RPCh Is The First Decentralized And Private RPC Software
Coinpedia12 Oct 20222 min read
Swiss privacy project HOPR is closing a privacy hole at the heart of crypto and web3 with RPCh, a service that obscures the data and metadata generated by the trillions of RPC calls which power wallets, crypto transactions, and DeFi services.
RPC provision is a multi-billion dollar business. The two largest RPC providers, Infura and Alchemy, each raised over $600m in funding and are valued at around $10 billion each. Billions of RPC calls are handled each day, providing a flow of information between users, wallets and various blockchains. But their code is closed source, and users must trust that their data is handled securely and privately, a notion at odds with the core ethos of web3.
RPCh can be integrated into existing crypto software and infrastructure to ensure that users can perform crypto transactions without exposing their IP addresses and other private information. On the RPC provider side, RPCh can be run on top of existing RPC nodes like those from Infura or Pokt, although HOPR has also provided some RPC infrastructure of its own.
The RPCh launch was announced at a packed event in Bogotá, Colombia in advance of Devcon, which also included a panel with representatives from leading wallets including MetaMask, Blockwallet, Numio, and Safe. The focus on wallets is designed to bring privacy to the largest number of users as quickly as possible: wallets are an essential part of every user’s crypto experience, and the design of RPCh means it can be integrated directly into each wallet to give users direct control of their financial privacy.
A technical demonstration showed RPCh in action: a Uniswap trade was performed live over RPCh using an instance of Blockwallet which allowed HOPR privacy to be turned on with a single button click. The trade was seamless, with no appreciable delay. This is important for users, who often want privacy but only if the user experience is simple and fast.
RPCh will be the first commercial product built on top of the HOPR protocol, a decentralized mixnet which provides full data and metadata privacy to any kind of data transfer. Anyone can run a HOPR node and be paid in HOPR tokens for relaying data.
Now with the launch of RPCh, the HOPR network will gain a significant and consistent revenue stream: essential for supporting node runners and scaling up the network.
RPCh is still at an early stage, but with a working proof of concept and many wallets already on board with HOPR’s privacy mission, it surely won’t be long before centralized, non-private RPC calls are a thing of the past.
