Using WebSockets
Learn how to use WebSockets with Blast API for a more reliable and persistent connection to blockchain nodes.
Each project has a limit of open WebSocket connections.
Most of the methods exposed by the Blast API endpoints can be queried with simple HTTP requests that follow the protocol of the network. However, one thing to note is that each HTTP request sent to our endpoints goes through a load-balancer and, as such, two consecutive requests might not hit the same node. This might result in surprising results such as asking what the head block is then trying to fetch information about it might fail since the first request might reach one node that is synced ahead of the others while the second request might reach other nodes that have not synced that block yet.
One solution to this problem is to use a persistent connection to the node and you can do that using WebSockets.
Initiation of a WebSocket connection
In order to create a WebSocket connection to an endpoint, you need to use the endpoint URL starting with wss://. The WebSocket client will send an HTTP request with an Upgrade header that basically tells the server that the client wants to upgrade this HTTP connection (which is stateless by default and closed once the server answers to the request) to a WebSocket connection. The server will then reply with status 101 Switching Protocols and then both the client and the server will have switched to the WebSocket protocol.
wscat - Command-line WebSocket client
If you want to quickly test some commands, wscat is one of the most popular command-line client.
Get the latest block number
$ wscat -c wss://eth-mainnet.blastapi.io/${projectId}
Connected (press CTRL+C to quit)
> {"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":0,"method":"eth_blockNumber","params":[]}
< {"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":0,"result":"0xdc02b0"}
Work with subscriptions
$ wscat -c wss://eth-mainnet.blastapi.io/${projectId}
Connected (press CTRL+C to quit)
> {"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":0,"method":"eth_subscribe","params":["newHeads"]}
< {"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":0,"result":"0x720d759d25a2d00b91158655d4cd0e2c"}
< {"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"eth_subscription","params":{"subscription":"0x720d759d25a2d00b91158655d4cd0e2c","result":{"parentHash":"0x02fc98fa360d6bc7c86f915e89c896da4f98bcd46eddd3273ae1e10a557d96eb","sha3Uncles":"0x1dcc4de8dec75d7aab85b567b6ccd41ad312451b948a7413f0a142fd40d49347","miner":"0x7f101fe45e6649a6fb8f3f8b43ed03d353f2b90c","stateRoot":"0x7bc4a38040636b7cb2f7a244470f97d306c862e391f9bf47096bacca149c3a41","transactionsRoot":"0x1c7e9dce8d92b4c3e95ae47b3941a48a5ac71b5fb592b0a062a1c71d2f9a674b","receiptsRoot":"0x76b91817dd9e69d94feabb1ef251bbcbc7dbeaf38ac0a5a97fc500b16a27d4b5","logsBloom":"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","difficulty":"0x2fc2dafe16c123","number":"0xdc02b8","gasLimit":"0x1cc1387","gasUsed":"0x14f4df2","timestamp":"0x62362698","extraData":"0x466c6578706f6f6c2f53612f4445202d204361706520546f776e","mixHash":"0xf22c51f1fc19a742473818d208e8563a10fa8cc668dc19d82dfff91693c06b95","nonce":"0xdcd0d592fda8c8b1","baseFeePerGas":"0x52959fe79","hash":"0xd7757a2d7d6f76a2f378744180e31ebd3547c16c0a000c2797cfd44f75b60875"}}}
> {"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":0,"method":"eth_unsubscribe", "params": ["0x720d759d25a2d00b91158655d4cd0e2c"]}}
< {"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":0,"result":true}