Chain Info | Centrifuge

chainInfo

Reads chain identity and the current head block, using five sequential Substrate RPC calls: system_chain, system_version, state_getRuntimeVersion, chain_getHeader / chain_getBlockHash, and a state_getStorage read of the Timestamp.Now storage item at the head block.

Field	Type	Required	Description
`network`	select	✓ Yes	`centrifuge` \| `altair` \| `development`. No default — see Networks.

Example response:

{
  "chainName": "Centrifuge",
  "nodeVersion": "1.x.x-...",
  "specName": "centrifuge",
  "specVersion": 1234,
  "currentBlock": 9799037,
  "currentBlockHash": "0x...",
  "headBlockTimeUtc": "2026-06-28T11:42:07Z",
  "headBlockAgeSeconds": 1987200,
  "status": "success"
}

Response Field	Meaning
`chainName`	Display name reported by `system_chain`.
`nodeVersion`	Node client implementation version.
`specName` / `specVersion`	Runtime spec identity — the number any pallet-layout assumption (like the account-storage decode in Account Operations) should be validated against.
`currentBlock` / `currentBlockHash`	Head block number and hash at query time.
`headBlockTimeUtc`	UTC timestamp of the head block, decoded from the `Timestamp` pallet.
`headBlockAgeSeconds`	Seconds between the head block's timestamp and now.

A chain can stop producing blocks and still answer every RPC call happily. headBlockAgeSeconds is surfaced specifically so callers can detect this — Centrifuge mainnet has been halted since 2026-06-28, and a naive success check on chainInfo (or on account.getBalance) would read the frozen state as current. Compare headBlockAgeSeconds against your own staleness threshold rather than trusting "success" alone. See Examples for a worked pattern.

headBlockTimeUtc/headBlockAgeSeconds can be null. If the Timestamp.Now storage read returns fewer than 8 bytes (unexpected runtime layout), the node still returns the rest of the chain info successfully, just without an age reading.