PulseChain RPC: Chain ID 369 and the Full-State Ethereum Fork

Most chains start from an empty genesis. PulseChain started from a copy of Ethereum. Launched May 13, 2023, PulseChain (chain ID 369) is an EVM-compatible Layer 1 built as a full-state fork of Ethereum — accounts, token balances, contracts, and NFTs snapshotted onto a new network with its own gas token and faster blocks. That origin story is also where most developer confusion lives, so this guide covers the essentials: the chain ID, a working mainnet RPC endpoint, and exactly what the fork means for your tooling.

The essentials

PulseChain mainnet is chain ID 369, with:

• PLS as the gas token — not ETH. Budgeting, fee math, and balance displays need the native currency set correctly.
• ~10-second blocks (we sampled live while writing this: a block every few seconds, head past 27.4M).
• Proof-of-stake validation with epoch-based finality.
• A standard EVM surface — Solidity, viem, ethers, Foundry, and the usual eth_* methods all apply.

A working config with our endpoint:

import { createPublicClient, http, defineChain } from "viem";

const pulsechain = defineChain({
  id: 369,
  name: "PulseChain",
  nativeCurrency: { name: "Pulse", symbol: "PLS", decimals: 18 },
  rpcUrls: { default: { http: ["https://rpc.swiftnodes.io/rpc/pulsechain?key=YOUR_API_KEY"] } },
});

const client = createPublicClient({ chain: pulsechain, transport: http() });
await client.getBlockNumber();   // just works

For MetaMask, the same facts: network name PulseChain, RPC URL as above, chain ID 369, currency symbol PLS.

A fork of the state, not just the code

This is the part that trips people up. PulseChain didn't just copy Ethereum's software — it copied Ethereum's state at the May 2023 snapshot. Consequences worth knowing:

• Contracts live at the same addresses as on Ethereum at snapshot time. A token contract you knew on Ethereum mainnet exists at the identical address on PulseChain — but it is a separate asset on a separate chain. The copies are referred to as PRC-20 tokens (the ERC-20 equivalent). Same address, different chain, different supply dynamics.
• Chain ID 369 is the replay boundary. Transactions are signed with the chain ID, so nothing replays between Ethereum (1) and PulseChain (369) — but wallet and indexer code that hardcodes chain 1 or derives addresses assuming ETH balances needs updating.
• The snapshot is frozen in time. PulseChain's copied state reflects Ethereum as of May 2023. Anything that happened on Ethereum since — new deployments, balance changes, upgrades — is not mirrored. Treat the two as fully independent chains that happen to share historical addresses.

The ecosystem itself is anchored by PulseX, the network's primary DEX, alongside HEX and other community projects that came across at the snapshot.

Fees: big gwei numbers, tiny bills

PulseChain runs EIP-1559-style fees, and the numbers look startling until you remember the unit is PLS. Sampled live through our endpoint while writing this:

• Base fee: ~892,000 gwei — which is ~0.0009 PLS per gas.
• A simple 21,000-gas transfer therefore costs roughly 19 PLS — a fraction of a cent.
• The sampled block carried 25 transactions, and eth_gasPrice returned the combined price as usual.

All the standard estimation flows work unchanged: eth_estimateGas, eth_gasPrice, and the EIP-1559 fields behave like any EVM chain (gas estimation basics apply as-is). If your dashboard shows "huge" fees on PulseChain, check the display currency before alarming anyone.

What carries over — and what to verify

• Standard reads and writes — eth_call, eth_getBalance, eth_getLogs, eth_getTransactionReceipt (receipt semantics unchanged), eth_sendRawTransaction, eth_subscribe — all behave as on any EVM chain.
• Archive access works: our probe against block 1 returned state normally, so historical queries route fine — on SwiftNodes that's &archive=1 on paid plans.
• Method support beyond the basics, verify per-method: extension methods (traces, debug) vary by upstream everywhere, PulseChain included — our weekly auto-probed matrix covers it, with error-code reference for the responses you'll see.
• WebSocket subscriptions are the right pattern at this block cadence (reconnection habits transfer directly).

The short version

PulseChain is chain ID 369: an EVM-compatible, full-state fork of Ethereum with PLS gas, ~10-second blocks, and EIP-1559 fees that look large in gwei but cost fractions of a cent. The fork means Ethereum contract addresses exist at the same locations (as separate PRC-20 assets), the snapshot state is frozen at May 2023, and chain ID 369 is your replay boundary. Everything else is standard EVM — with method support worth checking per-method rather than assuming.

Building on chain 369? A flat-rate PulseChain RPC endpoint serves the network over HTTP and WebSocket, load-balanced across upstreams, alongside 75+ other chains under the same key. Grab a free key and point your stack at:

https://rpc.swiftnodes.io/rpc/pulsechain?key=YOUR_API_KEY
wss://rpc.swiftnodes.io/ws/pulsechain?key=YOUR_API_KEY