Institutional-grade blockchain infrastructure provider offering RPC, staking, and indexer APIs across 20+ protocols with bearer-token auth and SLA-backed regional endpoints.
- 01regulated/institutional infra
- 02SLA-backed dedicated nodes
- 03staking + RPC bundled access
- 04Cosmos / Substrate RPC
- 05compliance-friendly bearer-token auth
- pnpm add viem
| Variable | Scope | Description |
|---|---|---|
| BLOCKDAEMON_API_KEY | Server | Blockdaemon API key. Sent as a Bearer token in the `Authorization` header. Server-side only. |
| BLOCKDAEMON_RPC_URL | Server | Full Blockdaemon RPC URL for the target chain, e.g. `https://svc.blockdaemon.com/ethereum/mainnet/native`. Server-side only. |
Use Blockdaemon's RPC API for institutional-grade access. Endpoint pattern: `https://svc.blockdaemon.com/<protocol>/<network>/native` (e.g. `ethereum/mainnet`, `base/mainnet`, `bitcoin/mainnet`, `polkadot/mainnet`). Authentication is via the `Authorization: Bearer ${BLOCKDAEMON_API_KEY}` header — NOT a URL path or query param. Wire into `viem` with a custom transport that injects the header: `http(process.env.BLOCKDAEMON_RPC_URL, { fetchOptions: { headers: { Authorization: \`Bearer \${process.env.BLOCKDAEMON_API_KEY}\` } } })`. Beyond RPC, Blockdaemon offers a Staking API (one-call validator provisioning) and Wallet/Indexer APIs gated by the same key. Coverage spans 20+ protocols including Ethereum, Base, Solana, Polkadot, Cosmos chains, and Bitcoin.
- ⚑Authentication is `Authorization: Bearer ...`, NOT a URL token like Alchemy/QuickNode — naive proxies that strip headers break Blockdaemon calls. Configure your edge to forward the `Authorization` header.
- ⚑Free-tier access is limited and gated behind a sales conversation for many enterprise endpoints (staking, dedicated nodes) — self-serve plans cap RPS and exclude debug/trace on most chains.
- ⚑Archive-mode access on EVM is a separate dedicated-node SKU, not part of the shared RPC tier — historical state queries on the shared endpoint are limited to the standard pruned window.
- ⚑Regional routing is implicit (`svc.blockdaemon.com` is geo-DNS routed); you cannot pin a specific region without a dedicated endpoint, which can hurt p99 for latency-sensitive trading apps.
- ⚑Cosmos and Substrate chains use protocol-native interfaces (Tendermint RPC, Substrate RPC) — they are not EVM JSON-RPC compatible and need the appropriate client (`@cosmjs/tendermint-rpc`, `@polkadot/api`).
- ⚑Closed-source SDKs and API surface — there is no public Blockdaemon SDK on GitHub for most products, so you build your own thin client over fetch.
- ⚑Pricing is by RPS + product tier with enterprise contracts; pay-as-you-go is available but generally more expensive per request than QuickNode/Alchemy at scale.