eth_getBlockByNumber

eth_getBlockByNumber returns block data for the block at a given height or a named tag such as latest or finalized. Base is Coinbase's OP Stack rollup that uses ETH for gas and seals a new block about every 2 seconds, so this is the workhorse for walking the L2 chain by height. Send a block number or tag to https://base.therpc.io/YOUR_API_KEY (chain ID 8453) plus a boolean for full transactions versus hashes, and the node returns the same block object shape as eth_getBlockByHash, or null if the block does not exist yet.

Use cases

• Walk the Base chain forward block-by-block in an indexer, incrementing the height each ~2s tick.
• Fetch the latest block for a real-time monitoring dashboard tracking the L2 tip.
• Retrieve the finalized block to anchor queries that must be reorg-safe — finality on Base traces back to Ethereum L1.
• Pull all transaction hashes from a block (with includeTransactions=false) before fetching their receipts in bulk via eth_getBlockReceipts.

Parameters

Response

Example request

1curl https://base.therpc.io/YOUR_API_KEY \
2  -X POST \
3  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
4  -d '{
5    "jsonrpc": "2.0",
6    "method": "eth_getBlockByNumber",
7    "params": [
8        "latest",
9        false
10      ],
11    "id": 1
12  }'

Try it live in the Base playground.

Errors & troubleshooting

Common pitfalls

• Pass a real JSON boolean for includeTransactions, not the string "true" — JSON-RPC requires the boolean type.
• When you need every receipt in a block, prefer a single eth_getBlockReceipts call over N individual eth_getTransactionReceipt requests.
• With includeTransactions=true, a heavily loaded Base block full of swaps can reach 1–2 MB; plan for that payload or request hashes only.

Supported networks

• Mainnet — Chain ID: 8453
• Sepolia — Chain ID: 84532

See also

• eth_getBlockByHash
• eth_getBlockReceipts
• eth_blockNumber
• eth_getBlockTransactionCountByNumber

1curl https://base.therpc.io/YOUR_API_KEY \
2  -X POST \
3  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
4  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"eth_getBlockByNumber","params":["latest",false]}'