RPCh — Your first private Ethereum RPC provider
Crypto is based on a set of core values: Decentralization. Transparency. Trustlessness. Privacy (although sadly people still don’t pick this one as often as they should!)
These are the key differences between web3 and legacy approaches, but dig deeper and you find a disturbing contradiction at the very heart of crypto: almost every transaction relies on infrastructure provided by closed-source, centralized infrastructure providers who you simply have to trust not to misuse your data.
We’re talking about RPC providers like Infura and Alchemy, the engine which keeps the entire crypto rocket flying, supporting billions of RPC calls a day. But unlike the crypto system they support, these companies are highly centralized black boxes which are entirely closed source.
This is a complete contradiction at the heart of crypto, and we need to fix it.
To be fair, Infura and the wider space seem to recognize this problem. Infura have recently made a big push towards decentralization, and networks like POKT are already trying to provide decentralized RPC services. But while this goes some way to address transparency issues, the gaping privacy hole still remains.
So we’re extremely proud to introduce RPCh: a service on top of the HOPR protocol which routes RPC requests and responses via the HOPR network. Users running an RPCh entry instance can route RPC requests over the HOPR mixnet, before exiting via any node running RPCh. This will obscure all the metadata such as your IP address associated with the RPC call, closing a major privacy loophole in web3.
RPCh is already running as a proof of concept (check it out on GitHub!) and we’ve used it to send what we believe are the first metadata-private crypto transactions.
RPCh will be an essential tool to add privacy to all of web3, but we’re especially focused on wallets, as these are the one tool which every crypto user needs to interact with. We’ve been collaborating with major crypto wallets to design ways to integrate RPCh directly into their UIs.
This journey began at ETH Denver with our HOPR relay bounty and continued with our UI hackathon at Ethereum Zurich — the first dedicated UI hackathon in Web3 — and the recent Infinite Hackathon in Bogota, where hackers worked to build wallet integrations that improve on our own proof of concept. And of course there’s our D.E.R.P. tool which highlights the extent of the problem.
Once launched, users will be able to use RPCh like they would any other less private RPC service: paying a subscription which allows them to make a certain number of RPC calls per period. HOPR node runners will benefit from relaying these RPC calls over the incentivized HOPR mixnet, and users and web3 services will benefit from increased privacy and security.
RPCh can run on top of existing RPCh infrastructure or our own HOPR RPC nodes like the example shown below. You can also check out our setup on GitHub.
RPCh will be the first commercially available product built on top of the HOPR protocol and a major breakthrough in web3 privacy. It also marks the first major step in making the HOPR protocol a consistent source of token revenue for node runners, an essential requirement for setting the protocol loose from the stewardship of the HOPR Association and reaching its ultimate form as a truly decentralized DAO-controlled public good.
Huge thanks to everyone who helped us to reach this major milestone in changing privacy for good.
Rik Krieger,
HOPR Co-founder
Website: https://www.hoprnet.org
Twitter: https://twitter.com/hoprnet
Telegram: https://t.me/hoprnet
Discord: https://discord.gg/dEAWC4G
Forum: https://forum.hoprnet.org
Staking: https://stake.hoprnet.org
Bounties: https://bounties.hoprnet.org
Playground: https://playground.hoprnet.org
