Moat Shifts to Developer APIs
Auston Bunsen, Co-Founder of QuickNode, on the infrastructure of multi-chain
Base RPC access in crypto is unusually easy to swap, which means infrastructure providers win less by locking developers in and more by being faster, broader, and more helpful above the raw node layer. A team using Ethers, Web3.js, or another standard JSON-RPC library can usually just point the same calls at a different endpoint. The real moat starts when providers add higher level APIs, indexing, caching, retries, and multi-chain convenience that save developers work.
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At the core, QuickNode, Infura, and Alchemy all sell access to blockchain nodes through standard APIs. QuickNode describes the underlying access layer as open source client software exposed through JSON-RPC, which is why swapping providers can be as simple as changing the server URL in code.
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That low lock in changes the product game. QuickNode frames the market as a race to build peripheral APIs that turn messy on-chain queries into simple calls, like getting NFT owners, token balances, transfers, or traced transactions without forcing developers to stitch raw method calls together themselves.
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The competitive split is visible in market positioning. QuickNode emphasizes speed, paid customers, and broad chain coverage from one account, while Infura has historically gone deeper on Ethereum and sits inside the larger Consensys stack alongside MetaMask and Truffle. Alchemy is the other scaled, well funded peer in the same category.
Over time, the raw node endpoint looks more like a commodity, and the value pool shifts to developer workflow products layered on top. The providers that keep winning will be the ones that make blockchain feel less like operating infrastructure and more like calling a clean Web2 API, across more chains, with fewer moving parts for the developer and the finance team.