Ethereum RPC for stablecoin infrastructure: best providers 2026

The stablecoin market crossed $320 billion in total supply in May 2026, with more than $150 billion of that sitting on Ethereum mainnet — making Ethereum the dominant settlement layer for global stablecoin issuance and transfer. Circle‘s USDC and Tether‘s USDT together represent the overwhelming majority of that supply, processing a combined $8 trillion in transfer volume on Ethereum in Q4 2025 alone.

The regulatory clock is now synchronized on both sides of the Atlantic. The GENIUS Act — signed July 18, 2025 — requires stablecoin issuers to maintain 1:1 reserve backing and submit monthly independent attestations, creating a direct dependency on reliable on-chain data reads via eth_call. The EU’s MiCA regulation enters full enforcement on July 1, 2026, imposing transaction volume caps on non-EU-currency stablecoins and mandating Travel Rule compliance for transfers above €1,000. The infrastructure implications for both are covered in Chainstack’s 2026 crypto regulation guide.

This guide compares seven Ethereum RPC providers through the lens of stablecoin operations: transaction throughput, nonce management, real-time settlement monitoring, gas estimation accuracy, and the compliance posture that GENIUS Act and MiCA now require from infrastructure vendors.

💡 Already using Chainstack? Jump straight to the Ethereum tooling docs or deploy your endpoint at chainstack.com/build-better-with-ethereum.

Stablecoin infrastructure on Ethereum: RPC requirements

Stablecoin infrastructure is a throughput-first workload with hard reliability requirements. An issuer processing thousands of USDC transfers per day cannot afford dropped WebSocket connections, throttled eth_sendRawTransaction calls, or rate-limited eth_getLogs scans during end-of-day reconciliation. Unlike read-heavy custody workflows, stablecoin operations are write-heavy and latency-sensitive: a delayed settlement confirmation degrades user experience; a stuck transaction queue from nonce mismanagement can freeze payment flows entirely.

Proof-of-reserves attestations — now mandatory monthly under the GENIUS Act — add a second workload pattern: periodic, high-precision reads against reserve contracts to verify backing. These calls require a provider whose eth_call returns consistent state, not a degraded shared endpoint under concurrent load. MiCA’s transaction volume caps for non-EU-currency stablecoins (1 million transactions or €200 million per day) require issuers to instrument and monitor their transfer volumes in real time — which means continuous eth_getLogs filtering at scale.

Latency and throughput profile

Stablecoin payment rails run sustained write throughput (50–300 RPS for large issuers) alongside continuous read monitoring. The two patterns are different enough to require different infrastructure layers:

• Transaction submission — eth_sendRawTransaction at sustained high RPS, with nonce management to prevent transaction queue buildup. Latency matters: a slow submission path means slower settlement confirmation for end users.
• Settlement monitoring — WebSocket eth_subscribe(logs) subscriptions on stablecoin contract addresses for real-time Transfer event detection. A dropped subscription means a missed settlement event — which triggers manual reconciliation.
• Attestation reads — periodic eth_call to reserve contracts (USDC’s USDXX fund, Tether’s reserve registry) for proof-of-reserves. These are bursty, low-RPS, high-accuracy calls that must not be throttled.

A shared endpoint with per-method rate limits will fail all three patterns simultaneously during peak traffic. Providers with dedicated throughput options are the only viable choice for production stablecoin rails above moderate volume.

