What’s A Block Explorer? How to Block Explorers in Crypto

It’s a common misconception that crypto is some kind of anonymous, underground form of transacting money. In reality, the list of transacations for almost every crypto is transparent and publicly available to anyone who knows how to read it!

What is a Block Explorer in Crypto?

A block explorer is a tool used to read the transactions made on the blockchain network that supports a cryptocurrency. Every cryptocurrency is hosted on a blockchain network, where data is stored across multiple computers instead of just one server and updated simultaneously. Transactions are verified in periodic blocks of data, and a block explorer allows us to view individual transactions.

What Info Does a Block Explorer Show

Block explorers show a lot of information about a crypto transaction.

• The wallet that sent the funds
• The wallet that received the funds
• Time and date
• Amount sent

• Transaction hash (identifier number)

They do not typically list the identity of the person who owns the wallet, making most cryptocurrencies pseudonymous, but not anonymous.

Best Block Explorers

Etherscan

Etherscan is a major block explorer for Web3 as it shows Ethereum transactions as well as the ERC20 tokens used in most Dapps.

As you can see, Etherscan lists the hash number, status, the block the transaction was made on, how many times the block has been confirmed (a certain amount of confirmations from the network are required to validate a payment), and more.

Etherscan sometimes labels user’s online names when they have chosen to include them.

Blockchain.com

Blockchain.com is probably the main Bitcoin block explorer, although there are several to choose from.

Again, this explorer shows the hash, wallets involved, amounts, dates, times, block number, and confirmations.

Solana Explorer

Explorer.solana.com can be used to view all Solana transactions with ease, with all the info one would expect from a block explorer.

The explorer also lists average ping time and other network statistics!

A New Era For Crypto

With more and more tools becoming available for the crypto industry, adoption is just around the corner. In fact, we’re about to launch the world’s first crypto card to support direct spending of over 800 cryptos! That’s over ten times more than any competitor.

The card launches in Q3 of 2023 — sign up to the waitlist here!