance server | 17 | 0.1276 | 1.4192 (-0.0861) |
| 2024-05-22 | + donation | 17 | 0.1276 | 1.5050 (+0.1442) |
| 2024-05-21 | + donation | 17 | 0.1276 | 1.3611 (+1) |
| 2024-05-17 | + donation | 17 | 0.1276 | 0.3611 (+042069 🚬) |
| 2024-05-17 | + donation | 17 (+20) | 0.1276 | 0.3190 |
| 2024-05-15 | - main server | -3 (-75) | 0.1276 | 0.3190 |
| 2024-05-13 | - media storage | 72 (-24) | 0.1276 | 0.3190 |
| 2024-04-28 | + donation | 96 (+50) | 0.1276 | 0.3190 |
| 2024-04-26 | + donation | 46 (+20) | 0.1276 | 0.3190 |
| 2024-04-24 | - load balance server | 26 | 0.1276 | 0.3190 (-0.0993) |
| 2024-04-21 | + donation | 26 (+50) | 0.1276 | 0.4184 |
| 2024-04-15 | - main server | -24 (-65) | 0.1276 | 0.4184 |
| 2024-04-10 | - media storage | 41 (-19) | 0.1276 | 0.4184 |
| 2024-04-09 | + donation | 60 | 0.1276 (+0.06969 🙃) | 0.4184 |
| 2024-04-01 | + donations | 60 (+25) | 0.0579 | 0.4184 (+0.1827) |
| 2024-03-30 | - load balance server | 35 | 0.0579 | 0.2357 (-0.0890) |
| 2024-03-04 | + donation | 35 | 0.0579 | 0.3247 (+0.0420) |
| 2024-03-02 | - main server | 35 (-65) | 0.0579 | 0.2827 |
| 2024-02-28 | + donation | 100 | 0.0579 (+0.0073) | 0.2827 |
| 2024-02-27 | - load balance server | 100 | 0.0506 | 0.2827 (-0.1516) |
| 2024-02-01 | - new server and email provider | 100 (-75) | 0.0506 | 0.3738 |
| 2024-02-01 | / approximate initial value | 175 | 0.0506 | 0.3738 |
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I would like to clean up the old comments and give a summary here.
Donations via Open Collective
Unfortunately, we cannot use Open Collective because there is no fiscal host that accepts NSFW instances.
Donations via Liberapay or Patreon
Similar scenario to Open Collective. Payment processors (PayPal and Stripe) can ban adult sites at any time.
Donations with alt coins
It is complicated to support so many different coins. Therefore, we only support ETH, XMR as the main ones. You can still donate with dozens of different coins via Trocador. All donations you make there will be merged into our XMR wallet.
Instance size
As of April 10th 25, we have 54.3GB of database and 1.48TB of media storage.
Should I host my media somewhere else to reduce costs?
No you don’t need to. The media cost is not as high as one might think. At least it is at a level that we can sustain as long as we can receive donations.
Distributed setup (Kubernetes)
Although I believe it will increase performance and reliability, I don’t think horizontal scaling (with multiple servers) makes sense for an instance that receives very few donations relative to the number of users. Therefore, I personally prefer vertical scaling for now.
Server location
We currently host the instance in the Netherlands (at least part of it).
Tf happened here
wut 🤷♂️
“deleted by moderator”
Oh that! There were so many out of date comments asking for same thing. So I removed most of them and summarized all questions into one comment.
they’re all back 👍
Oh lol i thought it was like the purge
I think they just cleared out the old/historical comments.
Hello, team at LemmyNSFW,
I’m delighted to see your instance growing and I completely support the idea of donating to ensure the longevity and quality of this platform. Your hard work in maintaining and developing this instance is very much appreciated.
However, I’d like to bring up the idea of financial transparency within our community. Have you considered using a platform like Open Collective for your donation system? It has been adopted by other instances, including Lemmy.world. You can see an example of how they use it here: https://opencollective.com/mastodonworld
In my opinion, Lemmy.world is a shining example of how a Lemmy instance should operate financially. They provide transparency about their finances, which has greatly contributed to building trust with their users and the platform as a whole.
Considering we’re part of an open-source, decentralized platform, I believe this level of transparency is paramount. It not only helps in building trust but also encourages more users to donate, knowing exactly how their contributions will be utilized.
Moreover, seeing big instances openly donating back to the source code developers could set a wonderful precedent. This act of giving back to those who helped create the foundation of our platform would be a tremendous demonstration of gratitude and community spirit.
Again, I am wholeheartedly in support of donating to this community, and I hope my suggestion will be taken into consideration. Keep up the fantastic work!
Going to have to agree that something like this would be good. Lets people see all in one place where we stand and what is needed.
Yes. And I’m genuinely ok with big staff spends. Spend it on hookers and cocaine for all I care. All is like to see is that some percentage is committed and shown to be given back to the source code developers.
Agreed, there’s nothing wrong with making a living. 👍
I’d love to see if we could get enough donations going to distribute to content creators? Maybe this is a more mainstream instance/general purpose NSFW, but it would be very cool to see an instance giving ownership to its content creators.