Key RPC methods for stablecoin infrastructure

• eth_sendRawTransaction — the payment submission method. Every stablecoin transfer, mint, or redemption that an issuer or payment processor initiates goes through this method. At high volume, the submission path must be reliable and fast: a provider that queues or throttles eth_sendRawTransaction calls under load creates visible settlement delays. EIP-1559 transaction handling (type 2 transactions with maxFeePerGas and maxPriorityFeePerGas) is assumed at this point — verify that the provider’s mempool propagation is current.
• eth_getTransactionCount — nonce retrieval. This is the most underappreciated method in high-volume stablecoin infrastructure. Every transaction from a given address requires an accurate nonce; concurrent transaction submission from a single issuer address (or set of addresses) creates race conditions if nonce reads return stale state. The pending tag on this method returns the next nonce including pending transactions — critical for concurrent submission patterns. See Chainstack’s Ethereum nonce management guide for production-ready patterns.
• eth_getLogs — event indexing and MiCA volume monitoring. Stablecoin issuers use this to index Transfer, Mint, and Burn events across their contract addresses. For MiCA volume cap compliance, issuers processing EU-resident user flows must track daily transaction counts and aggregate values in real time — eth_getLogs with 5,000-block range windows is the standard approach. High-volume filtering across multiple contract addresses requires a provider with no artificial block range restrictions. Note: eth_getLogs does not require an archive node for recent blocks — a full node is sufficient for rolling window monitoring.
• eth_subscribe (logs) — real-time settlement detection. WebSocket subscriptions on specific stablecoin contract addresses deliver Transfer events within the same block they confirm, eliminating the polling latency of eth_getLogs. For payment rails where settlement confirmation drives downstream actions (unlocking funds, triggering cross-chain bridges, updating user balances), WebSocket reliability is non-negotiable. Key concerns: subscription reconnect handling, filter persistence across reconnects, and provider-side WebSocket connection limits.
• eth_call — proof-of-reserves and allowance verification. Reading reserve contract state for GENIUS Act attestations, checking ERC-20 allowances before processing delegated transfers, and verifying stablecoin contract parameters all go through eth_call. At point-in-time historical reads (for monthly attestation snapshots), this requires archive access. For live reads at "latest", a full node is sufficient. Providers with method-weighted billing charge disproportionately here — at 26 CU per call (Alchemy) or 80 CU per call (Infura) versus Chainstack’s flat 1 RU, attestation-heavy workflows see significant cost differences.
• eth_estimateGas — fee strategy. Stablecoin payment rails must price transactions correctly on the first submission: underpaying leads to stuck transactions during congestion; overpaying wastes gas on high-volume operations. eth_estimateGas combined with eth_feeHistory (EIP-1559 base fee history) enables dynamic fee strategies. Accurate gas estimation requires a provider whose node is in sync and whose execution environment matches mainnet state — stale nodes return incorrect estimates.
• eth_getTransactionReceipt — settlement confirmation. Called after eth_sendRawTransaction to verify a transaction’s inclusion and success status. The status field (1 = success, 0 = reverted) and the emitted logs are the definitive settlement record. For high-volume payment rails, this is called on every submitted transaction — it must return reliably and immediately after block confirmation.
• eth_getBalance — ETH reserve monitoring. Stablecoin payment processors must maintain sufficient ETH in their submission wallets for gas. Low-balance alerts and automatic top-up triggers run against this method continuously. Simple and low-cost, but the provider must keep pace with chain head.

Infrastructure requirements

Sustained high-RPS throughput is the primary requirement for active payment rails. Shared endpoints throttle at the plan-level RPS limit across all methods combined; dedicated infrastructure isolates the workload. For issuers processing thousands of transactions per day, the Unlimited Node add-on (flat RPS billing from $149/month) or Dedicated Nodes (isolated compute from $0.50/hour) eliminate the shared throttle problem.

WebSocket connection stability matters more for stablecoin monitoring than for most other workloads because the consequence of a dropped subscription is a missed settlement event — not just slower performance. Providers that silently drop WebSocket connections under load or during maintenance windows require additional client-side resilience engineering.

Pricing model at scale becomes a significant cost factor when high-volume operations combine eth_call (proof-of-reserves, allowance checks) with eth_getLogs (event indexing). Providers that apply per-method multipliers charge 20–80x more per call on these methods than Chainstack’s flat 1 RU per request model.

SOC 2 Type II certification is becoming a GENIUS Act vendor attestation requirement. Monthly attestations submitted under the GENIUS Act cite the infrastructure provider’s security controls — a provider without a published SOC 2 Type II report creates a documentation gap in the attestation package.

Chainstack for stablecoin infrastructure on Ethereum

Chainstack has a dedicated stablecoin infrastructure offering with confirmed deployments at Circle and Rabobank — the only major RPC provider with a published stablecoin-specific product page and verifiable enterprise clients in the space.

