Community Release - Author: John Ma
Summary
Openness and transparency are the core concepts of cryptocurrency. In addition to providing information to a few people with control privileges, blockchain also provides an equal platform for users, which is one of the most praiseworthy advantages of blockchain.
But what do these actually mean? Do you know how many Bitcoins your neighbor has? How can you view and verify public data yourself? This is exactly what we want to show in this article. Note that we focus on Bitcoin, but you can also find dedicated browsers for Litecoin, Ethereum, Binance, and almost every native blockchain.
Introduction
Have you ever had a payment go missing, or have someone promise to pay you but you never received it? In our current financial system, this situation ends up being “word-for-word” or may require third-party intervention.
Blockchain introduces the concept of public transparency, allowing everyone to view information at any time, so that such problems can be easily solved. For blockchains like Bitcoin and Ethereum, all information is intentionally made public. This effectively helps transactions (or Tx) and contracts to be easily confirmed and verified.
In this guide, we’ll cover the basic layout of a Bitcoin block explorer. Next, we’ll introduce a famous transaction that made May 22nd famous as Bitcoin Pizza Day.
What is blockchain?
Blockchain Browser is like a search engine, displaying past and present information about blockchain. This can be helpful for tracking a specific payment process or viewing the balance and history of an address. Anyone with an Internet connection can use a browser to view all transactions on the public blockchain.
How does a block explorer work?
Each blockchain will have a command line interface (CLI) to interact with the database and view the history of the network. However, browsers that use the CLI are not user-friendly to the general public. This is why most blockchains have browsers that use a graphical user interface (GUI) to display information in a more friendly interface.
Let’s explore one of the most commonly used Bitcoin browsers: blockchain.com. Other Bitcoin browsers include blockchair.com and blockcypher.com.
Website: https://www.blockchain.com/explorer.
The home page provides high-level data for the Bitcoin blockchain, including price, estimated hash rate, daily transaction volume, and total transaction volume. You can also see price charts and memory pool sizes. At the bottom, we are able to monitor the latest blocks and transactions.
Let’s take a closer look at what’s shown:
Prices: A summary of USD prices across multiple markets. In most cases, the price depends on the supplier quoting the price, rather than the spot price on a specific trading platform.
Estimated hash rate: Miners secure the blockchain by enforcing the current estimated hash rate. This can be seen as an indicator of the proof of work (PoW) of the blockchain.
Transactions: The number of specific transactions confirmed in the past 24 hours. Transactions need to be loaded into a verified block (a block successfully mined by miners) in order to be confirmed.
Transaction volume: measures the total value of confirmed outputs (settled in Bitcoin) on the blockchain over the past 24 hours. Due to the way Bitcoin operates, this total value also includes the amount of the output that was not spent but returned as change to the "spending" wallet.
Transaction Volume (estimated): An estimate of the true transaction volume (settled in Bitcoin) transferred between dedicated wallets. The output returned as change to the "spend" wallet is subtracted from the above "transaction volume".
Mempool size: Mempool size is based on the total number of transactions waiting to be loaded into blocks (in bytes), represents the amount of transaction activity in the blockchain, and can show the fees required for fast confirmation.
Latest Blocks: Displays a list of confirmed blocks in order from newest to oldest. Includes details such as block height, timestamp, miner name (if known), and block size. Click "Block Height" to view the transaction information loaded into the block. Clicking "Miner" will display the address information of the block miner. The miner's public address may be a known mining pool address. To learn more about the mining pool, please read this article.
Latest Transactions: List of valid transactions submitted to the mempool. Once again, transactions can only be confirmed if they are included in a verified block.
Other indicators about the blockchain can be queried on this page, including network difficulty value, fee per transaction and average confirmation time. Some blockchain browsers can also be associated with APIs.
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What do you think of that transaction of exchanging 10,000 Bitcoins for pizza?
Pizza Day is the day when 10,000 Bitcoins are exchanged for two large pizzas. This is a memorable day in the history of Bitcoin. Use our block explorer to view and explore the details of this famous transaction.
Pizza Day Transaction Hash:
a1075db55d416d3ca199f55b6084e2115b9345e16c5cf302fc80e9d5fbf5d48dCopy the transaction hash and paste it into the search field of the Bitcoin Blockchain Explorer to display the Pizza Day transaction details. If you find it troublesome to copy and paste, you can also directly click on the transaction web link.
At the top of the page, you can see a summary of transaction inputs and outputs. On the left are the Bitcoins spent in exchange for pizza (a total of 10,000 Bitcoins). These Bitcoins are transferred to the unique address on the right (owned by the person who delivered the pizza).
Summary of pizza daily deals. Source: blockchain.com
If you click on the receiving address on the right side of the interface, you can see the transaction history. You can also scan the QR code to obtain the address string of each transaction. QR codes are very useful when paying with TrustWallet or other mobile cryptocurrency wallets.
Pizza day delivery address. Source: blockchain.com.
Return to the original Pizza Day Deals page and scroll down to view the deal details. This includes the transaction’s exclusive hash value, confirmation status, timestamp, number of confirmations, total input and total output, and mining fees. Above the 10,000 coins exchanged for the pizza, one can see the transaction fee paid to the miners was 0.99 Bitcoin.
Pizza day deal details. Source: blockchain.com.
Click on the block height (57,043) to learn the details of the block that contains this transaction.
Pizza day block. Source: blockchain.com.
As shown in the figure, the block confirming the Pizza Day transaction is unremarkable. There are two transactions in total, one is the Pizza Day transaction and the other is the miner’s block reward.
The green and red globe icons on the right indicate whether Bitcoin was spent after this transaction. The pizza seller has moved the 10,000 Bitcoins to another address, but the miner's address still holds the block reward (50.99 Bitcoins).
Summarize
The blockchain browser has the open and transparent characteristics of the public blockchain and is highly practical. It provides useful information on network status, including transaction and address history, making it easy to track and verify transactions.
However, the completely transparent nature also results in a mapping of the history of transactions and addresses, called "chain analysis." This reveals the pseudonymous nature of the address, especially for users who tend to use the same address multiple times (not recommended). Other public blockchains, such as Monero, have different trade-offs between transparency and privacy.
Now that you have a general understanding of how the blockchain browser works, let’s experience it for yourself. The secret may surprise you!
Have any more questions about Bitcoin Explorer and cryptocurrencies? Please visit our Q&A platform Ask Academy, where members of the Binance community will patiently answer your questions.