RPCs, or remote procedure calls, play a crucial role in allowing applications to communicate with a blockchain. They are especially vital for the development of decentralized applications (dApps). Recent challenges concerning the reliability of RPCs have sparked significant discussions within the crypto industry.
Cleper’s Lava network has been designed to address the challenges faced by blockchain networks by creating a platform that connects dApps to the best RPC providers. This unique positioning enables Lava to offer valuable insights on this subject. An essential point to consider is the issue of centralization on Ethereum, where a few major providers support most of the traffic.
This reliance on a limited number of providers poses a significant risk. If these providers become unavailable, dApp users are unable to connect with Ethereum. On other chains, particularly newly launched ones, the unreliability of RPC support stems from the fact that it primarily comes from community members who voluntarily spin up nodes.
One proposed solution to mitigate these challenges is to promote a diverse range of providers. By doing so, the ecosystem can avoid becoming overly reliant on a small handful of providers, thus reducing the risk of outages or congestion issues. Some developers are already using solutions like load-balancers to improve reliability.
Safety, reliability, and decentralization are key considerations in the development of the Lava network. It is designed to be agnostic and support any chain and API, permissionless, with the capability to quickly support any in-demand chain and API. The network is also designed to offer low latency and geolocation-based routing, ensuring that requests are sent to servers closest to the user.
Moreover, it aims to be highly reliable and decentralized, without a single point of control that could prevent access to the blockchain. As blockchains continue to gain adoption, Lava will evolve to support more complex and specialized APIs that can retrieve indexed data specific to a dApp or set of smart contracts. Looking forward, dApps are expected to become app-specific rollups, essentially functioning as their own blockchains.
The ability of Lava to permissionlessly and dynamically support new chains, faster than centralized providers, will become increasingly crucial in this evolving landscape.
