At Infura, we believe testnet ETH should be free and easily accessible.

As an Ethereum developer, you know how important it is to test your dapps before deploying them to the mainnet. However, testing can be challenging when you need to acquire Sepolia testnet ETH to fund your smart contracts and there’s nowhere to turn.

Aligned with Infura’s mission of making building in web3 easy and accessible to everyone, we're releasing Infura’s new Ethereum testnet faucet that drips 0.5 ETH daily requests.


Why we created the Infura testnet faucet


At Infura, we believe testnet ETH should be free and easily accessible. Recent shortages of testnet ETH have caused significant problems for developers, who have had to purchase GoETH on the open market.

The monetization of GoETH led to speculators driving the price to $1.61 per token, and one user even purchased a Cryptopunk using funds from GoETH transactions.

Because testnet ETH should be free and easily accessible, the Ethereum Foundation is shutting down Goerli testnet and requesting that developers migrate to the Sepolia Testnet.

Infura's new testnet faucet is here to help the ecosystem by providing a reliable, high-volume drip of Sepolia ETH. Facilitating web3 development QA procedures on a test network is critical to the future of blockchain implementation at the protocol level. Access to a stable, high-volume faucet will make web3 development easier for developers.

With this faucet, you can request free testnet ether with just a few clicks. Want to see for yourself?

Here’s how.


How to use the Infura testnet faucet


To use the Infura testnet faucet, follow these simple steps:

First, to go: https://www.infura.io/faucet/sepolia.  

Then enter your Ethereum address into the open field. (More detailed steps to do this are here: How to get your Sepolia Wallet address on MetaMask)

Next, click the login button to access your Infura account.

Click "Receive ETH" and wait for the transaction to be processed. You can follow the Etherscan link for transaction verification.

Check your MetaMask wallet to confirm you’ve received your testnet ETH. You can do this on the Sepolia network. (Reminder: Secure your MetaMask wallet)



It's that easy! You can request testnet ETH as often as you need to, but please be aware of the 0.5 ETH daily limit.


Keep learning with Infura


Congratulations! Now you have the ETH you need to test your dapp, publishing a few smart contracts, and even mint some NFTs. Below are a few helpful resources to keep learning with Infura:

 * Getting Started with Infura
 * The Developer’s Guide to the Web3 Stack
 * Get started with using Infura’s NFT API + SDK
 * Read our Infura NFT API Documentation for more ideas
 * Deploy a Smart Contract on Sepolia Testnet and test it out!


Frequently Asked Questions


Q: Can I receive more testnet ETH?

A: The current limit is 0.5 testnet ETH per day, but this could change later.

We may increase testnet ETH rewards for engaging with Infura in the future. Open emails and follow us on Twitter to get the latest updates on test ETH withdrawal limits!

Q: Will you support upcoming testnets like Holesky?

A: We're working closely with the Ethereum Foundation on launching and providing services to additional testing and development in the Ethereum ecosystem. The upcoming Shanghai / Capella upgrade is in scope with upcoming iterations of the feature.

Q: What other features can we expect in the future?

A:  With the recent acquisition of Hal by ConsenSys, we plan to implement an example monitoring service to notify users when transactions are  fully processed. We already use Hal for internal monitoring of transaction processing for manual retries.

Additional FAQs are answered directly on the faucet site.

We hope the new Infura testnet faucet makes your developer experience easier and more pleasant so you can keep shipping your innovations and building the future of web3.

Infura product updates and feature announcements.

Infura Product & Features

Product & Features

Introducing Infura’s ETH testnet faucet: Get 0.5 ETH daily to test your dapps!

The Developer’s Guide to the Web3 Stack

Infura’s NFT API + SDK are packed with all the tooling you need to mint your innovations with ease.

Have you ever wanted to create something beautiful with a few lines of code? What if with just three lines of code you could build an NFT marketplace? Or mint digital art? With the announcement of Infura's NFT API + SDK general release today, you can! It’s never been easier to mint any-NFT-thing you want.  

Over the past several months, the Infura team has been hard at work to create the best NFT tooling possible. It was only June of last year when we started the private beta with a handful of developers, using a handful of endpoints that connected to Ethereum and Polygon.

“ConsenSys products have powered the NFT experience since the very beginning, with a significant volume of NFT transactions in the ecosystem passing through the MetaMask wallet backed by web3’s strongest infrastructure from Infura. Since the limited beta release of our NFT API and SDKs in June 2022, our team has made significant strides in making the NFT toolkit the best tooling builders need to bring their NFT innovation to the world,” said Rob Dawson, Chief Technology Officer, ConsenSys Software.

Today, the Infura NFT API comes with 14 endpoints so developers have access to all the metadata they need for building. The NFT API also includes read and write capabilities from eight blockchain networks, in four languages, with integrated IPFS access.

“With the general availability of the Infura NFT API, we are focused on helping even more developers capture the huge demand of the NFT market and accelerate their building journey with instant access to cross-chain data, pre-built templates, and the ability to mint NFT collections to 8 networks in one integrated product,” Rob added.

Today we want to thank you the 500 participants who took part in our beta programs and gave us such valuable feedback that has allowed us to build the NFT API + SDK we believe will empower creators.

Let’s learn more.


The Infura NFT API + SDK offers superior security with ConsenSys Diligence


While other RPC-providers might have similar endpoint offerings, Infura’s NFT API + SDK is a clear choice for creators and developers who value the safety of their smart contracts.

The Infura NFT SDK comes with three ERC-721 and ERC-1155  templates that cover more than 85% of all NFT use cases. Each template has been pre-audited by leading blockchain security platform, ConsenSys Diligence. This means these templates are not only easily customized with metadata to create and mint NFTs in minutes, but also provide top security.

Being pre-audited means Infura’s NFT templates have been run through Diligence’s smart contract security software, Diligence Fuzzing.

The fuzzing tool battle tests contracts by attacking them with millions of scenarios over and over again until the contract is deemed error-free. The blockchain is immutable and immutable means forever. Why risk your IP using anything else?


The Infura NFT API + SDK offers multi-chain options and compatibility


Infura is an industry leader when it comes to multi-chain compatibility with RPC endpoints to 14 networks. When it comes to the NFT API, 14 endpoints with read/write capability are supported across 8 networks.

This includes early access to the new zkEVM launched by ConsenSys that’s scheduled to be available to the general public in April. Its zero knowledge-rollup technology will reduce blocktimes, latency, and gas fees–significant for NFT dapps.


The Infura NFT API + SDK offers accelerated development with the ConsenSys product suite


Developers using the Infura NFT API can take advantage of accelerated development for their NFT innovations with easy integration to the ConsenSys product suite. Add Infura, Diligence, ConsenSys zkEVM, and MetaMask to your tooling to take your NFT project to the next level.

Developers and creators can use the Truffle Suite to build an NFT dapp, spin up a dev environment to test for free, then check the Truffle dashboard for results and predict gas fees.

Next, download the MetaMask Unity SDK to use the wallet as a login authenticator and automatically connect users and their wallets to your NFT dapp or blockchain game.


Hear what devs using the Infura NFT API + SDK are saying


"Infura’s NFT API removed all the legwork to provide NFT capabilities for our web3 gaming platform. We no longer have to analyze every smart contract on-chain to determine whether they are NFTs or store NFT data and metadata. Using the Infura NFT API means we don't need to worry about scaling our database to account for increased traffic of our wallet application. Infura does it all for us." - Jay Chung, Global Business Development at Intella X / Neowiz

“Infura’s NFT API and SDK helped us very quickly build a dashboard and advanced filtering system for our users by leveraging the high-level API. We did not need to parse a long list of blockchain transactions ourselves to display meaningful information. And compared to some concurrent providers, we’ve never had any issues with the API stability and the rate limiting. Plus, the first tier of pricing helped us grow in our first months without being too expensive.” - Louis Pinsard, Co-Founder & CTO at Dialog


The Infura NFT API + SDK is only getting better


While we believe the Infura NFT API + SDK are built to empower NFT creators today we’re certainly not finished making it the best tooling on the market. Here’s what to expect from the product roadmap:  

 * Six more Diligence-secured NFT smart contracts
   
 * Expansion of the read function, making it even easier for developers to extract, manipulate, and report on metadata.
   
 * Low code and no code offerings for those non-technical creators to ensure every kind of builder can participate in the NFT creator economy.


Get started today


Check out the below demo for step-by-step instructions to get started using the Infura NFT API + SDK today.



The Infura NFT API + SDK is now available for all Infura users. Don’t have any Infura account to use the NFT tooling?

No problem. You can create an account in just three steps for free on infura.io/register.

Happy minting!

Empowering creators with the Infura NFT API + SDK

Ethereum Network Updates, Upgrades, Hard Forks

Infura - Ethereum Network Updates

Network

How To Choose The Right Blockchain For Your Next Dapp

Infura product tips and Web3 tutorials for developers building decentralized applications.

