JSON-RPC

In the previous lesson, we learned about the role of Ethereum clients and how network users can use an API provided by clients to interact with an Ethereum network. In this lesson, we'll learn what we can do with this API and how it works.

JSON-RPC

An API provided by Ethereum clients is structured around a set of methods we can call. To call a particular method, we need to send a JSON object with the method name and parameters to a client and wait for a response. This API style is called JSON-RPC, where RPC stands for Remote Procedure Call.

The Ethereum API provides various methods we can call, and we can find a comprehensive list in the official documentation. Here are some of the methods and a brief overview of what we can do with them: