What is an RPC endpoint?
- Author
- CRYPTO PORT Editorial
- Published
- Updated
- Reading time
- 4 min
In short
An RPC endpoint is the URL a wallet or app uses to talk to a blockchain node. Balances shown and transactions sent all pass through it. You can change it freely — which also means a malicious endpoint can show you fake balances and log everything you send.
Key points
- The address a wallet or app uses to query a node
- Both balance lookups and transaction broadcasts go through it
- The provider can see your usage
- Scams exist that get victims to add a hostile endpoint
Definition
The network address at which a blockchain node accepts external queries, typically over JSON-RPC, for reading state and broadcasting transactions.
A wallet app does not hold the chain itself. To show a balance it asks the configured RPC endpoint what that address holds and displays the answer. When you hit send, it hands the signed transaction to the same endpoint for broadcast.
Wallets ship with a default endpoint, usually a hosted provider such as Infura. If you run your own node you can point the wallet at it instead. The reason you can paste in any URL is that this is, underneath, just an HTTP request target.
That flexibility cuts both ways. A hostile endpoint can display a balance that does not exist to bait a deposit, or quietly drop the transactions you submit. 'The network is having issues, please add this RPC' is a well-documented scam script.
Watch out for
- · Never add an RPC endpoint someone sends you — they are used to fake balances and swallow transactions
- · Providers can log which addresses you query alongside your IP address
- · A displayed balance is only what the endpoint said; verify against the chain independently