Infura Developer Tutorials

Tutorials

Getting Started With Infura

So, why would you need a hybrid infrastructure model alongside Infura?

Let’s think about how your database is set up. You probably have your own database, which is great. What happens if that database goes down? Would your app continue to run seamlessly, delivering the experience you want your customers to get? Or, would your database shutdown cause outages and crashes in your app?

If the dataset you’re hosting is a public dataset, you have a new paradigm for making your infrastructure much more resilient and reliable by integrating Infura into your overall strategy. Infura implements a reverse proxy pattern internally and can be a highly reliable and performant node in your infrastructure stack, allowing you the ability to have a portion (or all) of your traffic routed to Infura.

You can choose to keep your database as your primary database with Infura as a backup, or vice versa. In this way, Infura will act as an always-on backup for your database, providing a level of flexibility previously not available with a single database running.

You also have the opportunity to use Infura as a stats comparison tool to make sure your performance is up to par. Alternatively, you may need to handle more load (request traffic) than your infrastructure can currently handle. You can route the overflow to an Infura project ID to handle spikes in traffic so your service stays up and running.

There are many opportunities for you to use Infura alongside your own in-house node infrastructure to improve your user experience. Let’s dive a little deeper on how we accomplish this.


What does it mean when Infura implements a reverse proxy pattern?

Let’s review what a normal proxy is first, and then we’ll flip it and reverse it, a la Missy Elliott, to talk about the reverse proxy. A proxy server (or web proxy or forward proxy) is a server located in front of a group of client machines (computers). When those computers make requests, the proxy server intercepts those requests and communicates with the target web servers on behalf of those clients. Basically, a proxy is a fancy word for a request/response middleman.

If you’re a visual learner, here’s a diagram from Cloudflare that shows just where that forward proxy sits:


What is a reverse proxy?

A reverse proxy is a server that typically sits on the edge of your infrastructure. It is responsible for receiving requests from web clients and subsequently routing them to one or more backend web servers.

Here’s another great diagram from Cloudflare to show how the reverse proxy fits in to the whole flow:




One of the main reasons to use a reverse proxy server is load balancing, ensuring the flow of traffic between clients and servers remains smooth. This is one of the main advantages of using both your own node and Infura. In addition, it allows you to cache content and provides web acceleration for improved performance. Lastly, reverse proxies allow for more efficient, secure SSL encryption and protection from DDoS attacks and related security issues.

As we previously mentioned, Infura can be used as a reverse proxy to assist with ensuring the flow of traffic for your clients and servers stays as smooth as possible, making for a more enjoyable user experience.


Some examples of a reverse proxy in action

Let’s first look at how we can set up a very simple reverse proxy using Caddy.

We will use our localhost and a backend HTTP service running on 127.0.0.1:9000 to make sure we’re getting our reverse proxy working correctly.

First, download Caddy. Once that’s downloaded, check out their Getting Started guide here. Or, follow along to learn how to set up a simple reverse proxy!


At this point, you may be running your own node, but since it takes too long to sync one for this article, we can substitute with a simple NodeJS stub to check that our reverse proxy is working correctly. I simply named mine main.js.


const http = require('http');

const hostname = '127.0.0.1';
const port = 9000;

const server = http.createServer((req, res) => {
   res.statusCode = 200;
   res.setHeader('Content-Type', 'text/plain');
   res.end('Reverse proxy success!\n');
});

server.listen(port, hostname, () => {
   console.log(`Server running at http://${hostname}:${port}/`);
});



This sets up a backend HTTP service running on 127.0.0.1:9000 mentioned earlier and will display a “Reverse proxy success!” message if our proxy is working correctly. To start this, run `node main.js` in a different terminal window and leave that connection open!

Next, we will want to create a Caddyfile (literally create a new text file in whatever directory you’re working in and name it Caddyfile). Once you have that set up, we will set up our simple reverse proxy itself inside the Caddyfile with just two lines:

localhost 

reverse_proxy 127.0.0.1:9000



In this instance, reverse_proxy is where we want to get our information from (the original site), and localhost is where we are redirecting to using our reverse proxy.

Now, from the same directory as your Caddyfile in a new terminal window from your `node main.js`, run:  

caddy run



This will start the caddy server and will allow your reverse proxy to work! Now, you’ll notice when you run this that you don’t see the “Reverse proxy success!” message popping up.

That’s because this just started the server. You now need to make a request to “https://localhost” and you’ll see the message. To do this, open another terminal window (that makes three now, for those of us keeping track), and simply run:

curl https://localhost



Running this command will give you the “Reverse proxy success!” message we were looking for, and now you know you’ve successfully set up a simple reverse proxy.


Enter Infura!

Now that we’ve gotten a basic reverse proxy up and running, let’s try one using an Infura endpoint. We will keep our overall setup of using a Caddyfile the same, but we won’t need the backend HTTP service running in the background, as that will be switched to an Infura endpoint.

We’re going to change up how our Caddyfile looks:

localhost 

reverse_proxy https://rinkeby.infura.io {
   header_up Host {/v3/<YOUR_PROJECT_ID>}
}



You will notice that we’ve added in a “header_up Host” inside the reverse_proxy section. This allows us to include our Project ID to both the Rinkeby endpoint and the localhost endpoint we are proxying to.

To test this out, we will need to send a request, so I used web3_clientVersion as an example:

curl https://localhost/v3/<YOUR_PROJECT_ID> \
-X POST \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"web3_clientVersion","params": [],"id":1}'



When we run this, we get the following output:

{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"result":"Geth/v1.10.8-omnibus-aef5bfb3/linux-amd64/go1.16.7"}



Cool! But how do I know my reverse proxy is working? Well, if you switch out `localhost` in our curl command to `rinkeby.infura.io`, you get the same output, which shows that our reverse proxy is running properly.


How do you use Infura as a backup for your own node?

We’re going to set things up initially the same as we did in the previous example but with two upstreams, one to our localhost and the other to the Infura node.

Next, we’re going to set up load balancing. Now, what’s load balancing? Load balancing acts like a traffic cop sitting in front of your application servers, routing client requests across all the servers that can fulfill those requests quickly and efficiently.

So how do we set that up?

Since we’re using Caddy, we can refer to their docs for the basics of how to use more than one upstream. When we look at lb_policy, there are many ways to determine which upstream Caddy will use first. Caddy will default to using the first listed upstream and will move down the list if the servers stop responding. In our example, we want to have localhost:9000 from our main.js file be the first upstream, meaning we want our reverse proxy to send the data through our localhost first, so we will identify that by putting it first in our list of upstreams (we will leave our Infura Rinkeby endpoint in as the second upstream):

localhost

reverse_proxy localhost:9000 https://rinkeby.infura.io {
   header_up Host {/v3/66172ed429624788ac264604755ba42c}
}



Since we are using the localhost:9000 port, we want to get that server back up and running. In another terminal window, start the Node server with node main.js.

To make sure everything is set up correctly, let’s run our request through by running the same request from earlier but with the :9000 port included, expecting to get the “Reverse proxy success!” message:

curl http://localhost:3000/v3/<YOUR_PROJECT_ID> \
-X POST \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"web3_clientVersion","params": [],"id":1}'



and we get the following output:

Reverse proxy success!



Excellent! Now, how do we incorporate the Infura endpoint to be a fallback?

You’ll notice we left the Infura endpoint in our Caddyfile where it originally stood and we asked our proxy to load balance using the first upstream (our localhost), which was how we got that “Reverse proxy success!” message.

Now that we confirmed that we set everything up correctly on our end, we’re going to kill the localhost server, mimicking what would happen if your private node went down. Once we do that, our requests should automatically start routing to the Infura node and we should get something similar to the below output:

{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"result":"Geth/v1.10.8-omnibus-aef5bfb3/linux-amd64/go1.16.7"}* Closing connection 0



But wait! We don’t get that! Instead, we get an error message.

This is because Caddy only allows us to use either two HTTP or two HTTPS endpoints - in our case, localhost is HTTP and our Infura endpoint is HTTPS.

Luckily, there is a tool we can use to make this work with localhost that will create a TLS certificate and sign it with a CA trusted locally by your device and browser. That tool is called mkcert, and it’s incredibly easy to install by following these steps.

Keep in mind if you’re doing this with your own private HTTPS node, you likely will not need this additional step.

If you are following our tutorial step-by-step (using localhost), be sure to follow all the steps, including updating your main.js file to the below to include the HTTPS requirement and the options constant.

const https = require('https');
const fs = require('fs')
const options = {
   key: fs.readFileSync('<PATH_TO_CERTIFICATE-KEY_FILE>.pem'),
   cert: fs.readFileSync('<PATH_TO_CERTIFICATE_FILE>.pem')
};

const hostname = '127.0.0.1';
const port = 9000;

const server = https.createServer(options, function(req, res) {
   res.statusCode = 200;
   res.setHeader('Content-Type', 'text/plain');
   setTimeout(() => {res.end('Reverse proxy success!\n');}, 1000)
});

server.listen(port, hostname, () => {
   console.log(`Server running at https://${hostname}:${port}/`);
});



When you run the mkcert localhost command from the tutorial, the certificate key file and certificate file used in the code above will be created.

