Community Submission - Author: John Ma
Résumé
Transparency is a key concept in cryptocurrencies. One of the big promises of blockchain is that it levels the playing field by not limiting information to a handful of people with privileged control.
What does that mean ? Can you find out how many bitcoins your neighbor has? How can you take a look and verify public data yourself? This is exactly what we are going to show you in this article. Note that our focus is on Bitcoin, but you can also find dedicated blockchain explorers for Litecoin, Ethereum, Binance, and virtually any native blockchain.
Introduction
Have you ever not received a payment, or someone who swore they paid you when you received nothing? In our current financial system, this can result in one situation being one assertion against another, and where only a third party can resolve the situation.
Blockchains solve this problem by introducing the concept of public transparency, where information is ready for anyone to view at any time. For blockchains such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, all information is publicly visible by design, which is useful when transactions (or Txs) and contracts need to be easily identified and verified.
In this guide, we'll look at the basic layout of a Bitcoin block explorer. Next, we will study a famous transaction, the one that gave rise to Bitcoin Pizza Day on May 22.
What is a blockchain explorer?
A blockchain explorer is like a search engine that reveals information about the past and current state of a blockchain. This can be useful when you want to track the status of a specific payment or check the balance and history of an address. Anyone with an internet connection can use an explorer to view all transactions on a public blockchain.
How does a block explorer work?
Each blockchain will have a command line interface (CLI) to interact with the database and display network history. However, using a CLI explorer is not a consumer-friendly experience. This is why most blockchains also have an explorer with a graphical user interface (GUI) that displays information in a more user-friendly format.
Let's explore one of the most used Bitcoin explorers: blockchain.com. Other alternatives for BTC include blockchair.com and blockcypher.com.
Source : https://www.blockchain.com/explorer.
On the homepage, you can see some high-level data about the Bitcoin blockchain. This includes price, estimated hash rate, daily number of transactions, and trading volume. We also see graphs representing prices and mempool size. At the bottom we can monitor the latest blocks and transactions.
Let's see what we can see here in a little more detail:
Price: an aggregated price feed in USD across multiple markets. In most cases, the price depends on the feed provider and is not indicative of the spot price on a specific exchange.
Estimated hash rate: estimate of the computing power currently used by miners to secure the blockchain. It can be considered a proxy for the security of a proof-of-work (PoW) blockchain.
Transactions: The number of unique transactions confirmed in the last 24 hours. To be confirmed, a transaction must be included in a validated block (a block that has been successfully mined).
Transaction volume: a measure of the total value of outputs (in BTC) confirmed on the blockchain in the last 24 hours. Due to the way Bitcoin works, this total also includes unspent outputs that are returned to the “original” wallet as currency.
Transaction Volume (Estimated): An estimate (in BTC) of the actual volume of transactions transferred between unique wallets. This is the transaction volume (above) minus an estimate of the amounts returned as currency to the original wallets.
Mempool size: The mempool size tracks the overall size (in bytes) of transactions waiting to be included in a block. It is a proxy for the amount of activity on the blockchain and can serve as an indicator of fees required for rapid confirmation.
Latest blocks: the list of confirmed blocks, from newest to oldest. It includes details such as block height, timestamp, miner name (if known), and block size. You can click “block height” to view information about the transactions included in the block. Click “miner” to view information about the miner address of the block. The miner's public address may be a known mining pool address. If you don't know what a mining pool is, check out this article.
Latest Transactions: The list of valid transactions that have been submitted to the mempool. Again, transactions are not confirmed until they are included in a validated block.
There are additional blockchain metrics you can track on this page, including network difficulty, fees per transaction, and average confirmation times. Some blockchain explorers will also allow you to connect to their API.
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How to view the 10,000 bitcoin pizza transaction
Pizza Day is an auspicious day in Bitcoin history that commemorates the purchase of two large pizzas in exchange for 10,000 bitcoins. Using our blockchain explorer we can see and explore the details of this famous transaction.
Pizza Day Transaction Hash:
a1075db55d416d3ca199f55b6084e2115b9345e16c5cf302fc80e9d5fbf5d48dCopying the transaction hash into the Bitcoin blockchain explorer search box will take us to the pizza day transaction. If you don't want to copy and paste the details, here is a link to the transaction page.
At the top of the page you can see a summary of trade entries and exits. On the left are the number of bitcoins paid for the pizzas (total 10,000 BTC). They were sent to the unique address on the right (belonging to the person delivering the pizzas).
Pizza Day Transaction Summary. Source: blockchain.com
If you click on the receiving address (on the right), you will see its transaction history. You can also scan the QR code to get the corresponding address string. QR codes are very useful for making payments with TrustWallet or other mobile crypto wallets.
Pizza day receipt address. Source: blockchain.com.
If you return to the original Pizza Day deal page, you can scroll down to check the deal details. These include the unique hash of the transaction, confirmation status, timestamp, number of confirmations, total inputs and outputs, miner fees, etc. You can see a transaction fee of 0.99 BTC paid to the miner on top of the 10,000 BTC for the pizzas.
Pizza Day Transaction Details. Source: blockchain.com.
Clicking on the block height (57,043) will show you details about the block this transaction was included in.
Pizza Day Block Source: blockchain.com.
As you can see, the block that confirmed the pizza day transaction was a block with no special event. There were a total of two transactions, one being the pizza day transaction and the other being the miner's block reward.
The green and red orbs on the right side indicate whether or not bitcoins were spent after this transaction. The person who sold the pizzas already sent those 10,000 BTC to another address, but the miner's address still holds the block reward (50.99 BTC).
To conclude
Blockchain explorers are useful tools that exploit the open and transparent nature of public blockchains. They provide useful information about the state of the network, including transaction and address history. This allows for easy tracking and verification.
However, this focus on full transparency can lead to mapping the history of transactions and addresses, known as blockchain analysis. This can compromise the pseudonymous nature of addresses, especially for users who tend to use the same addresses multiple times (not recommended). Other public blockchains (such as Monero) strike a different balance between transparency and privacy.
Now that you have a general idea of how blockchain explorers work, try using them yourself. You might be surprised by the secrets you'll discover!
Do you have other questions about Bitcoin explorers and cryptocurrencies? Check out our Q&A platform, Ask Academy, where the Binance community will answer your questions.
