Interacting with multiple networks

The provider trait is generic over the network type, Provider<N: Network = Ethereum>, with the default network set to Ethereum.

The Network generic helps the provider to accomodate various network types with different transaction and RPC response types seamlessly.

This removes the need for implementing the Provider trait for each network type you want to interact with. Instead, we just need to implement the Network trait.

Following is the Ethereum network implementation which defines the structure of the network and its RPC types.

impl Network for Ethereum {
    type TxType = alloy_consensus::TxType;

    type TxEnvelope = alloy_consensus::TxEnvelope;

    type UnsignedTx = alloy_consensus::TypedTransaction;

    type ReceiptEnvelope = alloy_consensus::ReceiptEnvelope;

    type Header = alloy_consensus::Header;

    type TransactionRequest = alloy_rpc_types_eth::transaction::TransactionRequest;

    type TransactionResponse = alloy_rpc_types_eth::Transaction;

    type ReceiptResponse = alloy_rpc_types_eth::TransactionReceipt;

    type HeaderResponse = alloy_rpc_types_eth::Header;

    type BlockResponse = alloy_rpc_types_eth::Block;
}

The Provider defaults to the ethereum network type, but one can easily switch to another network while building the provider like so:

let provider = ProviderBuilder::new()
    .network::<AnyNetwork>()
    .connect_http("http://localhost:8545");

The AnyNetwork type is a catch-all network allowing you to interact with any network type, in case you don’t want to roll your own network type.

The Optimism network type has been created to interact with OP-stack chains such as Base.

let provider = ProviderBuilder::new()
    .network::<op_alloy_network::Optimism>()
    .connect_http("http://localhost:8545");

Alloy Book

Interacting with multiple networks