Now that we have our localhost running with HTTPS, we can continue! Since we are running everything with HTTPS, we need to update our Caddyfile to reflect those changes.

localhost:3000 

reverse_proxy https://localhost:9000 https://rinkeby.infura.io {
   header_up Host {/v3/66172ed429624788ac264604755ba42c}
}



Now that we have all our files in order, let’s make sure our Node.js server is running and send that request again.

curl http://localhost:3000/v3/<YOUR_PROJECT_ID> \
-X POST \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"web3_clientVersion","params": [],"id":1}'



What do we get?

Reverse proxy success!



Perfect! That’s exactly what we want to get, as we have asked our reverse proxy to go to https://localhost:9000 first.

Now, what happens if we kill the Node server and send our request again? Remember last time we did this, we got an error message. This time we should be getting the result from our Infura Rinkeby node:

{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"result":"Geth/v1.10.8-omnibus-aef5bfb3/linux-amd64/go1.16.7"}



Success!

Our reverse proxy is, in essence, ignoring the localhost node, as it’s not functioning, and is defaulting to the Infura Rinkeby node!

Super easy, right? Now you know how to use Infura as a backup node to keep your services up and running smoothly!


Where can I learn more about reverse proxies?

Take a look at our client story from MakerDAO. They currently use Infura for a multitude of reasons, including using us as a backup node solution to ensure all developers can use the MakerDAO toolkit!

Another great example is the Polygon PoS network. We initially began working with Polygon to share some traffic load for their network, allowing users to access the Polygon networks via Infura endpoints and effectively ensuring their network remains fast and functional, regardless of traffic spikes they may see. We have since increased our partnership so we are now handling 100% of their network traffic.

Check out this blog post highlighting multiple companies across all verticals using a hybrid infrastructure model of their own nodes plus Infura. Get some ideas on how we can help you accomplish your needs, from verifying transactions to providing backup database services!

If you would like to run an Infura node in addition to your own, sign up for a free trial today.

How to Run Your Own Node AND an Infura Node

When enterprise developers build dapps on Ethereum, they often have to consider the entire tech stack and development process. The list of considerations range from application features such as Web2 interfaces to deployment, which is usually on a permissioned network hosted by a preferred cloud provider. Since most full-stack software engineers build off of SDKs and API calls, it’s important to establish the value of the application with consideration of the deployment network.



Get the best of both Web2 and Web3 worlds

Many enterprise blockchain business cases build on the principles of traditional Web2 development. Web2 focuses on operating with a fluid user experience with attention to detail on scalable and responsive code on multiple devices. A valuable decentralized application (dapp) in Web3 redesigns the economics and industry roles while building on complementary existing systems -- instead of fully replacing those systems with analogous Web3 features.

Say you would like to reinvent a syndicated loans issuance platform such as IPREO. This effort would require significant IT resources to spin up a minimum viable product from the ground up if you’re recreating features like tranche issuance calculations or calendar date exceptions. Instead, consider a path to lesser resistance: blockchain modules that connect these digital assets to new liquidity networks. The functionality is a re-issuance of an existing financial instrument to ABC network with a listing on XYZ automatic market maker rather than the full end-to-end dashboard.

To connect to pockets of liquidity, an enterprise developer must deploy with the same smart contract language that is compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) and look to bridge the assets to networks with the desired investor and issuer markets.


Why build on public Ethereum?

Until now, publishing enterprise dapps on Ethereum requires significant system integration, executive buy-in and high set-up costs. Recently, we have seen more public blockchains working with enterprises to cover non-functional technical needs in order to meet minimum requirements of security audits and performance. However, the relatively tribal nature of the blockchain developer subculture means that mainstream enterprises are still conservative when it comes to building on Ethereum.

If you are an enterprise developer, consider the following advantages of building on public Ethereum vs. permissioned networks:

1. Faster setup and lower total cost of ownership

2. Immutability and longevity of the data stored with thousands of independent nodes

3. Composability and low barrier of entry to decentralized finance (DeFi)




1. Faster set-up and lower total cost of ownership

This is a standard private blockchain journey for a consortium:

After you develop your dapp, a lot of time is focused on node deployment adhering to enterprise software standards. On the business side, you are also trying to build a consortium to agree on the benefits and adoption before the tech is tested.

The consortium model usually chooses a separate tech vendor that does not have single ownership from one consortium member to prevent conflicts of interest. The tech vendor determining deployment and long-term support likely runs the Ethereum nodes on behalf of participants. This will get the product to market faster and focus on the business benefits.

The last step involves time and licenses for adding more nodes and mutualizing infrastructure costs across participants. Compared with private networks that remove tokens from their operation, public networks require ownership of native tokens to fund transactions. This gas cost pays for the infrastructure -- third parties running full nodes and running operations for mining/validating. In my time building enterprise projects, we have never seen this happen.

The public journey is much more straightforward. After you develop your dapp, the deployment is a choice between public networks with updated configurations on your Truffle setup. The added complexity is the gas costs for funding and running your transactions on this network.

To simplify connectivity to EVM-compatible networks, you can use Infura’s Ethereum API to connect your app instantly with a single line of code. Simplify your transaction management with Infura Transactions (ITX) using prepaid accounts without holding ETH on your balance sheets. ITX is a transaction relayer that manages your transactions to prevent dropped or stuck transactions.

You will also likely want to work with a team such as Diligence that can audit your contracts and monitor them when they’re live.

Public Ethereum has an overall lower total cost of ownership when you compare the operational cost of running a system on mainnet rather than focusing on the ownership and maintenance of the network itself.

A consortium may have more control in the private chain and face less security and treasury reviews at first. However, your infrastructure overhead and negotiations on consortium network matters tend to outweigh the convenience and added features of connecting to mainnet.


2. Immutability and Longevity

The Ethereum mainnet is secured by the interaction of thousands of independent nodes run by individuals and miners throughout the world. Private chains typically have a small number of nodes controlled by one or a few organizations. Those nodes can be tightly controlled, but only a few need to be compromised in order to rewrite the chain or commit fraudulent transactions.

At ConsenSys, we’ve recommended public networks to enterprise developers for their resilience of replicated data as you are able to recover more quickly with a larger network of more than 15,000 independent nodes. The more peers you have, the easier it is to find a seed and fully recover your recorded transactions. In consensus decisions, the more blockchain validators there are to verify transactions, the more difficult it is to coordinate a majority decision that may lead to an attack.

In a permissioned network, the security is governed by the node with the least security. Your network is only as secure as the weakest link. Any added nodes to the network may also increase the surface area of attack. Most institutions will recommend a base software security test in order to join as a full node owner. The node owner will have to pass standard penetration testing to prevent any hacking on the node in case it is a bad actor to the entire network.


3. Composability and Low Barrier to Entry on DeFi


The Ethereum network powers a vibrant ecosystem of third party applications and technology including DeFi and NFTs. A highly composable and interoperable system allows you to connect to DeFi to build financial products that enable and combine multiple apps to match specific user needs. The Ethereum mainnet offers enterprise developers the ability to gain access to market liquidity and provide innovative ways for users to participate in the exchange, trading or growth of that liquidity.

When we say composable, it’s much more than just an open banking API. It’s a set of open source live protocol contracts that can be called and extended. We’ve seen pure forks of open source code like with Uniswap to get sushiswap. The market has seen countless copies of DeFi models such as Compound and Aave, and it doesn’t look like things are slowing down anytime soon.

There’s more and more real value happening in DeFi leading us to believe that cryptocurrencies are not a fad. It is here to stay.

Watch Clemens’ presentation “Pitching Public Ethereum to Enterprises” at EdCon 2021.

Interested in building on Ethereum? Contact us to get support on starting your enterprise project.

3 things enterprise developers should consider when deploying on Ethereum

Are you excited by blockchain but don’t have a great deal of experience coding? It can be easy to fall down a rabbit hole of technical tutorials that make assumptions regarding your initial development knowledge. A particularly important topic to grasp is basic security within your code.

As you begin to build out your very own dApp, you will have to include information such as an Infura API key, along with a mnemonic.

If you are new to coding, this is the equivalent of giving a stranger your social security number and keys to your home. Once this information is public, there is no definitive way to ensure it hasn’t been captured by a person or web crawler, which could result in malicious behavior.

So, how can we address this?

Thankfully, we can use dotenv along with git to protect our sensitive information within our project when / if we push to github.

Dotenv is a zero-dependency module that loads environment variables from a .env file into process.env, storing configuration in the environment separate from the code. It is often a convention for environment variables to be stored in a .env file or other mechanisms based on the server you are using.