For high-volume transaction submission, the Unlimited Node add-on provides flat-rate RPS billing (25–500 RPS tiers, from $149/month) with no per-request charges — making cost forecasting straightforward on high-volume payment rails. Dedicated Nodes provide fully isolated compute for workloads where shared throttle limits are unacceptable, available from $0.50/hour. The Bolt fast-sync feature on Dedicated Nodes reduces node initialization time when spinning up additional capacity.

The flat 1 RU per request pricing (2 RU for archive calls) eliminates method-cost surprises for stablecoin workloads. An issuer running 10,000 daily eth_call reads for proof-of-reserves attestations pays the same per-call rate as eth_blockNumber — Chainstack does not apply method multipliers. Competing providers charge 26 CU (Alchemy) to 80 CU (Infura) for eth_call, making attestation-heavy workflows significantly more expensive at the same request volume.

Chainstack’s SOC 2 Type II certification (December 2025) covers the full security controls stack required for GENIUS Act vendor documentation: AES-256 encryption at rest, TLS in transit, RBAC, MFA, and the availability infrastructure behind the 99.99%+ uptime commitment. The enterprise plan adds SSO/SAML 2.0 and contractual SLA terms — relevant for stablecoin issuers whose GENIUS Act attestation packages must name and certify their infrastructure vendors.

Code example: real-time stablecoin settlement monitoring with WebSocket

The following snippet subscribes to all ERC-20 Transfer events from USDC’s Ethereum contract and logs settlement details in real time, using ethers.js:

import { ethers } from "ethers";

// Use your Chainstack WSS endpoint
const provider = new ethers.WebSocketProvider("YOUR_CHAINSTACK_WSS_ENDPOINT");

// USDC contract address (Ethereum mainnet)
const USDC_ADDRESS = "0xA0b86991c6218b36c1d19D4a2e9Eb0cE3606eB48";
const TRANSFER_TOPIC = ethers.id("Transfer(address,address,uint256)");

async function monitorSettlements() {
  console.log("Monitoring USDC settlements...");

  provider.on(
    {
      address: USDC_ADDRESS,
      topics: [TRANSFER_TOPIC],
    },
    (log) => {
      const from = ethers.getAddress("0x" + log.topics[1].slice(26));
      const to = ethers.getAddress("0x" + log.topics[2].slice(26));
      const amount = ethers.formatUnits(log.data, 6); // USDC uses 6 decimals
      console.log(`Settlement: ${amount} USDC | ${from} → ${to} | tx ${log.transactionHash}`);
    }
  );

  // Handle reconnection
  provider.on("error", (err) => {
    console.error("WebSocket error:", err);
  });
}

monitorSettlements();

For nonce management patterns in concurrent transaction submission, see the Ethereum nonce management guide. The Ethereum tooling documentation covers complete SDK setup including viem and Web3.py examples.

🤖 You can also access Chainstack Ethereum RPC directly from Claude, Cursor, Codex, Gemini, or Windsurf using Chainstack MCP. Learn more about Chainstack MCP.

Provider comparison

The table below summarizes public positioning as of May 2026.

Provider	Pricing model	Free tier	Dedicated nodes	SOC 2 Type II	WebSocket support
Chainstack	RU (1 RU full node, 2 RU archive)	3M RU/mo, 25 RPS	Yes (Growth+, $0.50/hr)	Yes (Dec 2025)	Yes
Quicknode	Method-weighted credits	10M credits/mo, 15 RPS	Yes (Enterprise)	Yes + ISO 27001	Yes
Alchemy	Method-weighted CU (eth_call = 26 CU)	30M CU/mo, 25 RPS	No standard	Not published	Yes
Infura	Daily request quota (eth_call = 80 CU)	100K req/day	Limited	Not published	Yes
GetBlock	CU-based	50K CU/mo, 20 RPS	Available	Not published	Yes
Ankr	API credits (eth_call = 200 credits)	200M credits/mo	Yes (premium)	Yes (2025)	Yes
dRPC	Flat per 1M requests	Free public endpoints	No	Not published	Yes

⚠️ On method multipliers: Providers with CU/credit multipliers charge significantly more for eth_call — the method at the core of proof-of-reserves attestations. At 10,000 eth_call reads/day: Chainstack = 10,000 RU; Alchemy ≈ 260,000 CU; Infura ≈ 800,000 CU; Ankr ≈ 2,000,000 credits.

