A unified data access layer for Web3

Today, developers on the major chains like Ethereum face vendor lock-in to use specific APIs, leading to unavoidable downtime or the hassle of using multiple vendors. Developers on smaller, less established chains have very few providers and only the most basic APIs available.
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Lava is different from other providers - we bring them all into one platform giving developers: 

• One subscription to access all providers - and all their APIs
• Easy multi-chain RPC via our peer-to-peer SDK
• Broad selection of API and chains, and community contributors can extend Lava to new APIs to meet demand
• Open-source tools with no vendor lock-in 
• Scalability and network redundancy 
• Optimized request routing to the fastest, most reliable providers available

Introducing “Specs” - expanding beyond RPC? Indexing, rich APIs, archival support… 

The protocol and network of providers can add support for new chains, subgraphs and APIs using “specs”, a modular primitive.

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Specs are JSON files defining APIs, which anyone can write and add to the protocol. Once ratified, providers join to serve demand for data. By creating a permissionless economy around specs, Lava can quickly add support for requested APIs and keep them up to date, a process which typically takes centralized providers months.
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As we realize our vision to be the unified access layer for blockchains, we will launch a champions programme so community members can add support for more specialized APIs and subgraphs to Lava.

Alpha: we’ve already been working with Subsquid to support their subgraphs on Lava, giving their users more resilient, faster and decentralized API service.

You can see the PR here: https://github.com/lavanet/lava/pull/943 and see Omer, Chief Architect at Lava and Dimitry, CEO at Subsquid, jamming on the Subsquid spec below 🛠️

All major RPC & API providers will one day join Lava’s unified platform. Some are already running nodes on our testnet.

Product improvements & updates

The team has been working across multiple features and interfaces to achieve a single goal: multi-chain RPC & indexing that just works. 

Today, we’re announcing several new updates and improvements to the SDK and Gateway and protocol:
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1. Lava SDK Beta

• Faster initialization time - now 200-500ms
• Use one instance of the SDK to send requests to multiple chains
• SDK Library integrations - ethers.js, web3.js, cosm.js, Viem by Wagmi and more soon
• Provider Optimizer Picker - optimized pairings to the best available node based on different strategies e.g. speed, accuracy/sync, fairness (every provider serves relays) etc.
• Sync with Gateway UI to see usage analytics - try it here
• Session management 
• QoS-based payments (testnet tokens) to RPC providers‍
• Dual Caching 

‍2. Gateway and SDK relay analytics 

• See SDK analytics by syncing in the Gateway UI
• Breakdown by project and chain
• Relay volume 
• Latency 

3. Stickiness/consistency 

• Lava can now determine that the pairing happens with the most accurate node in a multi node provider setup in a given session. Lava ensures that the consumers stick with the exact same node and avoid any switchovers to out of sync node of the same provider.

4. Provider improvements

• LavaVisor upgrade
• Provider Delegation - anyone can now delegate testnet tokens to node providers, boosting their pairing frequency and sharing in rewards (testnet tokens for now)

5. Constant Availability (coming soon)

• If the Lava blockchain experiences downtime, RPC consumers and providers will still be able to pair indefinitely beyond the epoch and RPC calls will continue to be served p2p

And more…

Phase 3: Magma and Mainnet

Lava aims for the initial launch of our mainnet in Q1 2024 and this will be preceded by more product updates and exciting news to turn blockchain node infrastructure into a more inclusive area, where retail and crypto users can get involved in Lava too.

Instead of just being told to “run a node”, non-technical folk will be able to contribute to Lava in a gamified way… More will be revealed in Magma.

Build with Lava

At the heart of Lava is an open contributor economy for specs, APIs and data. Community is Lava. We invite both technical and non-technical folk to offer feedback and test out our services so together, we can build the best and most complete RPC & API experience in web3. 
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If you’d like to start building with RPC endpoints:
Try our Gateway and SDK here‍

If you’d like to follow our journey and offer feedback: 
Our Discord: https://discord.gg/2s9RvMKs
Our Twitter: https://twitter.com/lavanetxyz
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If you’d like to partner with Lava, reach out to [email protected] or fill in this short form: https://lavanet.typeform.com/to/FOphWiEs

About Lava

Lava is the first modular infrastructure layer for blockchain data. It introduces “specs”: a blockchain primitive that lets champions and data providers permissionlessly add support for new chains, APIs and data services to the base protocol. 
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Apps send requests to Lava’s network of data providers, who compete to serve API specs and offer high quality service. Developers get all APIs under one subscription and can build fast and reliable multi-chain apps on the 25+ chains already supported by the network. 
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Lava is a unified foundation among an increasingly fragmented multi-chain world.