Note: This article will focus on building out a project using Truffle and Infura.

In our project, we will need to run the following command:

npm i dotenv


Once the process in our terminal has been completed, we will want to make sure we have the dependency successfully installed. Head over to your package.json file and check to ensure that dotenv has been added under dependencies.

Next, at the root of our project, let’s create a .env file:

Here is where you will add all of the sensitive information that should not be shared.

We will make sure we can access our .env information in our truffle.config file. At the top of the truffle.config file, add the following:

require("dotenv").config


This will tell your project to load anything that is in the .env into an environment variable, granting you access to it.

Now, instead of having to put our Infura api key or mnemonic in an exposed file, we can import that information from our .env file.

When it comes to gaining access to our project key we are going to use, sign up to Infura and create a project. In your dashboard, you should see something similar to this:

The following code is an example between the usage of .env and exposed information within truffle.config:

const HDWalletProvider = require('@truffle/hdwallet-provider');

const infuraURL = 'https://rinkeby.infura.io/v3/<project id here>'

const mnemonic = "Your mnemonic here"


rinkeby: {

provider: () => new HDWalletProvider (mnemonic, infuraURL),

network_id: 4,

gas: 5500000,

confirmations: 2,

timeoutBlocks: 200,

skipDryRun: true

},


Imagine if you pushed this up to github. Anyone would have the ability to open your truffle.config file could take advantage of your exposed mnemonic and project id from Infura.

Let’s take a look at that same code and implement better security practices.

Notice how we are calling upon the information without having to directly add to our file.

One important detail, as of now even with an .env file: if you push this project to github, it will show the .env file, which would defeat the purpose!

Take a look for yourself.

This is where .gitignore comes into play. We will need to create a .gitignore file, so we can push this project up to github.

Without getting into git, a quick summary could be git is version control software that keeps track of all of your files and the versions of them. What .gitignore does is it tells git not to keep track of this file along with everything it contains.

If you want to dive deeper into git along with other foundational material, have a look at our Basic Training, a free course that helps ensure you have the fundamental tools when developing.

At our root (similar to the level our .env file lives), we will create a .gitignore. Inside of that file, we will add .env along with any other files you would rather not be pushed to github.

We can now push our project up to github and notice that our .env file is no longer exposed. Our sensitive information is now much more secure.

If you are experimenting with this, make sure you add your .env file to your .gitignore before pushing.

If you are running into issues, remember gitignore ignores only untracked files. If your files were committed in the past, they are now tracked by git. To ignore them, you first need to delete said files, git rm them, commit and then ignore.

Otherwise, you can delete the .env file and run

Git rm .env --cached


Here is a helpful link discussing the removal of sensitive data from a repo if it was previously committed and discusses how to clean the git history. Savvy attackers don't just look at the most recent repository info, they'll look at the history of it as well.

Note: If you come across it in documentation, a question you might have is
“What is env. example”

An env. example file, on the contrary to this tutorial, is actually included in the repository, it is used as an example file for you to know what KEY=VALUE pairs you need for your project. Most often, it is used to copy the .env file and then change the values.

Example of execution:
Enter to the project root directory using your terminal.

Check if .env the file exists or not.

If the file does not exist then create a file named .env.

Now execute the command

cp .env.local .env.


So the .env.sample file has all the ENV declarations defined but without their values. It helps other developers establish/set up the project without having to reverse-engineer the codebase.

So after git clone, you usually execute the command `cp .env.sample .env` and fill in the values with the Infura credentials as we saw in the example above.

Note: When you create a new repo using github, if you scroll down you should see the option to include a .gitignore file so you don’t have to create one yourself in the future.

Hopefully, you found this article on basic security practices helpful as you begin to develop your very own projects. Feel free to join our Discord if you want to continue the conversation, share projects, ideas, and join the community!

Start here with a free Infura account >

How to Use .env to Enhance Basic Security Within Your DApp

Optimistic Ethereum is a rollup scaling solution that allows users to submit transactions on the Ethereum network and get them executed faster for a much lower gas cost. From the perspectives of users and developers, this is a "parallel universe" called Layer 2, or L2, where users typically have the same addresses as they do on the Ethereum blockchain (also called Layer 1 or L1). There are gateways that allow messages and assets to be transferred between the universes.

The Optimism network API largely uses the same JSON-RPC specification as Ethereum and Infura supports all the necessary API methods for building a fully functional application on the Optimistic Ethereum network.


Why are transactions cheaper on Optimism?

On L1 Ethereum, thousands of nodes run your transaction to verify that the proposed block that includes it is valid. This process is expensive and has to be paid for. Unlike on L1 Ethereum, Optimistic roll ups provide faster and cheaper transactions because it allows users to perform most of their tasks off-chain in a "layer 2" protocol. On Optimistic Ethereum, the smart contract has only two tasks: deposits/withdrawals and verifying proofs of transactions on chain. This makes the process more efficient and a lot cheaper.


Why is this safe?

The great thing about decentralization is you can trust that transactions are executed correctly because there are thousands of computers executing them. Honest miners would reject such a transaction. With rollups, you don't have that level of redundancy.

The answer, in the case of optimistic rollups, is incentives. Every node in the network has to put up a stake before it can propose a new block with the execution results of a transaction. Every other node can check up on those results, and if it thinks they are incorrect, dispute them. The dispute is resolved on L1, so it is as trustworthy as anything else in Ethereum. Whichever node lies, either proposer or disputer, loses its stake and most of it goes to the other node involved.

Of course, the whole point is to avoid running transactions in L1. This system achieves that by making it pointless to cheat. Any proposer who attempts to cheat is going to be caught by the other nodes, lose its stake, and not get the invalid transaction result accepted as valid. A disputer can force a single transaction to go into L1 arbitration as a denial of service attack, but the stake is high enough that it wouldn't be worth doing.


How does Infura work with Optimism?

Infura exposes endpoints for Optimistic Ethereum (the production network) and Optimistic Kovan (the test network). You use them the same way you use any other network, by selecting them from the menu and using the specified endpoint.

There are a few small differences between building on Layer 1 Ethereum and Optimism:

1. You must use the JSON-RPC API as we do not support Websockets yet.
2. Search filters are not yet supported


How to Get Started on Optimism...



The main difference between Optimism and regular L1 Ethereum (other than the cost) is the access point URL.

| Network          | RPC URL |


… If you are using the Truffle development environment

Infura users can add the free Truffle Optimism add-on directly on their Infura dashboard. The Truffle Optimism box also contains the configuration definitions required to use Infura. Currently, you will need to manually add the gas costs of transactions when you use Truffle to run deployments or tests on Optimistic Kovan or the main Optimistic Ethereum network.


… If you are using Hardhat

To use Optimistic Ethereum or Kovan, edit hardhat.config.js's modules.export.networks to add these definitions:

"optimistic-kovan": {
    url: 'https://optimism-kovan.infura.io/v3/<Infura Project ID>',
    accounts: { mnemonic: <your account mnemonic goes here> },
    gasPrice: 15000000,
    ovm: true // This sets the network as using the ovm and ensure
                      // contract will be compiled against that.
},
"optimistic-ethereum": {
  url: 'https://optimism-mainnet.infura.io/v3/<Infura Project ID>',
  accounts: { mnemonic: <your account mnemonic goes here> },
  gasPrice: 15000000,
  ovm: true // This sets the network as using the ovm and ensure
                    // contract will be compiled against that.
}



Then you simply run:

npx hardhat --network optimistic-<kovan or ethereum> <command>



… If you are using Remix

When you use the Remix Optimism plugin to develop for Optimism, network connections are created through the wallet. If you use MetaMask, you can select the network Custom RPC and fill in the details:

What is Optimistic Ethereum?

Infura now supports additional networks including Arbitrum, Optimism and Polygon.

All three projects are essentially new blockchain networks. They offer low transaction fees and faster confirmation times compared to Ethereum. Crucially, they extend the utility of Ethereum as users can transact using their assets that fundamentally reside on Ethereum.

This scaling approach is called off-chain protocols and we have put together a short post to help explain how they help to scale (and extend the utility) of Ethereum.


Why not just transact on Ethereum? What is the scalability bottleneck?

Ethereum supports around 15 transactions per second and as seen in Figure 1 the network fees tend to skyrocket when users exceed the network’s throughput ceiling. In some ways, the throughput limitation is self-imposed by the community in the pursuit of decentralization.

The goal for decentralization is to maximise the percentage of the world’s population who can verify the blockchain’s integrity (and transactions) in real-time. This goal is essential to minimise the trust in block producers as the community can self-enforce the set of consensus rules that govern the validity of blocks. Depending on the target percentage of the world’s population, there is a limit to the computational, storage and bandwidth available to the network for processing transactions.

Our challenge as a community is to figure out how to increase the network’s throughput while adhering to the imposed resource constraints.


