Solana Devs Cry Over $5K Query Bills-Is BigQuery Out to Get Us? 😱

by

In a quiet room filled with the faint smell of instant noodles and despair, blockchain developers murmured tales of terror: Google Cloud’s BigQuery had, with merciless precision, inflicted upon them bills that could make a modest village banker weep. One hapless soul, after performing a trifling three queries, discovered a bill totaling $15,000. Ah, the joys of modern life! 🫠

BigQuery, a sleek and serverless data warehouse offered by Google Cloud, promises the wonders of analyzing mountains of data with SQL and the occasional sprinkle of artificial intelligence. Yet, as with many promises, reality bore fangs.

“I wish to warn all my fellow mortals: BigQuery is a treacherous beast, ready at any hour to crush you with a ludicrous bill,” wrote a developer under a pseudonym, whose lament was shared by Mikko Ohtamaa, co-founder of the decentralized algorithmic trading protocol, Trading Strategy. They continued:

“Each month, my bill is usually a few hundred. This month? $18k. A symphony of fiscal horror.”

“Apparently, I performed three Solana queries with limits,” they confessed, “and each one summoned a $5k demon. Google support, after a brief exorcism, lowered them to $4k apiece.”

Other crypto mortals rallied, claiming predatory pricing that defies logic-and prevents setting monthly limits.

“They deliberately deny you hard stops,” said Ermin Nurovic, co-founder of Flat Money synthetic dollar protocol, “So your function loops recursively and drains your wallet? Too bad, my friend. 🍵”

Since October 2023, Solana has been intertwined with Google Cloud’s BigQuery, granting users access to blockchain secrets: whale movements, NFT sales, and more. Yet this transparency, alas, comes with a price that might make one weep into their keyboard.

The Second Tale of Woe: $5K for a Single Query

Another nameless developer, in a different corner of the blockchain underworld, faced a $5,000 bill for a single query that “accidentally” spanned multiple terabytes. The cosmic joke, apparently, was on them. 😅

“Fortunately, our local Google connection helped us plead for mercy, and we were refunded,” they shared with a hint of relief. Since then, the sacred ritual of checking partitions before querying has become a mantra.

“AI algorithms using BigQuery? Hah! One might as well try teaching cats to juggle,” the developer quipped, shivering at the memory of fiscal carnage.

Read More

2025-08-26 17:00