Recently, I was doing some research on RPC and I was surprised at how fundamental this technology is for almost everything we use today. So I thought I’d share what RPC is and why it should matter to you, especially if you work with blockchain or distributed technology.

Basically, RPC is a protocol that allows one program to request a service from another application that is on a different computer in the network, without having to worry about the technical details of how the communication works. It sounds simple, but it’s incredibly powerful for building distributed systems.

The interesting thing is that this is not new. Bruce Jay Nelson formalized the concept back in 1981, and since then it has constantly evolved. It went from implementations like Microsoft’s DCOM and Sun RPC to more modern solutions like Google’s gRPC, which is based on HTTP/2 and enables much more efficient communication.

Where you really see the impact is in real-world applications. In finance, RPC is critical for ensuring transactions are correctly synchronized across different databases. In telecommunications, it allows monitoring and controlling networks from remote locations. And in telemedicine, it facilitates diagnosis and management of patient data between healthcare providers. That is, it’s everywhere.

What I find especially relevant now is how RPC has become fundamental for blockchain. JSON-RPC is used for communication between nodes in decentralized networks, and it’s essential for decentralized applications to function. That changed the landscape quite a bit because suddenly RPC was not just for big corporations but also for crypto infrastructure.

The adoption of these technologies has driven serious investment in improved RPC frameworks, especially in security and asynchronous communication. Google with gRPC, the blockchain community with JSON-RPC, all seeking to make this more efficient and reliable.

In trading platforms like the ones we use to operate with cryptocurrencies, RPC is behind the scenes enabling blockchain data queries, smart contract execution, and real-time data feeds. It’s what makes it possible for you to receive up-to-the-second information to make trading decisions.

The truth is, understanding what RPC is and how it works gives you perspective on why certain systems are faster or more reliable than others. It’s one of those technologies you don’t see but that’s at the heart of modern infrastructure, both in cloud computing and decentralized systems.