Why should we care about off-chain protocols like sidechains or rollups?

Most approaches to scale the network focus on:

 * Distributing verification. The verification task is distributed amongst nodes on the network as opposed to requiring all nodes to replicate the same work (Ethereum today).
 * Better utilize the network's available resources. The network's resources should be continuously utilised and not allowed to sit idle. For example, short block intervals to better utilize bandwidth.  

Scaling solutions still remain a few years away from adoption as they require major changes to the underlying Ethereum protocol.

An alternative and popular scaling approach, off-chain protocols, is a solution that is immediately available. It scales the network in a following way:

Off-chain protocols: Transaction processing is moved away from Ethereum to another network while still transacting with the same assets that reside on Ethereum.

We consider this a scaling solution as other blockchain networks are not limited by the same resource constraints as Ethereum. They can experiment with various scaling protocols (or simply test the limits of go-ethereum) while extending the utility of Ethereum.


Where are my assets held when transferred to another network?

A bridge contract is responsible for holding the user’s assets on one blockchain (Ethereum) and notifying the other network to mint an equal quantity of coins for the user. Once minted, the user can transact on the other network and eventually withdraw their funds back to the original blockchain (Ethereum) via the bridge contract.

Not all bridge contracts are equal. We must consider the bridge contract's process for deciding when to release funds back to the user. Ideally, the funds should only be released if the bridge contract is convinced the other network is not compromised. This is called the underlying trust assumption that ultimately protects the user’s funds. It can often cause controversy when discussing whether an off-chain protocol is truly scaling Ethereum.

On one hand, some users only consider a new blockchain network a scalability solution if the other network can retain the same (or very close to) security of Ethereum.  Protocols that can achieve this level of security are often called rollups. Whereas, other users will be satisfied with stronger trust assumptions as long as the funds locked into the other network are secure enough (sidechains).

Rollups, that retain the same security as the main-chain, will require more resources from Ethereum. For example, every transaction on the rollup network generates a state update that is published to the bridge contract. Whereas a side-chain does not necessarily require significant resources from Ethereum as validation of transactions is performed by a set of external parties. This trade-off on security/resources will be felt financially by the users and as a result there is no free-lunch.

Regardless, we believe that different bridge contracts will emerge and implement different degrees of trust. In the end, all blockchain networks which support transacting assets that reside on Ethereum will increase the utility of Ethereum. It is just important that users are aware of the trust assumptions and risks before deciding to lock funds into a bridge contract.


What is a sidechain?

The term sidechain originates from a paper by Blockstream. It was an interoperability solution to enable two blockchains to verify information about each other’s progress via light-weight proofs. The intention was to allow bitcoins to be locked in Bitcoin and to be released in the other network (and vice versa) without trusting any intermediary with the funds.

Over the years, the term sidechain has taken on a life of its own. It is often used to imply that an independent blockchain network has a relationship with another blockchain network. In practice, this is implemented with a bridge contract that allows assets to be moved from the main-chain (Ethereum) to another blockchain network.

There are three type of bridge contracts that are used for side-chains:

 * Single organisational. A single party has custody of the funds locked in the bridge contract.
 * Multi organisational. A fixed set of independent parties (K of N) has custody of funds that are locked.
 * Crypto-economic. A dynamic set of parties, determined by their weight in assets, have custody of the funds.

For example, WBTC is a single organisational bridge as the BTC is held by BitGo. The Liquid Network and RSK blockchain implement a multi-organisational bridge as an appointed set of parties will authorise assets to be moved across from one blockchain to another (i.e., implemented as a multi-sig). Polygon is a crypto-economic bridge as it relies on (⅔)+1 of stake to appoint validators who post periodic checkpoints about the network’s state to the bridge contract (and this checkpoint can be used to automate user withdrawals).

Crucially, the bridge contract for a sidechain does not verify the integrity of the other network and instead it relies on a set of parties to attest to its validity. It is assumed that at least a threshold of parties should have a financial incentive to remain honest and protect the user’s funds.

While the cost of a sidechain transaction consumes no additional Ethereum resources, the trade off is that the network will not retain the security of Ethereum and ultimately, trustlessness.


What is a rollup?

The term rollup originates from barry whitehat’s zkrollup and it emerged from the research on Plasma.

A rollup is still an independent blockchain network, but the transacted assets that reside on Ethereum are protected by the bridge contract. It must be continuously convinced the rollup network is not compromised and the funds are not at risk. In the worst-case, the bridge will bypass the other network and allow users to unwind and eventually withdraw their funds.

A rollup can retain the same (or very close to) the security of Ethereum and this is accomplished by solving the following problems:

 * Data availability. The bridge contract must be convinced that all data is publicly available. This allows anyone to independently compute the rollup’s stateful database.
 * State transition integrity. The bridge contract must be convinced that all state transitions (transactions) are valid.
 * Censorship-resistance. The bridge contract will self-enforce transaction inclusion to ensure a user can eventually withdraw their funds if the network is compromised (or no longer making progress).

As a quick summary on potential solutions. The data availability problem is solved by just posting all data to the Ethereum network and this is where the name rollup originates (to roll up the data). The state transition integrity problem is solved using a fraud proof (Optimistic rollup) or a validity proof (zero knowledge rollups) system. The censorship-resistance problem is a little trickier, and often not discussed, but it requires the bridge contract to self-force the inclusion and eventual execution of user-generated transactions.

There is an on-going financial cost for rollup. The network must continuously provide evidence to the bridge contract that all finalised transactions are valid and the network is not compromised. This consumes resources from Ethereum and impacts the scalability that is attainable by rollups. However in the immediate term, it can significantly reduce the cost of a transaction. For example, in Arbitrum, a swap costs 1,600 gas compared to 120,000 gas on Ethereum.


What is the difference between a sidechain and a rollup?

Sidechains, such as Polygon and rollups, such as Optimism and Arbitrum are just independent blockchain networks. They have their own set of block producers and smart contract environments. The core difference between a sidechain and a rollup is found in the bridge contract that locks funds from Ethereum onto the other network. Precisely, it is the trust assumption that protects the funds held by the bridge contract.

 * Sidechain. The bridge contract may receive information about the other network, but it does not validate its correctness. A set of parties who govern the bridge are responsible for checking the other network is not compromised and attesting this fact to the bridge contract.
 * Rollup. A set of parties (sequencers) are responsible for providing evidence about the state of the other network to the bridge contract. It is up to the bridge contract to validate the evidence’s correctness and to independently verify the other network is not compromised.

It is a subtle difference, but it boils down to whether the bridge contract can self-enforce the validity of transactions on the other network or if it must rely upon a trusted set of parties to attest that it is valid.

Of course, there is no free lunch. Rollup networks can retain the security of Ethereum, but it also consumes more resources of Ethereum. This increases the financial cost to transact on a rollup network compared to a side-chain.  As a user or developer, you will need to consider the security offered by the other network and the potential financial cost that it entails.

Choose a solution that best suits your use case.


How can I get started with rollups and sidechains?

You can check out our blog announcements for the networks we support which includes Arbitrum, Optimism and Polygon.

All networks adhere to the same JSON RPC standard as the Ethereum network and they support EMV-compatible smart contracts. You can activate the networks in your Infura account, update the provider URL and start interacting with the networks immediately.

Arbitrum and Optimism are still in beta and in the progress of preparing for their mainnet launch. You may need to contact the teams if you want to deploy a smart contract to their mainnet. Polygon is already launched and you can start deploying contracts immediately.

We hope you found this article about rollups and side-chains informative. At Infura, we have supported Ethereum for over 5 years and we are excited to now support new projects that extend the utility (and scalability) of Ethereum.

Off-chain protocols: Sidechains and Rollups

Infura is excited to announce the addition of the Celo network to the Infura platform. Celo is an EVM-compatible Layer 1 built with the hope of accelerating social good through blockchain. It’s a major player in ReFi, or “Regenerative Finance,” a movement employing Web3 to solve societal issues such as climate change, income inequality and biodiversity.

Since much of the world operates from their smartphone, Celo treats cellphones as first-class citizens in their network. The mobile crypto-wallet Valora was first developed within Celo before spinning out in 2021.

Celo supports the above laudable goals through a number of initiatives and technical features such as:

 * Using zero-knowledge proofs and a carbon negative Proof of Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism to lower its environmental footprint. Celo’s carbon negative PoS is achieved via daily offsets through its work with Project Wren.
 * Ensuring low gas fees, which can be paid in ETH, the CELO token or any of Celo’s native stable coins, such as cUSD, cEUR or cREAL
 * Prioritizing mobile-first usage through its development of the external project Valora and emphasizing mobile-optimized languages such as React, React Native and Flutter.

All of these features make Celo attractive for those looking to use blockchain for good. Are you ready to build on it? In this tutorial, we’re going to show you how easy it is to get started with Celo Composer using Infura and Truffle. By the end of this article, you will be able to deploy a smart contract to the Celo testnet and build a React dapp frontend.


