[Blockchain, Decentralization and Block explorer] - Steemit Crypto Academy Season 4 - Homework Post for Task 4 | by @benjamin09
Question
(3) What is a block explorer? And what is its purpose and use? Search for different cryptocurrency block explorers and list them below. At least five different crypto currencies. Also explore the transaction of a crypto coin on block explorer and explain with the help of screenshot.
Answers.
What is a block explorer?
A block explorer is an application where all the transactions of the crypto currency can be searched and found. With a block explorer, anyone can search for a particular transaction using the transaction hash. One can explore the wallets of all the users of the crypto currency using the decentralized blockchain technology. A block explorer varies between crypto currencies. So every crypto currency has an individual block explorer.
And what is its purpose and use?
A block explorer has many uses which shall be seen in the following points.
- A block explorer can be used to find any block on the blockchain.
- With a block explorer, a user can get the time a transaction was confirmed and the number of confirmations of the transaction.
- A user can also get the number of tokens or coins inside a wallet before a transaction and the wallet after the transaction.
- With the block explorer, one can get the summary of any transaction by searching with the transaction hash. Within this summary, you have the sender's address, the receiver's address, the transaction status, number of confirmations and also the time stamp.
- A user of the cryptocurrency can be searched on the block explorer using the username of the user.
- You can also get any details of any activity(like voting, commenting etc.) made on a blockchain(for example Steemit). Such details may include the voting percentage, the sender, the receiver, the timestamp, the transaction number.
Search for different cryptocurrency block explorers and list them below. At least five different crypto currencies.
The following table shows us some cryptocurrencies and some of their respective block explorers.
| Lite coin | Blockchair , Blockcypher |
| Cardano | Cardano explorer - Blockchair, Cardanoscan |
| Ethereum | Etherscan |
| Tron(TRX) | Tronscan, Tokenview |
| Bitcoin | Btc.com, Blockstream |
Explore the transaction of a crypto coin on block explorer and explain with the help of screenshot.
For the sake of this practical assignment, I will take a transaction from my account on Steemit.com and search for the transaction details an upvote at 100% from my account @benjamin09 to @siz-official. The steps I used to get the transaction details are as follows.
- Firstly, I open the Steemit block explorer https://steemscan.com and input my transaction hash in the search tab.
2.After searching my hash, I get my transaction details.
That's how I got a transaction details.
From the above screenshots from https://steemscan.com, we can obtain the following information from the transaction summary.
- Sender's address.
- Receiver's address.
- Timestamp.
- Type of transaction - vote.
- Transaction num.
- Block ID
- Signatures.
Conclusion
After completing these assignment task, I have learned about block explorers and the different block explorers for different cryptocurrencies. Also, I have learned how to use the block explorers to search for any transaction details or user information from the block explorer.
Thank you for reading.