Key Points
- Yair Cleper, CEO of Lava network, discusses the importance and challenges of RPC protocols in the blockchain industry.
- Lava Network aims to connect dapps with the best RPC providers to improve blockchain network reliability.
Yair Cleper, the CEO and founder of Lava network, recently shared his thoughts on the role and complexities of Remote Procedure Call (RPC) protocols in the progression of blockchain technology.
RPC protocols are crucial for the development of decentralized applications (dApps) as they enable applications to communicate with a blockchain.
Challenges in RPC Reliability
Recently, the reliability of RPC has been questioned due to disruptions affecting major networks like Solana and Manta. This has led to demands for a more robust RPC infrastructure across the industry.
Lava network, under Cleper’s leadership, has developed a platform that links dapps with top RPC providers. This initiative aims to address the reliability issues faced by blockchain networks.
Factors Contributing to RPC Unreliability
The reasons behind RPC unreliability vary depending on the blockchain ecosystem. For Ethereum, the centralization of major providers supporting most of the traffic is a major concern. If these providers go offline, dapp users cannot connect with Ethereum. In contrast, newly launched chains primarily rely on community members who voluntarily run nodes, leading to unreliability.
To improve reliability, users should be able to easily switch to another provider if one becomes unavailable. Promoting a diversity of providers can also prevent the ecosystem from becoming overly dependent on a few providers.
If RPC goes down, it equates to the blockchain itself going offline. This has been evident during past outages or congestion issues, resulting in users being unable to connect to chains. For instance, during Ethereum’s DeFi and NFT summer, a single large NFT mint could take down multiple RPC providers.
Developers can reduce these risks by using a decentralized and highly redundant service like Lava, which combines multiple RPC providers into one network and has automatic fall-backs in case of provider downtime. Some developers already use solutions like load-balancers to help.
Lava’s Plan to Improve RPC Reliability
Lava is creating a network for chains and rollups to easily bootstrap their RPC and API infrastructure through a mechanism called Incentivized Public RPC. The network must support any chain and API, be permissionless, offer low latency and geolocation-based routing, be super reliable and highly available, and be decentralized. This is essential to prevent anyone from being blocked from accessing the blockchain.
Lava is currently working with different chains, including NEAR, Evmos, and Axelar, to bootstrap, optimize, and decentralize their infrastructure.
Lava was designed to be a highly flexible data access layer, with RPC being just the beginning of many potential use cases for the network. As blockchains gain more adoption, Lava will support more complex and specialized APIs that can retrieve indexed data specific to a dapp or set of smart contracts. Furthermore, as dapps evolve into app-specific rollups or blockchains themselves, Lava’s ability to swiftly support new chains will become increasingly crucial.
Whether you’re a dapp or a rollup developer, RPC is the fundamental infrastructure you need, and Lava is the only network that provides solutions for both.