Prerequisites

Before getting started, make sure that you have all the necessary snacks for this wicked-cool roadtrip:

 * An Infura account
 * node & npm installed (in this guide → v16.xx.x)
 * Your favorite IDE


Getting started

Create a new Web3 access key with Celo endpoints
We will start with creating a new Infura Web3 access key (previously, project ID) with Celo endpoints enabled. This key will be used by our application to execute transactions against the Celo network. Here’s how to do that with Infura (or follow this Getting Started guide).

 * Log in to the Infura main page
 * Click on the button on the right-hand side - Create new key
 * From the modal that pops up:
 * Select Network → Web3 API
     Type anything you like into the Name field 🙂
     Click on “Create”
 * Scroll down until you spot Celo
 * From the network dropdown, select the Alfajores testnet endpoint
 * Click on the right icon to copy the content

The output should be:

https://celo-alfajores.infura.io/v3/

Note this down, as this is going to be useful further ahead on this tutorial.

Celo Composer
Celo Composer provides easy templates to get started with development. You can use Celo Composer by following the steps in the Readme.

To use Truffle, there’s a bit of tweaking that you have to do.

You have two options:
1. You can either clone the original repo and uncomment out the Truffle lines (here, here, and here)
or
2. You can fork a repository where we’ve taken care of that for you:
`Git clone http://www.github.com/cooganb/celo-infura-truffle`

Testnet Funds
We’ll need some testfunds from Alfajores, Celo’s testnet. Grab your nearest MetaMask developer account and claim some free fun money. (The testnet site will add Alfajores to your MetaMask account if you allow it. If for some reason you don’t get prompted, check out Chainlist.)

Now that we’ve got some funds to work with, let’s deploy our contract to Celo’s testnet. We’ll do it two different ways. First, we’ll use Infura and Truffle command line deployment. Next, we’ll use Truffle Dashboards with a custom Infura add-on.


Deploying the contract

Method 1: Command Line Deployment
For this demo, we’re going to be compiling a basic Greeter contract to Celo that’s already been written and prepared. We’re using Truffle to compile contracts. Make sure you have Truffle installed and then run the following commands:

cd packages/truffle
yarn install
truffle compile

For contract deployment, we need to create and add our private key that has our Celo testnet funds to an .env file in the Truffle directory.

You’ll also need to add your Infura account information to the truffle-config file. Fill that in here; it’s also shown below:

networks: {
	alfajores: {
		network_id: 44787,
		provider: () =>
			new PrivateKeyProvider(
				PRIVATE_KEY,
				`https://celo-alfajores.infura.io/v3/${INFURA_API_KEY}`,
	),
},
celoMainnet: {
	network_id: 42220,
	provider: () =>
		new PrivateKeyProvider(
			PRIVATE_KEY,
			`https://celo-mainnet.infura.io/v3/${INFURA_API_KEY}`
			),
	},
},

Once we have the above details in place, we can deploy the contract using the following command:

truffle deploy --network alfajores

Assuming we have enough funds and we’ve properly set up truffle-config.js, we should see our contract deployed successful in the terminal.

Method 2: Infura + Truffle Dashboard Deployment
If you’ve already deployed the contract using the above method, you can skip to “Building the Frontend”

Of course, there’s more than one way to deploy your smart contract, so let’s take a look at adding Infura as a custom endpoint. Truffle has a great feature called Dashboard, where all we need to do is make sure we use the MetaMask account from the previous example. It’s a great option we can use to safely deploy our contracts and be able to track metrics from our Infura dashboard.

First, let’s add our Infura Celo endpoint to MetaMask. Under the “Network” settings in MetaMask, click “Add Network”:


Then, add in the network details, but putting using your specific Celo RPC endpoint from Infura:


Click “Save” and you have your Infura-enabled Alfajores network endpoint ready to go.

Fire up Truffle Dashboard in a new terminal with:

truffle dashboard

You should see a browser window open. Click “Connect Wallet” and make sure you’re on your custom Infura endpoint account:

Open up a new terminal and run the following command to deploy the Greeter contract:

truffle deploy --network dashboard

Click “Process” on the transaction and it will prompt MetaMask to open. Confirm the transaction.

Assuming you have funds and everything goes well, the contract should be deployed.


Building the Frontend

Now, let’s set up the frontend side of things. We’ll set up React but you can use React Native (with or without Expo) or Flutter as well.

Move into the react-app packages folder, install the dependencies and get a development environment going:

cd ../packages/react-app
yarn install
yarn dev

Open up `localhost:3000` (unless you changed the default port) on your browser and connect your wallet. Unlike for Ethereum, with Celo there are a number of different wallet options, including Valora. This speaks to the diversity of development happening on the Celo network.

Once you connect with the account that you had funded through Alfajores, you should see the following:

Click on the `0` index on the toolbar and you’ll get the information about the Greeter contract we deployed:

From here, you can read or set the value `greet` from our contract. Give it a try!


Conclusion

This is just the beginning of what’s possible on Celo with celo-composer. If you want to build something with the template, use `npx @celo/celo-composer` and select the `react-with-tailwind` template. Celo-composer also has support for more mobile-first languages, such as Flutter and React Native.

Celo also has an exciting new feature coming out soon called SocialConnect, an “open source protocol for creating attestations mapping off-chain identifiers” such as cell phone numbers, Twitter accounts or e-mail addresses.” It allows Celo users to send money to those identifiers, even if the users behind those accounts do not have a Celo account yet. Once they login and claim the identifier, they can claim the funds. It’s an innovative approach that could have an enormous impact on the remittance industry, since people could use SocialConnect to send funds in stablecoins to friends and relatives.

All this speaks to the focus of cLabs, Celo Foundation and the Celo protocol to bring the efficiencies, inclusiveness and other benefits of blockchain to the places most in need of financial and environmental assistance. Infura is excited to join with Celo in these efforts.

To start building with Celo on Infura, sign up for a free account now.

For more technical documentation, please visit our docs.

Tutorial: Build with Infura on Ethereum-Compatible Layer 1 Network Celo

We’re excited to continue the expansion of our multi-chain ecosystem that supports the needs of all developers, from those working on side hustles to the developer teams at the biggest Web3 companies. Our goal has been and always will be to grow the entire ecosystem in as many industries as possible. Supporting multiple networks is critical to that future.

Today, we’re thrilled to announce our 12th supported network – Celo – a truly unique community of “developers, designers, dreamers, and doers” laser-focused on building an interoperable ultra-light mobile identity client to help anyone with a smartphone move value anywhere in the world.

As part of ConsenSys, Infura, along with developer tools such as Truffle and Diligence, offer a one-stop shop for developers, that includes complementary Web3 tools and services for all supported networks. Now it’s easier than ever to build for the over six billion smartphone users worldwide on Celo.


The Celo Ecosystem

Celo’s mission of prosperity for all – particularly the financially underserved – as well as their focus on regenerative finance (ReFi), or “DeFi for good,” resonates with many of us at Infura. ReFi utilizes the power of blockchain and Web3 to address climate change, support conservation and biodiversity, and create a more equitable and sustainable financial system.

Celo makes it easier for billions of smartphone users worldwide to send money, with the ability to have transaction fees paid using tokens or a variety of stablecoins. Perhaps most compellingly, Celo allows users of Celo dapps and wallets (including MetaMask, Opera, Valora and others) to send or receive money using only their mobile phone number – a far more simple identity tag than a 42-character randomized wallet address. The simplicity of use coupled with virtually zero fees make Celo one of the most accessible protocols out there, reducing the complexity of financial transactions to the ease of sending a text message.

Celo uses a Byzantine Fault Tolerant consensus mechanism (Proof of Stake) for its decentralized, secure and permissionless carbon negative blockchain transactions. The reduced amount of data needed to sync to the Celo blockchain with the ultra-light client mobile identity client lowers the barrier to participation.


Why build on Celo with Infura

For Infura developers, Celo offers full EVM-compatibility and a broad codebase including Solidity, making the inspiring task of building for 6 billion smartphones surprisingly familiar and accessible. Plus, working with Infura means no syncing or complex setups, 10x faster request response times than self-hosted solutions and 99.99% uptime.

At Infura, the networks we offer aim to meet our developer communities where they most want to be. As such, you’re not limited to one network – signing up for an account with Infura to build on Celo or any single network gets you access to all 12 networks (and counting) through a simple, single line of code. A bonus: get access to free archive data with your Infura plan and exceptional developer resources.

Looking for inspiration on what you could do with Infura and Celo? Some notable DeFi projects in the Celo ecosystem include Ubeswap and Moola, a mobile-first platform for borrowing and lending assets on Celo. The Celo Ecosystem Venture Fund helps developers build on Celo, with over US$77.6M in grants given out so far.

