diff --git a/TODO.md b/TODO.md
index c67e07d1..38281cb0 100644
--- a/TODO.md
+++ b/TODO.md
@@ -89,6 +89,7 @@
 - [x] I'm hitting infura rate limits very quickly. I feel like that means something is very inefficient
   - whenever blocks were slow, we started checking as fast as possible
 - [x] create user script should allow setting requests per minute
+- [x] cache api keys that are not in the database
 - [-] basic request method stats (using the user_id and other fields that are in the tracing frame)
 - [ ] use siwe messages and signatures for sign up and login
 - [ ] "chain is forked" message is wrong. it includes nodes just being on different heights of the same chain. need a smarter check
@@ -254,7 +255,6 @@ in another repo: event subscriber
   eth_1       | 2022-08-10T23:26:10.195014Z  WARN web3_proxy::connections: chain is forked! 262 possible heads. 1/2/5/5 rpcs have 0x0538…bfff
   eth_1       | 2022-08-10T23:26:10.195658Z  WARN web3_proxy::connections: chain is forked! 262 possible heads. 2/3/5/5 rpcs have 0x0538…bfff
 - [ ] fix ip detection when running in dev
-- [ ] cache api keys that are not in the database?
 - [ ] double check weight sorting code
 - [ ] sea-orm brings in async-std, but we are using tokio. benchmark switching 
 - [ ] this query always times out, but erigon can serve it quickly: `curl -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" --data '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"debug_traceBlockByNumber","params":["latest"],"id":1}' 127.0.0.1:8544' 127.0.0.1:8544`
diff --git a/web3_proxy/src/frontend/rate_limit.rs b/web3_proxy/src/frontend/rate_limit.rs
index c6511376..2cecbbc0 100644
--- a/web3_proxy/src/frontend/rate_limit.rs
+++ b/web3_proxy/src/frontend/rate_limit.rs
@@ -130,7 +130,12 @@ impl Web3ProxyApp {
                         ))
                     }
                     None => {
-                        return Err(anyhow::anyhow!("unknown api key"));
+                        UserCacheValue::from((
+                            // TODO: how long should this cache last? get this from config
+                            Instant::now() + Duration::from_secs(60),
+                            0,
+                            0,
+                        ))
                     }
                 };
 
@@ -147,6 +152,10 @@ impl Web3ProxyApp {
             user_data.unwrap()
         };
 
+        if user_data.user_id == 0 {
+            return Err(anyhow::anyhow!("unknown key!"));
+        }
+
         // user key is valid. now check rate limits
         if let Some(rate_limiter) = &self.rate_limiter {
             if rate_limiter
diff --git a/web3_proxy/src/frontend/users.rs b/web3_proxy/src/frontend/users.rs
index d8bea264..092d669f 100644
--- a/web3_proxy/src/frontend/users.rs
+++ b/web3_proxy/src/frontend/users.rs
@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@
 use super::{errors::anyhow_error_into_response, rate_limit::RateLimitResult};
 use crate::app::Web3ProxyApp;
 use axum::{
-    response::{IntoResponse, Response},
+    response::{ErrorResponse, IntoResponse, Response},
     Extension, Json,
 };
 use axum_client_ip::ClientIp;
@@ -22,8 +22,11 @@ use sea_orm::ActiveModelTrait;
 use serde::Deserialize;
 use std::sync::Arc;
 
+// TODO: how do we customize axum's error response? I think we probably want an enum that implements IntoResponse instead
 #[debug_handler]
-pub async fn get_login(Extension(app): Extension<Arc<Web3ProxyApp>>) -> Result<Response, Response> {
+pub async fn get_login(
+    Extension(app): Extension<Arc<Web3ProxyApp>>,
+) -> Result<Response, ErrorResponse> {
     // let redis: RedisPool = app...;
     let redis_pool = app.redis_pool.as_ref().unwrap();
 
@@ -32,6 +35,7 @@ pub async fn get_login(Extension(app): Extension<Arc<Web3ProxyApp>>) -> Result<R
     todo!("how should this work? probably keep stuff in redis ")
 }
 
+#[debug_handler]
 pub async fn create_user(
     // this argument tells axum to parse the request body
     // as JSON into a `CreateUser` type
diff --git a/web3_proxy/src/frontend/ws_proxy.rs b/web3_proxy/src/frontend/ws_proxy.rs
index 2285b614..51db5acc 100644
--- a/web3_proxy/src/frontend/ws_proxy.rs
+++ b/web3_proxy/src/frontend/ws_proxy.rs
@@ -5,6 +5,7 @@ use axum::{
     Extension,
 };
 use axum_client_ip::ClientIp;
+use axum_macros::debug_handler;
 use futures::SinkExt;
 use futures::{
     future::AbortHandle,
@@ -26,6 +27,7 @@ use crate::{
 
 use super::{errors::anyhow_error_into_response, rate_limit::RateLimitResult};
 
+#[debug_handler]
 pub async fn public_websocket_handler(
     Extension(app): Extension<Arc<Web3ProxyApp>>,
     ClientIp(ip): ClientIp,
@@ -56,6 +58,7 @@ pub async fn public_websocket_handler(
     }
 }
 
+#[debug_handler]
 pub async fn user_websocket_handler(
     Extension(app): Extension<Arc<Web3ProxyApp>>,
     Path(user_key): Path<Uuid>,