Crypto Academy Season 4 Beginners' course - Homework Post for Task 4: Blockchain, Decentralization, Block explorer //submitted by @goodspeed22 12/09/2021

Hello Steemians, how are we? Hope we are all doing well. Below is my Home work on Beginner's Introductory Course: Task 4

<"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 crypyo currencies. Also explore the transaction of a crypto coin on block explorer and explain with the help of screenshot."

Image source

Answer to Question 1
In a lay man language, to explore refers to any investigation, analysis or examination that is done on a piece of work. With this in mind with reference to cryptocurrency, block explorer is a device, which is a software that is used to investigate/search and analyze data and information stored in a particular block with the aid of data and blockchain connectivity through its network. These information examined in the blockchain includes transactions currently carried out or the one undergoing operations in a given wallet address. The search engine, will also cross-check the amount of cryptos transacted, where it comes from and where it is going, the previous balance before the transaction and the current balance after the transaction of both the sender and the receiver from their various wallets.

Block explorer can well allow its users to search and know mined blocks, its size and even to see a live feed blocks as they are produced. It is worthy of note that, results from this device are presented in a way that users can easily see them in a well-arranged order (tabular format) for the sake of transparency. I discuss in full details about this blockchain explorer under its purpose and use.

Its Purpose
The following are the purpose of block explorer:

• It analyzes the transaction history of any given wallet address. This aspect of the examination tells us the sender and receiver of the fund, how much is transferred, date and rime and more. The search on a particular wallet address help the user to find out if there is clearity and success on the block transactions.

• To further ascertain the clearity of this transaction, the explorer checks the addresses both the receiving one and the changed one. The changed address. which is being looked into will help to move the currency back to the receiver, so that too much of the one that the sender transferred (input value) will not go to the transaction cost.

• The highest amount of transaction carried out in a day is known from the search tool.

• Block explorer gives us the opportunity to examine those transactions that were not verified and their history.

• Some of these software devices find out about the quantity of transactions that were done in two places or were done twice in the blockchain.

• it goes deeper, digging and searching for those blocks that after mining does not connect to the longest blockchain but their original blocks is not known. These category of blocks are known as orphaned blocks. The same explorers also investigate those that their original blocks are known or exist, yet they are not connected to the longest known blockchain. They are called Stale blocks. Besides, some explorers permit us to view the number of these type of blocks produced in a blockchain.

• With the aid of block explorer, we know the people behind the scene. These are different personalities and their combine technological efforts to mine digital assets. From this tool, we find out who succeeded in mining a block by means of the block height.

• Explorer also gives us information on the genesis blocks, that is one that was produced or mined first in a particular chain, the person that mined it and every details about him.

• The search engine authorize us to see the transaction changes, problems in the blockchain, hash rate and more information on it,

Its Uses
The usefulness of block explorer can not be over emphasized but some of them are enumerated below:

• As a research guide, it helps its users to find out the balances and how much is spent from smart contract like those taking part in an Initial Coin Offering (ICO). They would like to confirm the transparency of the wallet address to the blockchain before transferring any crypto to anybody.

• The explorer is used to investigate a transaction - if it has reached is desired destination and if the transaction is yet to go through, the explorer gives full details. why it has not gone through and the steps involved in the confirmation processes.

• With the aid of this device, users will have the knowledge of recent transaction cost and be able to make necessary plans for future transaction cost or fees.

• The search engine is used to check if its a pool mining (group of miners) so that users can decided if they will invest more of their computing resources for further mining activities.

• From this too, programmers will know whether their wallet are functioning well, that is if the wallet can receive and send as well as hold digital assets.

• Developers can also use it together with other tools to know if other tools are also working and also find out what functions and features are required to be added to their wallets.

• And lastly, it aids in financial decision making as a person, group or for company.

Answer to Question 2
The examples of block explorers are:
a, Blockchair: It explorers Doge coin, lite Coin, Ripple and others
b. Handshake Block Explorer
c. Ethereum Block Explorer - Etherscan, Ethplorer - explore ETH coins
d. Bitcoin Block Explorer - explorers BTC
e. Bitcoin Cash Explorer - explores BCH
f. Tron Block Explorer - Tronscan, trx.token view - explores TRX and others
g. Steemit Coin Block Explorer - Steemscan, Steem Block Explorer, Cryptoground - they all explore STEEM and others

*Answer to Question 3

Step 1:
I want to explore my Steemit crypto coin on my Steemit account with the address @goodspeed22, with the aid of Steemit block explorer - Cryptoground. I go to Google under search button and input Steem coin block explorer,

Step 2
Then I choose cryptoground and type the user name @goodspeed22. From this tool (cryptoground) it displays information like:

• Steem price,
• Overview
• Price
• Exchanges
• Market cap
• News and others.
  then I scrolled down to search and input the user name (@goodspeed22) and search.

Step 3:
It took me to STEEM Block Explorer, where I saw this information:

• Steem Price
• SBD price
• Latest Blocks
• Block Chain Properties
• Reward Pool
• Top 20 Witnesses

Step 4:
Then I typed the user name again at the search box, then click on search, It brought me to where I have these list of data:

• Vest
• SP
• STEEM
• SBD
• Reputation
• Upvote value,
• Voting power
• Down vote power and RCs and others

Step 5
To verify more on the transaction, I go to the right hand side of the page, click on the hash tag of the transaction along with the transaction time. I copy the code as you provided and paste it on the search button that requested for search for a block, transaction as you can see from the screen shot. Then I allow it to load.

This is block search loading as you can see from the screen shot.

Conclusion
It is a fascinating thing to learn more about block chain explorer with ease and it help me to see a transaction of a particular coin in a given time. I really appreciate my professor @yousafharoonkhan for his explanations.

Reference

cc: @yousafharoonkhan