See what kind of impact you could make on the future of decentralized, regenerative, socially inclusive finance by getting started today.


Start building with Celo + Infura

Getting started with Celo on Infura is easy. Follow the few simple steps below, to start building today!


Step 1: Login in or sign up

Login to your Infura account or sign up for a free account and check out our Infura quickstart guide!


Step 2: Create a new key

Once you are logged in click CREATE NEW KEY.

From the “CREATE NEW KEY” pop-up:

 * Select Web3 API (Formerly Ethereum) in the NETWORK dropdown list.
 * Provide a NAME for your project and click CREATE

Your new project's settings page has all the information you need to connect to the network.


Step 3: Connect to the Celo network

Use the Celo card Mainnet or Alfajores endpoints to send JSON-RPC requests to the Celo network.

Never expose your key secret. It must never be human-readable in your application.  We suggest using a .env file


Step 4: Make requests


Celo supports EVM JSON-RPC methods to interact with the Celo network.

Call a CELO JSON-RPC method

Use HTTPS to call a JSON-RPC method. In this example, we use curl to make the HTTPS request to obtain the latest block number.

Ensure that you replace <YOUR-KEY-ID> with a project ID from your Infura dashboard:

curl -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" --data '{"jsonrpc": "2.0", "id": 0, "method": "eth_blockNumber", "params": []}' "https://celo-mainnet.infura.io/v3/<YOUR-KEY-ID>"

The result should look similar to the following:

{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":0,"result":"0xdde9f2"}


Step 5: Choose a network

Use one of the endpoints below, as your Celo client provider.
Ensure that you replace YOUR-KEY-ID with a KEY ID from your Infura dashboard.

Celo Mainnet
Network: Celo Mainnet
Description: JSON-RPC over HTTPS
URL: https://celo-mainnet.infura.io/v3/YOUR-KEY-ID

Celo Testnet
Network: Celo Alfajores
Description: JSON-RPC over HTTPS
URL: https://celo-alfajores.infura.io/v3/YOUR_KEY_ID


Step 6: Add Celo Network to MetaMask

From MetaMask, select Settings > Networks > Add Network.

Add the Celo network details to MetaMask (shown below).

Celo Mainnnet

 * Network Name: Celo (Mainnet)
 * New RPC URL: https://celo-mainnet.infura.io/v3/<API-KEY>
 * Chain ID: 42220
 * Currency Symbol (Optional): CELO
 * Block Explorer URL (Optional): https://explorer.celo.org

Celo Testnet

 * Network Name: Celo (Alfajores Testnet)
 * New RPC URL: https://celo-alfajores.infura.io/v3/<API-KEY>
 * Chain ID: 44787
 * Currency Symbol: CELOBlock Explorer URL (Optional): https://alfajores-blockscout.celo-testnet.org


Step 7: Fund Your Testnet Account

Create an account on Celo Alfajores with the Celo Faucet and your account will automatically be topped up with the CELO token. You’re ready to go!

For more guidance, see Infura’s Celo documentation.

Celo x Infura: Continuing our multi-chain expansion with social, regenerative DeFi

Avalanche is a proof-of-stake (PoS), Layer 1 chain that supports Solidity-compatible dapps running on an Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). Infura supports the Contract Chain (C-Chain), which is an instance of the EVM. It enables the creation of smart contracts using the C-Chain’s API. Developers can write decentralized applications (dapps) that use Infura to call Avalanche C-Chain via JSON-RPC endpoints.

This tutorial shows how developers can use Avalanche to deploy an ERC721 smart contract and then mint a series of NFTs with links to metadata that represent double-entry accounting transactions.

In an example use case, a company wants to create a decentralized record of its financial performance for a given year. At the start of that year, and again at the end of every quarter, the company mints a series of NFTs whose metadata shows changes to its balance sheet. Those changes are a permanent record that can be accessed by a bank in support of a loan package.


Prerequisites

A MetaMask wallet

An Infura account

Node.js (version 16 or later), and npm or yarn installed

An IDE such as Microsoft Visual Studio Code





 1. Prepare your MetaMask wallet

We will use the Avalanche FUJI C-Chain testnet, so we need to fund our wallet with test AVAX tokens. Our first step is to add the FUJI C-Chain to MetaMask by defining a custom network:

Log into MetaMask, click the network dropdown, and select “Add a network” and fill in the following information:

Network Name: Avalanche FUJI C-Chain

New RPC URL: https://api.avax-test.network/ext/bc/C/rpc

ChainID: 43113

Symbol: AVAX

Explorer: https://testnet.snowtrace.io/

2. Add wallet address to config file





Copy the wallet address to clipboard.


As described below, paste the wallet address into the WALLET_ADDRESS field in src/config.tsx, replacing the placeholder string (“xxxxxxx”).





3. Add private key to config file





Click “Export private key,” and then enter browser password to enable copying.


As described below, paste the private key into the PRIVATE_KEY field in src/config.tsx, replacing the placeholder string (“xxxxxxx”).


NOTE: As described below, DO NOT commit config.tsx to the repo after you have filled in actual values. The private key is most critical because exposure completely removes your protection against hacking.

4. Get AVAX tokens from the Avalanche Fuji Faucet


Next, we visit https://faucet.avax.network/ to request 2 AVAX, the maximum available in any 24-hour period. Click the Connect button to copy the address of your MetaMask wallet into the form, then press REQUEST 2 AVAX. Given the speed of the Avalanche chain, the balance should quickly appear in your wallet.





5. Create an ERC721 contract with the Open Zeppelin wizard


We use the Open Zeppelin wizard to create our ECR721 contract. Visit https://wizard.openzeppelin.com/ and select the ERC721 tab.


Create a name and symbol. We will leave the Base URI field blank for this example.


Choose Mintable and Auto increment ids, Burnable and URI Storage.




When you have done this, click the “Open in Remix” button. Your browser will open a tab with this view of the code.



Click the “Compile Contract” button to compile the contract in Remix, which should display the correct compiler version.




Click the “ABI” icon to copy the ABI from Remix. As described below, paste it into the empty file src/abi.json” in the GitHub repo referenced below.




Deploy the contract to the Avalanche Fuji C-Chain. On the left side of the Remix panel, go to the first dropdown “Environment,” and be sure the Injected Provider is set to Metamask, which should already be set to the Fuji C-Chain.


Copy the contract address from Remix.


Visit the Fuji Snowtrace block explorer at https://testnet.snowtrace.io/.


Paste the contract address into the search bar and you will see the deployed contract.




As described below, paste the contract address into the CONTRACT_ADDRESS field in src/config.tsx, replacing the placeholder string (“xxxxxxx”).


6. Create an Avalanche project in Infura


Go to your Infura dashboard and click the “Create New Key” button.


Choose “Web3 API” in order to see the Avalanche endpoints.



Choose the Avalanche C-Chain Fuji testnet endpoint.





Copy the endpoint. This is your project’s URL, which will display in this format:


https://avalanche-fuji.infura.io/v3/xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


As described below, paste this into the INFURA_FUJI_PROVIDER field in src/config.tsx, replacing the placeholder string (“xxxxxxx”).



7. Create an IPFS project in Infura


An NFT contains metadata that describe images and other related resources that are stored off-chain, typically on the IPFS decentralized file storage network. In order to mint Avalanche NFTs, we need to create an IPFS project in your Infura account.


Under “Create an IPFS Project”, click “Get Started”


Name your IPFS project.


Enable dedicated gateways.


As described below, paste PROJECT ID and API KEY SECRET into the INFURA_IPFS_PROJECT_ID and INFURA_IPFS_API_KEY_SECRET fields in src/config.tsx, replacing the placeholder strings (“xxxxxxx”).

Create a subdomain name that is unique to your project.


Add the string “/ipfs/” to the Subdomain Name that you have created, then paste the entire name (https://your-name.infura-ipfs.io/ipfs/) into the INFURA_IPFS_GATEWAY field in src/config.tsx, replacing the placeholder string (“xxxxxxx”).



8. Visit the GitHub repo to clone this project


https://github.com/ConsenSys/avalanche-tutorial-accounting


Before building and running the application, you need to finish these two steps:

 1. As described above, copy the contents of the ABI from Remix intp the src/abi.json file.
 2. Fill in the values contained in src/config.tsx, replacing the placeholder strings (“xxxxx”)”
    

const config = {

INFURA_FUJI_PROVIDER: "xxxxxxxxxx",

INFURA_IPFS_PROJECT_ID: "xxxxxxxxxx",

INFURA_IPFS_API_KEY_SECRET: "xxxxxxxxxx",

INFURA_IPFS_GATEWAY: "xxxxxxxxxx",

CONTRACT_ADDRESS: "xxxxxxxxxx",

WALLET_ADDRESS: "xxxxxxxxxx",

PRIVATE_KEY:"xxxxxxxxxx",

};


NOTE: If you are doing additional commits, instead of writing these values directly to config.tsx, create a file called “config_local.tsx” in the src directory. You can store these values there, and then copy the entire config structure into config.tsx before running the application. Since the .gitignore file has an entry for config_local.tsx, you should avoid accidentally committing the actual values for everyone to see. Before any additional commits, remove the changes to config.tsx, so the file reverts to the placeholder strings.