Depending on the jurisdictions involved (where the server is hosted and where the admins live), I can imagine there may be very different laws and regulations governing a forum of user-submitted content and a business acting as a publisher and producer of porn content. A great idea, but not as simple as just having the money to do it.
Spend it on hookers …
Use the money to generate more content… smart.
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Open collective (of which I have zero affiliation) is working on taking cryptocurrency payments. Last I checked it was in beta.
You can give evidence where you feel it would be beneficial. But yeh. You could always find work arounds.
If it’s something you genuinely want to explore, I’m happy to volunteer some of my time to help you with implementing and managing that.
The key thing I’d like to see in all instances, not just yours, is transparency in income, plus some sort of transparency as to how much that may be given back to the community and the source code development.
Honestly. What’s done with the rest, I care very little.
Can you contact me from Matrix? my address is @xaeg:matrix.org
How big a proportion of potential supporters do you think would prefer to pay in crypto?
I’m in column A, but not column B. Just for “statistical purposes”.
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I definitely understand where you’re coming from, I was just attempting to debate cost/value.
Almost half of the supporters donating from crypto, so I don’t think its unnecessary.
I’d probably prefer pay in crypto. Also receive in crypto TBH. Just for anonymity’s sake.
I mean since you brought up crypto I accept that as a given.
Just think that most people aren’t into crypto as much as those who are into crypto like to think.
Oh no. I agree. I brought it up because the instance is already taking crypto payments.
You can text me on telegram if you need an experience trader to handle your finances and trade.look at the bitcoin rate currently
An instance run so good that it caused me to start using my porn account as main account deserves some love and support. Bought a sponsor package on throne.
Thank you for your support buddy 🙏
I support you my friend both monetarily and conceptually.
You’re one of the people I’ve seen from the very beginning. Thank you for your support!
I joined this instance for the NSFW, but at the moment it is the best performing instance I am on, so I am subscribing to all my tech communities through here as well. In other words, my NSFW account is now my main account. LOL. Going to Patreon for sure.
EDIT: I signed up for $5/month. Keep up the good work!
PS: Would you mind sharing your docker-compose file? I want to deploy a lemmy instance on GCP to help strengthen the network.
Thank you for your support! But I really didn’t changed the compose file. I just used default ansible setup for simplicity.
Just saw we’re down, donated on Throne to get us back in the green!
Thank you! 🙏
Sent some etherium.
Thank you 🫡
I’ll donate in the morning!
I still don’t understand crypto, but Throne appears to have worked fine. I look forward to an option with reoccurring automatic payments.
I’m trying auto recurrent donations but no luck yet :/ Still researching.
I donated a couple euros now.
Appreciated 🙏
Thank you so much for hosting this instance. I appreciate it and will help with a small contribution of a few dollars per month from now own. ❤️
Thank you! Every dollar is important and you can be sure that we will use every single dollar for this instance.
What would be good options for me if I just want to use my credit card to quickly buy whatever crypto and send it to any address I want? I did look at some sites a couple of days ago, but they were more for trading and didn’t seem too great for this use case.
I never got into crypto even though I’m a huge nerd, so I have no idea which service is trustworthy and quick’n’easy to use.
I registered to throne.com, which allows direct anonymous credit card donations. If they accept us, then you can use it if you want.
Just don’t jump into a topic you don’t know if you don’t want to learn buddy. I’ll fix this.
And to be honest, I’m not a crypto expert either. I just know basics and some technical details that I’m using on IRL work.
Used throne.com - hope it works :)
Thank you :) It’s a very simple and nice site. I hope we can continue to use it.
Ah let’s see where that throne.com deal goes then, that’d be neat.
But I honestly don’t mind the learnin’, I was more just soliciting for good tips for this specific use case since I figured somebody’s bound to be more clued in already 😁
I know surprising amounts about the technical side of lots of cryptocurrency projects because in another life I’ve worked on sort-of-related things, but like the idiot I am I never bought all that many of anything and haven’t “handled” them in ages.
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Oh Metamask does in-app onramps and offramps nowadays? Well that’s pretty handy, it was still a pretty dumb no-frills “wallet” when I last used it but it’s been a good while. I’ll give it a poke! Thank you
Just a headsup if you’re trying to get on Open Collective, it looks like that might be another patreon scenario:
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I set up a Patreon subscription. I am a DevOps Engineer. If you ever need to move to a more distributed setup let me know.
Thank you for your support! But to keep costs low, we had to keep for one server for now. But you’re in my mind if needed :)
I don’t know if you already run on docker, but you could run on docker in order to simulate a distributed setup and be able to move the various pieces in and out as needed, also portainer and traefik are very nice for this, if you create a common network for all containers with a bit of docker compose magic you have a plug and play kind of setup
If u need it I have a HomeLab where I can host an instance of it
Same. I’m happy to answer any questions or assist with the infra. This is basically what us idiots DevOps/SRE do on a daily basis: cut costs while improving performance and reliability.
