The Future of RPCs: Beyond the Load Balancer

Every dApp defaults to the same centralized RPC, creating systemic risk and poor UX. This is the Alchemy/Infura hegemony.

• Single Point of Censorship: A single provider can blacklist addresses or contracts.
• Performance Tailspin: Traffic spikes for one dApp degrade performance for all users.
• Data Blindness: Developers get no insight into request-level performance or user geo-distribution.

Incentivize a global network of independent node runners to serve RPC requests, breaking the provider monopoly.

• Censorship Resistance: Requests are distributed across dozens of independent nodes.
• Economic Alignment: Node operators are paid per request (POKT, LAVA), creating a competitive marketplace.
• Redundancy by Design: Node churn doesn't break service, unlike a centralized provider's regional outage.

Traditional RPCs are passive relays. They don't understand the intent of the request, leading to inefficiency and missed opportunities.

• Wasted Compute: Sending a full eth_getLogs query for a simple wallet balance.
• No Aggregation: Can't batch unrelated user requests to optimize gas or latency.
• Static Routing: Sends all traffic to the same chain, even if a better L2 or alt-L1 exists for that specific transaction.

The RPC layer interprets user intent and finds the optimal path, abstracting away chain complexity. This is the UniswapX model applied to infrastructure.

• Solver Networks: RPC providers compete to fulfill a user's intent (e.g., 'swap X for Y') at the best rate across all liquidity sources.
• MEV-Aware Routing: Routes transactions to avoid frontrunning and secure better prices.
• Unified Interface: User signs one intent message; the RPC network handles multi-chain execution via bridges like Across and LayerZero.

Your RPC provider sees everything: wallet addresses, transaction history, and pending trades. This data is a goldmine for extractive MEV.

• IP + Wallet Linking: Trivial to deanonymize users.
• Frontrunning Fuel: Providers can (and have) used their privileged position to extract value.
• Regulatory Risk: Provides a centralized data honeypot for surveillance.

Decouple the user's identity from their request using cryptographic techniques like Oblivious HTTP or threshold decryption.

• Request Anonymity: The node executing the request cannot link it to the user's IP address.
• Result Integrity: Users can cryptographically verify the response came from the canonical chain state.
• Zero-Knowledge Proofs: Future RPCs may deliver proofs of execution (like zk-Rollups) without revealing the underlying query.

Specialized RPCs like Flashbots Protect and BloxRoute prioritize transaction ordering for profit, creating a moral hazard. The RPC layer becomes a centralized MEV extraction point, undermining user trust and network neutrality.

• Risk: RPC providers become the new, opaque block builders.
• Consequence: Users pay hidden costs via worse execution prices.
• Mitigation: Requires verifiable, fair ordering protocols at the RPC level.

Aggregators like The Graph or proprietary indexers turn RPCs into data gatekeepers. The service becomes a "data black box," where query logic and access are controlled by a single entity, stifling innovation and creating a single point of failure.

• Risk: Application logic is locked into a specific RPC's API schema.
• Consequence: Dapps become dependent, unable to switch providers easily.
• Mitigation: Standardized query interfaces and decentralized indexing.

The shift to intent-centric architectures (e.g., UniswapX, CowSwap) outsources transaction construction to solvers. The RPC's role morphs into an intent router, creating a new attack surface: malicious or incompetent solvers.

• Risk: Solver networks are permissioned and can censor or front-run intents.
• Consequence: User funds are at the mercy of solver honesty and capital.
• Mitigation: Decentralized solver sets and cryptographic attestations for execution.

Services offering "private transactions" via RPCs (e.g., sending to a private mempool) create a false sense of security. The RPC provider sees everything, creating a honeypot for sensitive financial data and a central point for regulatory pressure.

• Risk: RPC logs become subpoena targets, breaking user anonymity.
• Consequence: Trust shifts from the public blockchain to a private corporation.
• Mitigation: End-to-end encryption and zero-knowledge proof integration for RPC requests.

Global RPC providers like Infura, Alchemy, and QuickNode must comply with local laws (e.g., OFAC sanctions). The RPC layer becomes the easiest point for state-level censorship, filtering transactions before they hit the decentralized base layer.

• Risk: A handful of companies can effectively blacklist addresses globally.
• Consequence: Undermines the censorship-resistance promise of Ethereum/L1s.
• Mitigation: Truly decentralized peer-to-peer RPC networks and client diversity.

As RPCs compete on speed for arbitrage and lending liquidations, they create infrastructure centralization. The fastest RPC requires proprietary access to elite infrastructure (e.g., colocation with validators), recreating the high-frequency trading landscape.

• Risk: Financial dApps are forced to use centralized, expensive RPCs to compete.
• Consequence: Widens the gap between professional and retail users.
• Mitigation: Protocol-level latency reduction (e.g., EigenLayer) and fair access standards.

Today's RPCs are passive, stateless relays. They can't optimize for cost, latency, or success rate in real-time, leaving billions in MEV on the table and users with failed transactions.

• Wasted Gas: Users overpay by ~20-40% on average due to static fee estimation.
• Stale Data: Reliance on a single node leads to >1s latency spikes and unreliable state reads.
• No Composability: Cannot natively bundle, simulate, or route across chains or rollups.

Next-gen RPCs like Kelp, BlastAPI, and Gateway.fm act as execution-aware orchestrators. They use real-time mempool data and MEV economics to become active network participants.

• Intent-Based Routing: Automatically routes transactions to the optimal chain/sequencer (e.g., Arbitrum, Base, Solana) based on cost & speed.
• Dynamic Simulation: Pre-flight simulation reduces failures by >90% and optimizes gas.
• Economic Layer: Captures and shares MEV savings via private order flow auctions, aligning with protocols like UniswapX and CowSwap.

RPC infrastructure is concentrated with a few providers (Alchemy, Infura, QuickNode). This creates systemic risk, data privacy issues, and limits innovation at the protocol edge.

• Censorship Risk: A single provider can blacklist addresses or contracts.
• Data Monopoly: Providers aggregate and monetize user request data, a $100M+ annual market.
• Protocol Lock-in: Dapps are vendor-locked, unable to customize RPC logic for their specific needs (e.g., AAVE's risk engines, Lido's staking ops).

Protocols will run their own optimized RPC endpoints, using frameworks like Succinct, Espresso, or Lava Network. This turns infrastructure from a cost center into a competitive moat.

• Custom Logic: Embed protocol-specific logic (e.g., Uniswap's TWAP oracle, Frax's stablecoin minting).
• Decentralized Network: Leverage permissionless node networks (e.g., Lava) for censorship resistance.
• Data Ownership: Protocol captures and utilizes its own user flow data for product improvement and revenue.

Wallets and dapps handle gas, errors, and chain selection, creating a fragmented, technical user experience. The RPC layer is invisible, missing its chance to be the unifying abstraction layer.

• Wallet Bloat: Wallets like MetaMask become complex Swiss Army knives.
• Chain Confusion: Users manually switch networks, a primary cause of lost funds.
• No Session Management: Every transaction is a fresh authentication and fee battle.

Future RPCs will consume user intents ("swap X for Y at best price") and handle all execution complexity. This aligns with ERC-4337 account abstraction and cross-chain intent protocols like Across and LayerZero.

• Unified UX: Single interface for any chain; the RPC selects the optimal venue.
• Sponsored Transactions: Protocols pay gas via Paymaster systems, enabling gasless onboarding.
• Guaranteed Outcomes: Users get a result, not a transaction hash, moving towards a "transactionless" blockchain experience.