Chainstack

Chainstack is the only provider in this comparison with a dedicated stablecoin infrastructure product page and confirmed enterprise clients (Circle, Rabobank) in the stablecoin space. Global Nodes provide geo-load-balanced shared RPC across 12 data centers for teams getting started; Dedicated Nodes isolate production payment rail workloads from shared infrastructure at $0.50/hour compute. The Unlimited Node add-on starts at $149/month for flat-rate 25 RPS with no per-call charges — the right fit for sustained transaction submission workloads that need predictable costs.

The flat 1 RU per request pricing model is the most important differentiator for stablecoin operators running eth_call-heavy attestation workflows. Plans range from the free Developer tier (3M RU/month, 25 RPS — full node only) through Growth ($49/month, 20M RU, 250 RPS, archive + debug included), Pro ($199/month, 80M RU, 400 RPS, Dedicated Nodes), and Business ($499/month, 200M RU, 600 RPS), with Enterprise contracts for higher volumes. Warp Transactions ($0.15/transaction) provide accelerated propagation for time-sensitive stablecoin payment submissions.

Chainstack’s SOC 2 Type II certification (December 2025) makes it one of two providers in this comparison with an independently audited security report — directly relevant for GENIUS Act attestation packages that must document infrastructure vendor controls. The enterprise plan adds contractual SLA terms and SSO/SAML 2.0 for regulated issuers requiring formal vendor agreements.

Limitations: The Unlimited Node add-on flat RPS tiers may be over-provisioned for issuers with genuinely variable traffic profiles. Warp Transactions are charged per-transaction — add-on cost for very high-volume submission workloads.

Fit for stablecoin infrastructure: Excellent — dedicated product page, Circle as client, flat RU pricing, SOC 2 Type II, Dedicated Nodes and Unlimited Node add-on for sustained throughput, 99.99% SLA.

Quicknode

Quicknode’s Streams product is a strong fit for stablecoin event monitoring: it delivers on-chain events (including ERC-20 Transfer events) via webhooks, S3 buckets, or SQL queries — abstracting the WebSocket reliability challenge into a managed data pipeline. This is particularly useful for issuers building settlement reconciliation pipelines that need guaranteed event delivery rather than raw WebSocket subscriptions. Dedicated clusters at the Enterprise tier provide isolated throughput for high-volume submission workloads.

Quicknode holds dual certification — SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001 (recertified Q1 2026 by Grant Thornton) — making it the only provider in this comparison with both certifications. For stablecoin issuers whose GENIUS Act attestation packages reference both security and information management standards, this matters. The Build plan ($49/month, 80M credits, 50 RPS), Accelerate ($249/month, 450M credits, 125 RPS), and Scale ($499/month, 250 RPS) cover moderate to high-volume stablecoin workloads.

The method-weighted credit billing is the primary concern for stablecoin operators: eth_call at 20 credits per call means proof-of-reserves attestation reads consume credits at 20x the rate of simple calls. At sustained high volume, this cost profile is difficult to forecast and potentially expensive relative to flat-rate alternatives.

Limitations: Method-weighted billing makes eth_call-intensive attestation workloads expensive and unpredictable. Dedicated infrastructure is Enterprise-only — mid-market stablecoin teams share endpoints with the broader user base.

Fit for stablecoin infrastructure: Strong — Streams for event delivery, dual certifications, solid throughput; credit multipliers make proof-of-reserves workflows costly at scale.

Alchemy

Alchemy’s Notify product delivers webhook notifications for ERC-20 Transfer events — a useful abstraction for stablecoin settlement pipelines that don’t want to manage raw WebSocket connections. The Transact API adds managed transaction submission with automatic nonce handling and gas estimation, directly addressing two of the core operational challenges for stablecoin payment rails. The generous free tier (30M CU/month, 25 RPS) makes Alchemy attractive for smaller issuers and payment processors.

