eth_getBalance

eth_getBalance returns the native-token balance of an account at a specified block. On Base — Coinbase's OP Stack rollup — the native token is ETH, so this gives you an address's ETH holdings in wei. Query it at https://base.therpc.io/YOUR_API_KEY (chain ID 8453), passing the address and a block tag; the node reads state at that block and returns a hex-encoded wei value you convert with BigInt. It is the standard way to check what an account can spend on gas or transfers across the Base ecosystem.

Use cases

• Display an account's ETH balance in a Base wallet or dApp UI.
• Verify an address holds enough ETH to cover gas before you estimate or submit a transaction on Base.
• Poll the balance to detect incoming ETH payments, comfortably within Base's ~2s block cadence.
• Audit a balance at a specific historical block for accounting or forensics (requires an archive node for older state).

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_getBalance",
7    "params": [
8        "0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000000",
9        "latest"
10      ],
11    "id": 1
12  }'

Try it live in the Base playground.

Errors & troubleshooting

Common pitfalls

• Never run Number() on the raw hex wei value — balances above 2^53 lose precision; always use BigInt(value) and divide by 10n**18n for whole ETH.
• A balance read at "latest" can still be reorged; for a system of record use "finalized", which reflects state anchored back to Ethereum L1.
• This returns only the native ETH balance — token balances (USDC and other ERC-20s on Base) require an eth_call to the token contract's balanceOf.

Supported networks

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

See also

• eth_getTransactionCount
• eth_call
• eth_getProof

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_getBalance","params":["0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000000","latest"]}'