GetBlock RPC competitor monitor — 2026-09-15
Criterion of the day: Ecosystem partnerships: official RPC provider announcements, foundation deals, grants, credits and startup programs (ecosystem-partnerships).
Executive summary
The monitored first-party surface provides usable evidence for 8/15 competitors, but much of it is program or launch evidence rather than proof of exclusive foundation appointments. The strongest commercial signals are: QuickNode and Alchemy visibly operate startup programs; Chainstack and dRPC market Robinhood Chain availability; Pocket Network Foundation publishes a foundation/dapp sponsorship offer; and Blast API is deprecated after an Alchemy acquisition with a 15% Alchemy-credit migration incentive.
Two market-status corrections matter more than routine page churn: Blast is no longer an active standalone provider, and Grove says it is winding down while Pocket Network continues under Foundation stewardship. LlamaRPC could not be validated through the monitored surface because of HTTP 526 and DNS failures.
Material findings
1. Startup packaging is publicly visible at QuickNode and Alchemy
- QuickNode: homepage navigation exposes both
StartupsandStartup Program; the current banner says Arc Mainnet launches in two days and invites infrastructure conversations. - Alchemy: company navigation explicitly labels
Ventures — Startup program. - No equivalent named startup program was directly verified for the other 13 providers. Generic language such as “used by startups” was not counted.
2. Robinhood Chain availability is being marketed by multiple vendors
- Chainstack: “Robinhood Chain is now live on Chainstack,” paired with a call to deploy nodes for tokenized stocks.
- dRPC: “Robinhood Chain is Live,” plus a blog item announcing Robinhood Mainnet and 18 additional networks.
- Tatum: Robinhood appears in its chain list, but the captured page does not establish launch timing or a partnership.
This is evidence of competitive launch-day coverage, not evidence that any vendor is exclusive or officially preferred.
3. Pocket exposes the clearest foundation-facing sponsorship package
Pocket Network Foundation describes F-Chains as no-key public RPC access across 60+ chains, offers public API sponsorship and dedicated endpoints, invites chain foundations/dapps to cover protocol-burn costs, and publishes a wholesale nonprofit rate of $1 per 1 billion compute units. The economics are not directly comparable to managed enterprise RPC without normalizing throughput, support, limits, chain mix, and POKT staking/payment mechanics.
4. Blast and Grove are migration signals
- Blast API: first-party pages say the service is deprecated, cite Alchemy’s acquisition, direct traffic migration to Alchemy, and offer a 15% bonus when remaining funds are converted to Alchemy Credits; a Pay-as-you-go plan is required.
- Grove: says it is winding down after nine years; Pocket Network itself continues, stewarded by Pocket Network Foundation.
Provider evidence matrix
| Provider | Directly evidenced today | Important limit / status |
|---|---|---|
| QuickNode | Arc launch banner; Startup Program navigation | No official/exclusive Arc appointment or promotional credit amount verified |
| Alchemy | Ventures / Startup program | Blast acquisition and credit terms are evidenced on Blast’s first-party notice |
| Infura | No qualifying new deal/program proof | Consensys ownership and DIN positioning are not counted as a new deal |
| Chainstack | Robinhood Chain live announcement | No exclusivity or foundation appointment verified |
| Ankr | Named BNB Chain, Polygon, and Mantle case-study relationships | No grant/credit/startup program verified |
| Moralis | No qualifying program proof | “Used by startups” is not a startup program |
| NOWNodes | No qualifying proof | Blog changed, but current item was generic staking content |
| dRPC | Robinhood Chain live and multi-network launch post | Partnerships category alone is not partnership proof |
| Blast API | Alchemy acquisition/migration; 15% credit bonus | Service deprecated; not an active standalone option |
| Blockdaemon | No qualifying proof | Blog changed without a captured ecosystem deal |
| Tatum | Robinhood listed as supported | Listing alone is not a launch or official-provider deal |
| Pocket Network / Grove | F-Chains, sponsorship, Foundation offer | Grove winding down; Pocket protocol continues |
| LlamaRPC | None retrievable | HTTP 526 and docs/status DNS failures |
| Allnodes | No qualifying proof | Changes appear dominated by market-data values |
| Lava Network | Open provider ecosystem; Foundation partnership/incentive publishing | No named new partner or quantified grant captured |
Fresh changes versus baseline evidence
- Changed pages: QuickNode’s visible Arc countdown; NOWNodes, Blockdaemon, Tatum, and Allnodes page hashes also changed.
- No deal inferred from churn: NOWNodes/Blockdaemon/Tatum changes did not expose a new named ecosystem agreement in the captured samples; Allnodes changes appear largely numeric market data.
- Durable baseline, still strategically important: Alchemy/Blast migration, Grove wind-down, Pocket F-Chains, Chainstack Robinhood support, and dRPC Robinhood support were present in the monitored evidence but not necessarily first announced on 2026-09-15.
GetBlock actions
- Launch a transparent GetBlock for Startups offer with eligibility, duration, credit amount, included chains, support, and post-program pricing.
- Create a Foundation RPC Launch Kit covering sponsored public RPC, dedicated/archive capacity, launch-day readiness, status/SLA proof, faucets, and docs.
- Use separate labels in sales and content:
official/preferred provider,day-one supported,foundation-sponsored, andcommercially available. - Target Blast and Grove users with migration credits, endpoint compatibility checks, dual-running, and named cutover support; do not imply Pocket Network itself has shut down.
- Add structured deal fields to monitoring: counterparty, source/date, exclusivity, grant/credit value, included chains, term, SLA/support, and redemption constraints.
Source discipline
This report uses direct vendor/foundation HTTP captures from monitoring/raw/2026-09-15/ and the evidence snapshot monitoring/snapshots/2026-09-15-context.json. Navigation terms, category labels, logos, and chain-directory entries were not treated as formal partnership proof without concrete accompanying language.