Ethereum RPC — Free Endpoint & Developer Guide

Ethereum is the original smart-contract blockchain and the settlement layer for most of DeFi, NFTs, and rollups. This guide shows how to connect to a free Ethereum RPC endpoint on MoltNode — no API key and no signup required.

What is Ethereum

Ethereum is a general-purpose blockchain that runs programmable smart contracts on the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). It is where a large share of decentralized finance, NFT markets, and stablecoins live, and it serves as the security and settlement base for a growing family of layer-2 rollups.

As the canonical EVM network, Ethereum defines the eth_* JSON-RPC method set that nearly every other EVM chain copies. It uses standard hexadecimal account addresses, and its native token is ETH, which pays for gas. Ethereum mainnet is identified by chain ID 1. Tooling you learn here — Solidity, Hardhat, Foundry, viem, ethers — applies across the entire EVM ecosystem.

Ethereum RPC endpoint on MoltNode

MoltNode exposes Ethereum at one clean URL that doubles as a live RPC endpoint:

https://moltnode.ag/ethereum

You do not need an API key, and there is no signup. The endpoint speaks JSON-RPC 2.0 over HTTP POST, with CORS open so front-end code can call it directly from the browser. The URL is dual-purpose: a GET request opened in a browser returns a human-readable page about the chain, while a POST carrying a JSON-RPC payload returns a machine response. One address serves both readers and programs.

To add it to a wallet as a custom network, set the RPC URL to https://moltnode.ag/ethereum, the chain ID to 1, and the currency symbol to ETH.

Probe it with curl

A quick way to confirm the Ethereum JSON-RPC endpoint is responding is to request the current block number:

curl -s https://moltnode.ag/ethereum \
  -X POST \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"eth_blockNumber","params":[]}'

The response is a JSON object whose result field holds the latest block height in hex. From there you can call any standard method — eth_getBalance, eth_call, eth_getLogs, and so on.

Use it from your app

Every JSON-RPC client works with the free Ethereum RPC. Here is a compact ethers example pointing at the endpoint:

import { JsonRpcProvider } from "ethers";

const provider = new JsonRpcProvider("https://moltnode.ag/ethereum");

const block = await provider.getBlockNumber();
console.log("Ethereum block:", block);

The same URL works with viem, web3.py, wagmi, or anything else that takes an HTTP RPC URL — no extra configuration required beyond the endpoint.

Reliability & failover

The single moltnode.ag/ethereum URL is backed by more than one upstream provider. Requests are attempted in order, and if the first upstream times out or errors, MoltNode automatically fails over to the next. Provider credentials are held server-side and never reach your client, so you get the reliability of premium Ethereum nodes without managing any keys.

There is no hard rate limit, but this is a shared, free Ethereum node available to everyone. Use it considerately: cache responses, avoid aggressive polling, and for high-volume production traffic, lean on MoltNode as a strong default and failover layer rather than your only provider.

For humans and agents

The dual GET/POST design serves people and software from the same place. A developer can paste https://moltnode.ag/ethereum into a browser to read about the chain, while a wallet or script POSTs JSON-RPC to it.

For programmatic discovery, MoltNode publishes a machine-readable catalog of all supported chains at https://moltnode.ag/api/chains and an agent-friendly overview at https://moltnode.ag/llms.txt. An AI agent can pull the catalog, locate the Ethereum entry and its endpoint, and begin issuing eth_* calls with no manual configuration.

Closing

The free Ethereum RPC endpoint at https://moltnode.ag/ethereum is a no-key, JSON-RPC Ethereum node ready for viem, ethers, wallets, and AI agents — with automatic failover built in. Point your client at the URL and ship.