The CU billing model applies a 26-CU multiplier to eth_call — the method central to proof-of-reserves attestations. At 10,000 daily attestation reads, this consumes 260,000 CU per day against the plan quota, leaving less headroom for other operations than the headline plan size implies. Alchemy does not publish SOC 2 Type I or Type II certification; for stablecoin issuers assembling GENIUS Act attestation packages that document infrastructure vendor controls, this creates a documentation gap.

Limitations: No published SOC 2 certification is a material gap for GENIUS Act attestation documentation. High CU multiplier on eth_call makes proof-of-reserves workflows expensive at scale. No standard dedicated nodes.

Fit for stablecoin infrastructure: Moderate — strong developer experience and managed transaction tooling, but no SOC 2 and expensive eth_call billing limit suitability for large-scale regulated stablecoin operations.

Infura

Infura / MetaMask / ConsenSys carries strong brand recognition in the stablecoin space and serves Ethereum’s largest protocols. Archive access and WebSocket subscriptions are available on paid plans. The daily request quota model is the primary operational concern for stablecoin workflows: a payment rail that processes high volumes intra-day can exhaust its daily quota before the calendar reset, causing a mid-day outage — a severe failure mode for settlement infrastructure.

Infura’s eth_call multiplier (80 CU per call) is the highest in this comparison — eight times the cost of the same call on Chainstack. For issuers running daily proof-of-reserves attestations with thousands of eth_call reads, this cost profile is prohibitive. No SOC 2 certification is published, compounding the vendor documentation challenge for GENIUS Act compliance.

Limitations: Daily quota model creates intra-day outage risk for high-volume payment rails. Highest eth_call multiplier (80 CU) makes attestation reads the most expensive in this comparison. No published SOC 2.

Fit for stablecoin infrastructure: Limited — the daily quota model is structurally incompatible with sustained high-volume payment processing; eth_call billing makes attestation workflows prohibitively expensive.

GetBlock

GetBlock provides standard Ethereum JSON-RPC, WebSocket, and GraphQL access with clear published pricing tiers: Starter ($39/month, 50M CU, 100 RPS), Advanced ($159/month, 220M CU, 300 RPS), Pro ($399/month, 600M CU, 500 RPS). Dedicated nodes are available as a separate product. Frankfurt, New York, and Singapore data centers provide geographic coverage for global stablecoin operations.

GetBlock is a competent general-purpose RPC provider, but lacks the stablecoin-specific tooling, compliance documentation, and enterprise feature set that regulated issuers require. No published SOC 2 means the vendor documentation gap for GENIUS Act attestation packages is the same as with Alchemy and Infura.

Limitations: No published SOC 2. No managed transaction tooling or event delivery abstraction. Limited enterprise features (no SSO, no contractual SLA terms).

Fit for stablecoin infrastructure: Limited for regulated issuers; adequate for development environments and small-scale payment processors not subject to GENIUS Act attestation requirements.

Ankr

Ankr achieved SOC 2 Type II certification in 2025, placing it ahead of Alchemy, Infura, GetBlock, and dRPC on the compliance axis. Its distributed node operator network covers 80+ chains with a generous free tier (200M credits/month) — useful for cost-sensitive stablecoin integrators at early scale. Dedicated nodes are available on premium plans.

The critical issue for stablecoin workflows is Ankr’s eth_call billing: at 200 credits per call, proof-of-reserves attestation reads are 200x more expensive per call than Chainstack’s flat 1 RU. At 10,000 daily eth_call reads, Ankr consumes 2,000,000 credits against the free tier’s 200M monthly quota — only 100 days of attestation reads before the free tier exhausts. The distributed operator model also introduces response consistency variability that matters for time-sensitive nonce reads.

Limitations: 200 credits per eth_call makes proof-of-reserves attestation workflows the most expensive in this comparison on a per-call basis. Distributed operator model introduces nonce read consistency concerns. Enterprise features less mature than Chainstack or Quicknode.

Fit for stablecoin infrastructure: Moderate — SOC 2 certification is a genuine positive; eth_call billing and operator model consistency concerns limit suitability for high-volume attestation and payment workflows.

dRPC

dRPC offers flat per-million-request pricing with free public endpoints and a distributed node architecture. Its built-in MEV protection adds a useful privacy layer for stablecoin transaction submissions — preventing frontrunning on large USDC or USDT transfers that might move prices on dependent DeFi protocols. The flat pricing model is the most transparent for bulk transaction submission workloads.

