Case Study: How GAIMIN Reduced Its File Distribution Costs by up to 60% Saving Thousands of Dollars Monthly

Overview

As a rapidly growing game distribution company, GAIMIN was facing a common but costly challenge faced by most organisations: distributing large software packages to a global user base. And just like most organisations, we first sought out solutions from centralised cloud service providers like AWS.

With thousands of daily downloads of our platform and including delivery of updates, GAIMIN’s reliance on these solutions for file delivery incurred HUGE monthly costs, in the region of tens of thousands spent on file-sharing alone. This made it very evident that we needed to expedite our solution sooner rather than later, using the computing resources available on our network. Seeking both cost reduction and technical scalability, our team slowly but gradually built and transitioned to our decentralized delivery network, powered by the storage bandwidth from our global gamer community.

This case study details how GAIMIN designed and deployed this decentralized file delivery infrastructure, and how the switch resulted in cost savings up to 60%, improved download speeds, and greater operational autonomy. Hopefully, this will also serve as proof that since we confidently made this switch, any organisation out there can also take that leap, especially those currently drowning in file distribution costs. 

The Background and the Challenge

By the start of the new year, 2025, GAIMIN had reached a scale where:

• Our GAIMIN platform’s software (including full downloads and regular updates) was being downloaded thousands of times daily by our immense global audience.
• Files were hosted and distributed solely via Amazon Web Services (AWS), with delivery costs averaging $0.09 per GB downloaded, in addition to milestone upload/storage fees.
• The aggregate monthly cloud bill had become unsustainable, with file distribution emerging as one of the largest recurring expenses, costing us several thousand dollars every month.

These challenges were compounded by:

• Bandwidth limitations in underserved regions lead to slower update experiences.
• Lack of granular control over delivery logic or optimization.
• Growing pressure to align GAIMIN's infrastructure with its mission of decentralized, gamer-powered compute.

In short, GAIMIN needed a way to deliver large files reliably and at scale, and fast, without compromising on the quality of delivery.

The Solution: GAIMIN Cloud’s Peer-to-Peer File Distribution

To address these challenges, GAIMIN developed a fully decentralized file distribution layer, using the storage capacity from our global network of gamer nodes, who were only monetizing their GPUs at the time.

How It Works

• Files (such as the GAIMIN app and updates) are split and securely distributed redundantly across a network of participating nodes; no single node bears the complete file.
• When an end user requests a file download, the system intelligently retrieves data chunks from the nearest available peers, drastically reducing latency.
• The delivery process uses adaptive peer discovery and reputation scoring to ensure security, uptime, and efficiency.

This architecture draws from proven distributed technologies (similar to IPFS and BitTorrent in structure) but was built in-house to allow greater optimization, user incentives, and real-time analytics.

Implementation

• The new system was completely rolled out in production in late Q1 2025, and GAIMIN made itself the first GAIMIN Cloud file-sharing “client”.
• A hybrid model was initially tested to compare performance before full migration.
• GAIMIN has extensively trialled the service with a number of clients (mostly game developers & studios) who are now using the service.
• Monitoring was set up to track metrics across:
  
  • Cost per GB delivered
  • Average download speed across popular regions
  • Node availability and uptime
  • Feedback and error reports

The integration was handled by GAIMIN’s core infrastructure team, led by CTO Buki Ben Nathan, who described the transition as:

“A strategic leap, not just to cut costs, but also to practice what we preach. We turned our gamer-powered network into a production-grade CDN (Content Delivery Network); in fact, something better than a CDN. And the result so far speaks for itself.”

Results so far:

1. Cost Reduction

• Previous Cost: ~$0.09/GB
• New Cost: ~$0.03/GB 
• Monthly Savings: Up to 60% on bandwidth alone, translating to thousands of dollars saved per month at current volume.

2. Performance Gains

• We noticed faster download speeds from our community feedback. Download speeds improved by up to 30%, and we now rarely get slow download reports.
• Localized delivery from peer nodes reduced latency and improved completion rates for our large files.

3. Operational Benefits

• Greater control over routing, versioning, and update logic.
• Enhanced observability across download patterns, node health, and regional bandwidth availability.
• Full ownership of the delivery infrastructure.

Strategic Significance

Beyond technical and financial gains, this move reinforced GAIMIN's core value proposition:

Decentralization is not just for GPU-compute. It can deliver tangible efficiency across the entire infrastructure stack.

By demonstrating that a gamer-powered network can serve not only as a GPU compute layer but also as a high-performance content delivery platform, GAIMIN is opening new possibilities for:

• Game developers are looking to distribute large game files without costly CDNs.
• AI teams need to share model weights or datasets at scale.
• Content creators are looking to distribute media files, courses, or any other digital content.
• Web3 and DePIN projects are seeking real-world, battle-tested infrastructure alternatives.

And many more.

Conclusion

GAIMIN’s transition from using centralized-based file distribution to our internally developed fully decentralized, peer-to-peer delivery network is more than a case study; it’s a demonstration of the practicality and power of community-driven infrastructure.

With reduced costs, enhanced global performance, and complete infrastructure sovereignty, file distribution architecture is now a core part of GAIMIN Cloud’s stack of cloud computing solutions and a compelling offering for external partners looking to solve similar challenges.

Is your current file delivery stack eating your margins or crippling you with costs?
GAIMIN’s solution is now open to partners for testing and adoption. Get in touch to run a proof of concept. Try GAIMIN today!