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So far we’ve covered what Etherscan is, who built it, and how it grew.
Today: the actual features that made it the most trusted blockchain explorer in crypto.
Because Etherscan is not just a website where you paste a wallet address. It became essential because it solved real problems.
1. Smart Contract Verification
Before Etherscan introduced this in 2016, there was no easy way to know whether the code a developer published was the same code running on-chain.
Etherscan changed that.
Developers can now verify their smart contracts publicly, and anyone can inspect the code themselves.
That made scams harder, audits easier, and trust much stronger.
If you’ve ever seen the green “Contract Source Code Verified” badge on a token or app, that is one of the reasons people trust it.
2. Gas Tracker
One of the biggest frustrations on Ethereum is gas fees.
Sometimes sending a transaction costs almost nothing. Other times it becomes ridiculously
Etherscan Gas Tracker helps users see the current network fees in real time before sending anything.
Instead of guessing, you can check whether now is a good time to make a transaction or wait until fees are lower.
For many people, this feature alone has saved a lot of money.
3. Address Labels
Most wallet addresses look like random letters and numbers.
Without labels, it would be almost impossible to know whether a wallet belongs to an exchange, a project, a whale, or a scammer.
Etherscan solved that by adding labels.
So instead of seeing a long unreadable address, you might see:
• Binance Hot Wallet
• Uniswap Router
• OpenSea
• Vitalik Buterin
That makes the blockchain far easier to understand.
4. Token Tracking
Etherscan also makes it simple to track every token inside a wallet.
You can instantly see:
• Which tokens a wallet holds
• How much they are worth
• When they were received or sent
• Which NFTs are attached to that address
Without Etherscan, you would have to dig through raw blockchain records one by one.
5. Blockscan
As crypto expanded beyond Ethereum, Etherscan launched Blockscan.
Blockscan lets you search across multiple blockchains from one place instead of jumping between different explorers.
Today it supports more than 30 chains, which makes life much easier if you use more than one network.
6. API V2
Most users never see this part, but developers rely on it every time
Etherscan API V2 gives developers access to blockchain data from 50+ chains using one API key.
That means apps, wallets, dashboards, and analytics tools can all pull information directly from Etherscan.
In other words: many of the crypto tools people use every day are quietly powered by Etherscan in the background.
That’s the reason Etherscan became the #1 explorer. It didn’t just show blockchain data. It made that data understandable, searchable, and useful.
Tomorrow (Day 5): We’ll look at how Etherscan makes money, why it stayed independent, and how it grew into a profitable company without raising huge amounts of VC funding.

Over the last two days, we covered what Etherscan is and the story of its founder, Mathew Than
Today, let’s look at how Etherscan grew from a simple Ethereum explorer into one of the most important pieces of infrastructure in crypto.
2015: The Beginning
In August 2015, Etherscan officially launched. At that point, Ethereum itself was still brand new.
A month later, Etherscan launched its API service. This allowed developers to build apps and tools using blockchain data directly from Etherscan. It was the first sign that this would become much bigger than just a website.
2016: Smart Contracts and Tokens
In April 2016, Etherscan introduced smart contract verification.
This was a huge step. For the first time, developers could prove that the code they published matched the code running on-chain. That made Ethereum much more transparent and safer.
A few months later, Etherscan added support for ERC-20 tokens. This mattered because ERC-20 later became the standard behind thousands of crypto tokens.
2017: The NFT Era Begins
By 2017, crypto was growing fast. Etherscan moved into its first real office and added support for ENS names, making long wallet addresses easier to read.
Then in December 2017, something interesting happened: Etherscan started displaying NFT images and metadata from CryptoKitties.
At the time, NFTs were still a strange idea. But Etherscan saw where things were heading before most people did.
2018: Making Blockchain Easier to Understand
In 2018, Etherscan added some of the features people now use every day:
• Verified signatures
• Gas Tracker
• Address labels
Gas Tracker helped users see how expensive transactions were before sending them. Address labels made it easier to recognize important wallets and exchanges instead of staring at random strings of letters and numbers.
2020: Beyond Ethereum
2020 was one of the biggest years in Etherscan’s history.
It launched Blockscan, a search engine for Web3. It also launched BeaconScan, which tracked Ethereum’s new proof-of-stake chain before the network fully upgraded.
This was also the year Etherscan introduced Explorer as a Service, allowing other blockchain projects to create their own explorers using Etherscan’s technology.
2021–2022: Massive Growth
By 2021, Etherscan had become one of the top 1,000 most visited websites in the world.
Then in 2022, it played an important role during The Merge, one of the biggest events in crypto history.
While Ethereum changed from proof of work to proof of stake, Etherscan kept working without interruption. That helped millions of users continue tracking the network in real time.
2024: The Multichain Era
In January 2024, Etherscan acquired Solscan, one of the leading explorers for the Solana ecosystem.
This was a major shift. Etherscan was no longer just about Ethereum. It was becoming a platform for many different blockchains.
Later that year, it launched API V2, which supports more than 50 blockchains with a single API key. It also expanded Blockscan to more than 30 chains.
What started as one developer coding in his living room had become a global platform powering the entire Web3 ecosystem.
Tomorrow (Day 4): We’ll look at the exact features that made Etherscan the 1 blockchain explorer, from Gas Tracker and contract verification to wallet labels, Blockscan, and why millions trust it every day.