Quickstart Guide (Free)

Overview

For Web3 application developers, the cost of building nodes on public blockchains is relatively high, and the stability and security of the node running cannot be ensured. After learning this chapter, you can gain:

• Quick connection to the world of Web3
  You can access all supported public blockchains by creating an API key, without additional configurations.
• Dual support for HTTPS and WSS
  Connections can be established over HTTPS and WebSocket Secure (WSS). This can meet the different requirements of applications.

Preparing

• A ZAN account, If you have not registered, see Sign Up and Log In.
• A terminal with curl installed
• Understand free quota and basic security configuration, see Plan Specifications.

Start for Free

After completing the registration and login for a ZAN account, you can start for a free plan immediately! On the overview page of the node service, you can quickly obtain the API Key for your first project and use this API Key to connect to the node service's public blockchain for an experience.

Step1: Get Your API Key

To streamline the process for new users, the platform automatically creates a project named "First Project" for each newcomer. You can directly access the project's Chain RPC page to obtain the API Key necessary for connecting to the node service blockchain.

📘

Create a new project?

Upper right → Create New Project → Enter name. For detailed operations, refer to the Manage Projects.

1. Visit ZAN official platform, Click top-right Dashboard → Node Service.

   

2. Access the default project First Project, Copy the API key from the top-right corner.

   

3. Get Started tab → Select target chain & network, get endpoint URL for your requests.

   

   This URL address is composed of the node service IP routing, ecological information, network information, and the user API key, which is run by zan. Sample Endpoint (Ethereum):

   HTTPSWSS

   https://api.zan.top/node/v1/eth/mainnet/{apiKey}

   wss://api.zan.top/node/ws/v1/eth/mainnet/{apiKey}

   📘

   Note:

   Get Started tab details: See More introduction.

Step2: Test Connectivity

This section shows you how to send an get_blockNumber request to Ethereum mainnet with cURL and verify the response. Two verification methods are supported:

• Local Terminal Experience - Quick command-line verification
• Official Interactive Testing - Web interface visual verification

Method 1: Local Terminal Verification

1. API Key Configuration

   Set API Key as environment variable (recommended).

   Bash

   export ZAN_API_KEY="YOUR_API_KEY"

2. Send your first request.

   Query the latest block number on Ethereum mainnet using eth_blockNumber:

   curl

   curl -X POST "https://api.zan.top/node/v1/eth/mainnet/$ZAN_API_KEY" \
     -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
     -d '{
       "jsonrpc": "2.0",
       "method": "eth_blockNumber",
       "params": [],
       "id": 1
     }'

   JavaScript (ethers.js)

   import { JsonRpcProvider } from "ethers";
   
   const provider = new JsonRpcProvider(
     `https://api.zan.top/node/v1/eth/mainnet/${process.env.ZAN_API_KEY}`
   );
   
   const blockNumber = await provider.getBlockNumber();
   console.log("Latest block:", blockNumber);

   Python

   import os, requests
   
   api_key = os.environ["ZAN_API_KEY"]
   resp = requests.post(
       f"https://api.zan.top/node/v1/eth/mainnet/{api_key}",
       json={"jsonrpc": "2.0", "method": "eth_blockNumber", "params": [], "id": 1},
       timeout=10,
   )
   resp.raise_for_status()
   data = resp.json()
   print(f"Latest block: {int(data['result'], 16)}")

3. Check the response.
   Successful Response:

   JSON

   {
     "jsonrpc": "2.0",
     "id": 1,
     "result": "0x587e4d4"
   }

   📘

   Reading the response

   The result field is a hex-encoded block number. Convert it: parseInt("0x587e4d4", 16) → 92,864,724. You can use this method to query any EVM-compatible chain — just replace eth in the URL with the target chain slug (e.g., polygon, arb, base).

Method 2: Official Interactive Verification

1. Access API Reference. Navigation Path: ZAN Platform → Developers → API → Target method page.

   

2. Path Params → Paste your API key into the parameter value.
   The platform provides a free public parameter value for verifying the API interface, but this value is only suitable for low Credit consumption interface calls. For high consumption interface calls, you need to use the API key.

   

3. Click Try it on the right side of the page, and you will see the successful return value of the call in the RESPONSE window below.

   

Step3: View Credits Cost

The free plan includes a default of 150 million credits, valid for 30 days. Except for rate limit errors returned by the interface, each time you make an API call with your API Key, you can view the specific credit usage details and monitor the remaining available credits in real-time on the overview page of the node service.

No.	Information	Description
1	Chain RPC	By default, display the three most recently used projects. Click Unfold / Fold to expand or collapse additional projects.
2	Plan	Show current plan details, such as included credits and the upper limit of credits that can be consumed per second.
3	Credits usage monthly	Display the current plan's credit usage and remaining availability for the month.
4	Request success rate monthly	Display the request success rate for the month. Hovering over specific points will show the number of successful and failed requests for that day.
5	Request exceed rate limitation 24H	Display data of requests that exceeded the credits limit within 24 hours. When hovering over a specific time bar, you can see the number of normal requests and the number of requests that exceeded the credits limit for that hour. Blue indicates the hourly total of requests that did not exceed the credits limit. red indicates the hourly total of requests that exceeded the credits limit.
6	Credits cost	Analyze the recent usage of credits. The top right corner offers a toggle function to view credit usage based on different blockchain dimensions, with the default setting displaying credit usage across all blockchains. Additionally, users can select to view data from the past 24 hours, past 7 days, or past 30 days.
7	Docs	Provide links to quick start and credits consumption documentation, along with frontend tutorials to help you quickly utilize node service features.

More introduction

The Get Started tab provides the following information:

No.	Operation	Description
1	Switching projects	Click the dropdown button on the right side of the project to switch and view other projects. You can also click Create New Project in the dropdown to create a new project, see Manage projects > Create a new project.
2	Chains	By switching the blockchain options at the top of the page, view network information of different blockchains. By default, Ethereum blockchain information is displayed. The platform now supports over 22 blockchains and will support more EVM-compatible and other blockchains in the future.
3	Faucet	If the selected blockchain supports the faucet feature, click Faucet to jump to the faucet page of the corresponding blockchain. Currently, only Ethereum and Solana supports this feature.
4	API reference	Click API reference to navigate to the API reference documentation for the current blockchain.
5	SDK	Click SDK to navigate to the SDK documentation for Node Service.
6	Code example	Click Code example to view all supported methods on the current chain and their usage examples in different programming languages in a popup, with a one-click code copy function. 📘 Note: This feature is coming soon!
7	Add to Wallet	Click Add to Wallet to add the custom RPC node of the current blockchain network to MetaMask. For detailed steps, refer to Adding RPC nodes to MetaMask.
8	URLs	To help you quickly obtain request URLs across different networks on various blockchains, the platform automatically generates URLs containing API Keys for you, and provides HTTPS and WSS connection methods. 📘 Note: If you're using the free version, you must upgrade to the paid version to use WebSockets in Solana.
9	Latest updates	Provides notifications of new product features or operational advertisements, helping you stay informed about the latest product developments.

Next steps

• Create Projects → Create multiple API keys to isolate applications and secure production.
• Security Settings → Project-level API key security control with whitelists, rate limits, and access restrictions.
• Project-level Monitoring → Track credit consumption, request volume, activity status, and request origins.
• Collaboration Settings → Member role permissions assignment for cross-project access isolation.

Related

• API Reference → Full endpoint documentation, authentication methods, and multi-language code examples.
• Error Codes → Common error codes, causes, and troubleshooting steps.
• Batch Requests → Send multiple JSON-RPC calls in a single HTTP request.