RPCs, Nodes, and Providers: How Web3 Connects to Blockchain

Have you ever wondered what happens under the hood when you connect your crypto wallet to a dApp? Just like magic, it fetches your balance in an instant and lets you make transactions. 

In the back-end is a complex connection of RPCs, nodes, and providers that are working tirelessly and quietly, powering the entire Web 3.0 experience. These are the invisible backbone behind blockchain interaction, ensuring your every transaction and token moves seamlessly across the decentralized network.

In this blog, we will be breaking down what RPC nodes are, how they work to connect Web 3.0 with the blockchain, and finally, seeing all the different ways developers use them. By the time you complete reading this blog, you will have a thorough understanding about RPCs.

What is RPC

RPC is an acronym for Remote Procedure Call and it is a method in Computer Science that allows any program to request some data or services from any program, no matter if it is running on the same machine or some other.

You can better understand it with an example like ordering stuff from Amazon. You do not go to their warehouse and fetch products yourself; you select them on the app, choose a mode of payment, and wait for them to be delivered to your home. Using this comparison, let’s try to understand the working of RPC: 

• You (the user) = the application that requests the execution of a function or procedure.
• The Amazon App = the RPC mechanism.
• The warehouse = the system that actually processes the request. 

In the blockchain ecosystem, RPC nodes act like translators and messengers. They approve the request from wallets, relay it on the blockchain, and then print a result. Without RPC, using and interacting with blockchains would have been next to impossible for many devs and users.

What is an RPC Node

An RPC node is basically a blockchain node that discloses its functionality through RPC endpoints. In layman’s terms, we can say that it is a call center that listens for requests like “what is the price of a cryptocurrency?” and then returns some appropriate data or action.

Whenever an application needs to interact with some blockchain network, they do not just connect directly to random servers in that network. Instead, what happens is that the request first goes off to RPC nodes, which provide a straightforward way to communicate. 

Here are some pointers on what makes these RPC nodes so distinguished:

Standardized Mode of Communication

RPCs communicate in JSON-RPC or a protocol that is similar to this, meaning that developers do not have to deal with any of the vanilla blockchain internals.

Gateway Role

Instead of having to deal with joining any complex peer-to-peer network by yourself, RPC nodes do that for you.

Read and Write Access

RPC can answer queries like transaction history and replicate write action by submitting new transactions to the chain.

Working of RPC Nodes

RPC nodes work just like a middle layer in between an application and the blockchain network. Whenever your decentralized application (dApp) wallet needs something from the blockchain, the RPC node handles that request on your behalf.

Here is a detailed explanation of how this process works:

Application Sends a Request

The dApp sends a request to the RPC node, like asking to get the account balance of some wallet address.

RPC Nodes Comprehend the Request

The node will check the kind of request, and then, depending upon its type, it will act. For instance:

• If it’s a read request, then it looks into the state of the local blockchain.
• If the inquiry is a write request, then it broadcasts the transaction to the blockchain network.

Blockchain Processes the Request

The RPC node processes the request in one of the following ways:

• For read requests, the node has the data in advance, as it is synced with the blockchain.
• For write requests, the transactions are first validated, passed along and then included in a block.

Response Sent to the App

The RPC node formats the result into a JSON-RPC response and then sends it back to the decentralized application. For instance, returning a wallet’s balance in the Satoshi format.

This cycle continues constantly; each time when you perform a token check in wallets like Trust Wallet, mint some Non-Fungible Tokens, or interact with Decentralized Finance protocols, RPC nodes are working in the background, working at lightning speed to keep performing all these.

What are RPC Node Providers?

RPC node providers are a way of forming a connection from your app to RPC nodes. This is by far the most popular and go-to option for developers today. RPC node providers take care of all the technical aspects, including hardware, syncing, monitoring, scaling, and uptime. 

With RPC node providers, you just simply connect your decentralized application to its RPC endpoints and just go ahead with building. The benefits that it offers are the speed at which it is set up, high reliability, scaling options, and providing developer tools like analytics and monitoring. It is best suited for projects that value the speed with which they can connect with the market and don’t want to run their own infrastructure.

Some Popular RPC Node Providers

Using a provider usually comes with a free tier for you to get started instantly, and as your dApp grows, you can upgrade to their enterprise-grade plan. Some of the most popular RPC node providers include:

Alchemy

Alchemy is one of the popular choices among blockchain node providers, especially for Web 3.0 developers. It offers a range of advanced RPC services, like Web 3.0 APIs such as the NFT API, token API, debug API, trace API, and many more. The node provider also offers more than 40+ blockchains, developer dashboards, and APIs for both NFTs and DeFi.

QuickNode

Another popular blockchain RPC node provider is QuickNode. It offers three unique values with speed, analytics and advanced analytical tools. QuickNode also supports a cross-chain NFT API that could help developers retrieve information about NFTs from the Solana and Ethereum networks. Quicknode is a flexible choice for accommodating 35 blockchain networks and it can handle more than 100,000 requests per second.

Infura

Infura offers a set of tools to create applications that can connect with blockchain networks like Ethereum. It is also the market’s largest and most strongly established RPC provider, providing access to Ethereum, Polygon, Starknet, and more. It aims to offer fast and reliable access to a majority of blockchains and Layer 2 solutions for Ethereum by providing them access to RPC endpoints without needing users to run their nodes. Infura also offers web3.js and JSON-RPC APIs.

Chainstack

Chainstack offers RPC services for over 25 networks, including Bitcoin and Ethereum. It’s a collection of blockchain nodes as a service, providing a trustworthy node infrastructure. It offers nodes along with hosting solutions that are helpful to developers in accessing hosting infrastructures distributed across multiple locations. 

GetBlock

GetBlock is a crypto RPC provider that has a blockchain-as-a-service (BaaS) structure. It reliably allows you to access over 60 mainnets and testnets like Bitcoin, BNB Smart chain, Ethereum, zkSync, etc. Web 3.0 developers can also save vital resources with its pay-as-you-go models. It offers custom SLAs based on your dApps performance and besides this, you can also integrate GetBlock’s APIs into Web 3.0 wallets.

Conclusion

To wrap everything up, we have seen that RPC is a communication style that makes remote requests, RPC nodes are blockchain nodes that are configured to accept and respond to those requests and RPC providers are hosting endpoint setups. 

As the ecosystem grows, the RPC infrastructure also adapts accordingly. The endgame is simple: to make blockchain access faster, more reliable, and less dependent on single points of failure.

If you are still confused about these terms, reach out to our experts at Technoloader. We are experts in the Web 3.0 ecosystem and have provided solutions to firms and organizations around the globe.