To build the application, run npm install or yarn install.


To run the application, run npm start or yarn start.



Summary

This application enables a user to mint a group of NFTs containing metadata that represent a series of double entries in an accounting system. Starting with an empty balance sheet, we follow three steps to record each double entry:


 1. Entry - Show the changes in each account affected by the double entry.
 2. IPFS - Upload a JSON object representing those changes to IPFS.
 3. Mint - Mint an NFT with a URI containing the IPFS file identifier
    

The application roadmap below shows the steps to connect your MetaMask wallet, and four transactions that generate entries:

 1. Initial equity investment
 2. Purchase manufacturing equipment
 3. Purchase inventory from supplier
 4. Sell the product to customer
    

For each step, we show changes in the accounts, based on mock data included in the application. As each NFT is minted, the balance of AVAX test tokens in our MetaMask wallet decreases by the amount of the transaction fee. The 2 tokens you get from the Avalanche C-Chain Fuji test faucet should be enough to run this application many times.


The Entry, IPFS and Mint buttons are disabled after the fourth NFT is minted.


The user can reset the application to start another series of four entries by reloading the page.



After launching the application

Click the Entry button to post the first accounting entry.


After Entry 1

Click the “IPFS” button to upload a JSON object representing the entry.


After IPFS 1

Click the “Mint” button to begin minting the NFT.


Minting 1

Wait for the progress indicator to indicate that minting has finished.












After Entry 2

Click the “Entry” button when it is enabled again to repeat the process for the second entry.


After Entry 3

Click the “Entry” button when it is enabled again to repeat the process for the third entry.


After Entry 4

Click the “Entry” button when it is enabled again to repeat the process for the fourth entry.


After Minting 4

The “Entry”, “IPFS” and “Mint” buttons will be disabled after minting the fourth NFT.


Snowtrace Block Explorer - Contract

After each series of entries, the transactions will appear in the contract shown in the Snowtrace Block Explorer. https://testnet.snowtrace.io/






Snowtrace Block Explorer - Transaction

In this view of Transaction Details, we see that the most recently minted NFT has a TokenID of 74. The metadata for this NFT should show the state of the accounts after the fourth entry.




Remix - call tokenURI

In Remix, we can enter that TokenID in the field for the tokenURI call. Clicking the “call” button will show the IPFS URL under which the metadata is stored.


tokenURI output in browser

Pasting that URL into a browser displays the JSON object that represents the fourth entry.



Using external data feeds

In this tutorial, we used placeholder data to mint a series of NFTs that represent changes in a company’s financial state. Live data from a company’s accounting systems can be fed into  a decentralized oracle network like Chainlink to provide a deterministic view of its performance. This can provide an end-to-end audit solution that companies can share with financial institutions and other interested parties.

ethereum

Deploy an ERC721 Smart Contract and Mint Accounting NFTs with Infura and Avalanche C-Chain

We launched the private beta of our Avalanche Contract Chain (C-Chain) endpoints in July this year, and have seen strong usage, with great feedback from our community. Now, we are ready to offer Infura’s API for Avalanche C-Chain to all users for free!


With this addition, Infura now supports 11 networks (and will continue to add more networks) including Ethereum, IPFS, Filecoin, Polygon, Arbitrum, Optimism, StarkNet, Palm, NEAR and Aurora.


Avalanche has become one of the leading Layer 1 platforms since launching in September 2020, making transactions cheaper, faster and more reliable. Developers of smart contracts may find the Avalanche C-Chain interesting, as it focuses entirely on smart contracts to boost performance, rather than spreading its focus over multiple functions like most other blockchains. The C-Chain is one of three chains comprising Avalanche's Primary Network, and is also EVM-compatible, allowing for easy Ethereum dapp migration to Avalanche for scale. Furthermore, it’s poised to become a major network for facilitating DeFi protocols, because of its advanced scalability with a throughput of 4,500 transactions per second, lower transaction costs that are a fraction of Ethereum's, sub-second finality, and robust security.


Infura has always put the developer at the center of everything we do. The first to bring easy Ethereum access to developers with a standard JSON-RPC API, Infura removes the complexity and high cost associated with self-hosting an Ethereum node. Our mission is to grow the ecosystem for everyone and make it easy for developers to build the next innovative application. Over the past year, we have focused our efforts on expanding our multi-chain offerings, so that we can provide value for developers wherever you are building.


That’s why we’re working with Avalanche to create a powerful solution that enables the next wave of DeFi dapps in the marketplace. Through Infura’s C-Chain API, you’ll have instant access to all of Avalanche C-Chain’s benefits - high throughput, fast transaction speed, consistent uptime, high programmability, compatibility with all your favorite Ethereum tools, decentralization, and sound security, with substantially lower costs.


With Infura's C-Chain APIs, you can seamlessly access and communicate with Avalanche C-Chain with a few clicks in the same familiar Infura developer portal. With only one API key, you can access multiple networks beyond Avalanche C-Chain on your Infura plan, without paying a premium for add-ons. As part of the ConsenSys family, Infura developers also have access to the leading Web3 development stack that includes the Truffle development framework, Diligence security tools, and MetaMask wallet to help you build, test, deploy, and secure your dapps.  


Start building with Avalanche + Infura. Sign up for a free Infura account today.


Infura Makes Layer 1 Network, Avalanche C-Chain, Available to All Users

After a successful private beta, Infura, the No. 1 blockchain development platform, is excited to announce that StarkNet is now available to all developers.

We invite builders to experience the ease of the fast transactions, low gas fees, and Ethereum-level security of StarkNet on Infura.

Eli Ben-Sasson, co-founder of StarkNet, co-invented the technology behind ZK-STARKs and ZK-SNARKs, the two leading technologies underpinning the prominent ZK-rollups today.



The benefits of building with StarkNet


When you build with StarkNet and Infura, you have the assurance of building with the Web3 pioneers. StarkNet brings many benefits, including:

 * Scalability: Increased scalability with high throughput, as the result of the efficiency of STARK technology. The innovative zero-knowledge proof system uses cryptography to efficiently and transparently verify and prove transaction integrity.  StarkNet bundles data and processes transactions off-chain with STARK proofs that require very little computational power to verify, enabling scaling by orders of magnitude greater than other scaling solutions.
 * Security: Verification of dapp transactions takes place on the Ethereum mainnet.
 * Simplicity: Easier builds and seamless user experience. Build any dapp you want, with any business logic, across multiple protocols, with the first ZK-rollup to have general-purpose smart contracts on a fully composable network.
 * Speed: StarkNet provides fast finality, potentially exceeding existing throughput levels by up to 3 times transactions per second (TPS). Withdrawals take minutes, not days.
 * Permissionless: StarkNet is non-custodial, involving none of the cost, risks and effort involved in maintaining a traditional custodial system.
   

New cases with an improved developer experience

Using StarkNet on the Infura platform makes new use cases possible. For example, developers with an Ethereum dapp using Solidity-based contracts can leverage Infura to route transactions to StarkNet. They use and compile the pre-defined Cairo contract that can be passed as input to Infura to deploy on StarkNet and interact with Ethereum from there. With the Infura StarkNet API, developers can leverage Infura standard JSON-RPC endpoints to communicate seamlessly with StarkNet.



Infura supports a multi-chain future



As an infrastructure provider of high-availability Web3 APIs for a variety of networks, Infura believes in a multi-chain future. We not only support Ethereum and IPFS, but also Polygon, Arbitrum, Optimism, Palm, Avalanche, NEAR, Aurora, Filecoin, and now StarkNet, giving flexibility to developers, and allowing for maximum scale and performance of their decentralized applications.



Start building today


To get started, create a free account to experience building on StarkNet with Infura.


For more details on the Infura and StarkNet integration, visit our StarkNet product page.


Learn more about how the ConsenSys suite of tools work with StarkNet, read the blog “ConsenSys and StarkWare expand existing partnership for complete Web3 tech stack development".


Seeking inspiration? Learn how to build an NFT with our tutorial, “Mint Your First NFT with Infura and StarkNet.”

Network

Ethereum Network Updates, Upgrades, Hard Forks

Tutorial: Build with Infura on Ethereum-Compatible Layer 1 Network Celo

Celo x Infura: Continuing our multi-chain expansion with social, regenerative DeFi

Deploy an ERC721 Smart Contract and Mint Accounting NFTs with Infura and Avalanche C-Chain

Infura Makes Layer 1 Network, Avalanche C-Chain, Available to All Users

ZK-Rollup StarkNet Now Available to All Infura Users