For regulated stablecoin operations, dRPC presents two fundamental gaps: no published SOC 2 certification and no guaranteed SLA. Monthly GENIUS Act attestation packages and MiCA compliance documentation require vendors with audited security controls — dRPC’s distributed model with no contractual performance commitments cannot satisfy this requirement. dRPC is well-suited for development environments, DeFi protocol testing, and cost-sensitive non-regulated stablecoin applications.

Limitations: No SOC 2. No SLA. No dedicated nodes. Distributed model incompatible with GENIUS Act vendor attestation documentation requirements.

Fit for stablecoin infrastructure: Limited for regulated issuers; cost-effective for development and non-regulated payment processing.

Getting started with Ethereum on Chainstack

1. Log in to Chainstack or create a free account
2. Create a new project and select Ethereum as the network
3. Choose Mainnet (or Sepolia for testing)
4. Select Global Nodes for shared RPC or Dedicated Nodes for isolated payment rail infrastructure
5. Copy your HTTPS endpoint and WSS endpoint from the dashboard

The Ethereum tooling documentation covers setup for Hardhat, ethers.js, viem, Web3.py, and Scaffold-ETH 2.

For stablecoin payment rails, here is a minimal eth_feeHistory call to build a dynamic EIP-1559 fee strategy before submitting transactions:

curl -X POST YOUR_CHAINSTACK_ETHEREUM_ENDPOINT 
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" 
  -d '{
    "jsonrpc": "2.0",
    "id": 1,
    "method": "eth_feeHistory",
    "params": [
      "0x4",
      "latest",
      [25, 50, 75]
    ]
  }'

This returns the base fee and priority fee percentiles for the last 4 blocks — enough data to compute a competitive maxFeePerGas and maxPriorityFeePerGas that avoids both stuck transactions and overpayment on high-volume USDC/USDT transfers.

🤖 You can also access Chainstack Ethereum RPC directly from Claude, Cursor, Codex, Gemini, or Windsurf using Chainstack MCP. Learn more about Chainstack MCP.

⚡ Throughput tip: For stablecoin payment rails running sustained eth_sendRawTransaction + eth_getLogs polling, the Unlimited Node add-on flat-rate RPS model avoids per-call billing surprises. At 100 RPS sustained, the fixed monthly cost is typically lower than per-call billing with overage on standard plans.

Conclusion

Stablecoin infrastructure in 2026 is where regulatory deadlines meet operational throughput requirements. The GENIUS Act’s monthly attestation mandate and MiCA’s transaction volume caps have turned RPC provider selection from a developer preference into a compliance dependency.

• For production stablecoin rails requiring GENIUS Act attestation documentation: Chainstack or Quicknode — both hold published SOC 2 Type II certifications, both provide dedicated infrastructure options, both support sustained high-RPS workloads
• For high-volume proof-of-reserves and eth_call-heavy attestation workflows: Chainstack — flat 1 RU per call regardless of method; no multiplier on eth_call makes attestation reads predictably priced; dedicated stablecoin infrastructure page with Circle as a reference client
• For dual-certified compliance (SOC 2 + ISO 27001) with managed event delivery: Quicknode — Streams for guaranteed event delivery, dual certifications; higher cost for eth_call-heavy workloads due to credit multipliers
• For developer-first teams and managed transaction tooling: Alchemy — Notify webhooks and Transact API simplify settlement monitoring and nonce management; compliance documentation gaps limit regulated deployment
• For cost-sensitive non-regulated stablecoin applications: dRPC — flat pricing and MEV protection; no SOC 2, no SLA, no dedicated nodes
• For development and testing: Any provider’s free tier is sufficient; validate with Chainstack or Quicknode before promoting to production

FAQ

Additional resources

• How to get an Ethereum RPC endpoint in 2026
• Ethereum tooling documentation — Chainstack Docs
• Ethereum nonce management guide
• More Ethereum tutorials and articles on the Chainstack Blog
• Tutorials and guides for Ethereum on Chainstack
• Chainstack pricing
• Chainstack performance dashboard