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【Basic】Utilize blockchain explorer, three essential phrases every beginner must know

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【Basic】Utilize blockchain explorer, three essential phrases every beginner must know

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What is a Blockchain Browser?

A Blockchain Browser is designed to browse all transaction information on the blockchain (it is actually a website), different from the usual browsers we know like Google Chrome and Safari. Since the blockchain is a collaborative ledger with inherently public and transparent features, users can use a Blockchain Browser to query transaction details including all transactions, blocks, addresses, account balances, and more.

This article demonstrates the use of the Blockchain Browser, Blockchair. With the development of cryptocurrencies, there are many different public blockchains, but generally, these blockchains do not communicate with each other. However, a user may have assets on multiple public blockchains, which creates the need to query individual transaction information in different financial systems.

At this point, a Blockchain Browser can be helpful. Browsers like Blockchair support multi-chain queries and Simplified Chinese functionality, with basic chain data such as "hash rate," "mining difficulty," "average transaction fee," and more.

Blockchain Browser homepage (Source: blockchair)

How to Query Transactions?

Using Bitcoin as an example, we can query using "wallet address," "block height," and "transaction ID (TxID)." In Blockchair, randomly click on a transaction with the TxID 4a433a3fd5c0236987941f75895e6bdfe55f275cfc60f4632e8841d5962d6a82.

Query using TXID (Source: blockchair)

The way data is presented may vary slightly among different blockchain browsers, but the basic information is generally as shown in the image above. From this information, we can see that this is a transaction of approximately 162.6 bitcoins, completed at 14:01 on 2019-06-12, at block height 580391, with a miner fee (transaction fee) of 0.004205 bitcoins.

(1) When checking funds, ask for this: TxID (Hash)

Practical phrase: "Have you made the transfer? Remember to give me the TxID (Transaction ID, or Hash)!"

This is the "transaction ID (TxID)" mentioned earlier. The main content of the blockchain is transaction records, and one reason this technology is difficult to tamper with is that each block must contain the hash of the previous block, which is a unique number used to verify the integrity of the data within the block. This technology is also applied to each transaction, which is the TxID, a unique transaction serial number, making it the fastest way to query a specific transaction.

(2) How long until Bitcoin halves again?: Height (Block Height)

Practical phrase: "How much longer until the Bitcoin halving? Let me check the current Height."

Transaction records of Block 580391 (Source: blockchair)

(3) How long until the coins appear in the exchange account?: Confirmation (Transaction Confirmation)

Practical phrase: "We only have five Confirmations now, please wait a bit longer!"

51% attack last year, the exchange OKEx raised the deposit confirmation number to 100 times. However, due to Bitcoin's higher network security, Binance and OKEx reduced the confirmation number from 2 times to 1 time last year.

(4) Other essential information

Amount sent: Inputs
The total amount of Bitcoin sent from Address A.

Amount received: Outputs
The total amount of Bitcoin received by Address B.

Fee
Miner fee (transaction fee), which is the cost of transferring the 162.6 bitcoins. Subtracting Inputs from Outputs gives this number.

Bitcoin miners also receive block rewards. The recent heated debate over the halving of block rewards reduced from the current 12.5 bitcoins to 6.25 bitcoins, and it is expected to decrease to zero by 2140. It is unknown at that time whether Bitcoin will remain secure and whether miners can sustain the overall system operation solely based on transaction fee income.

Unique transparency mechanism of the blockchain: Coindays destroyed

Coin Days Destroyed (CDD) refers to the time period between two transactions of a specific amount of bitcoins.

The formula is "Coin Days Destroyed = Coin quantity * Holding time."

Satoshi Nakamoto in 2009 on the Bitcointalk forum. In 2011, it was pointed out in the community that most on-chain transaction volumes might be due to high-frequency trading, wash trading, brick moving, and other activities, indicating potential data distortion issues.

Fluctuation of Coin Days Destroyed in the past three months (Source: blockchair)

What are some other useful Blockchain Browsers?

BTC.com
Supports Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin queries, and is a clean interface, feature-rich blockchain browser.

Blockchain.com
Provides basic functions such as block height, transaction hash, address balance queries, as well as hash rate, mining difficulty, coin price, and more information. It only supports Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Bitcoin Cash. According to Alexa's traffic data, Blockchain.com is the most popular blockchain browser.

Etherscan
Focuses solely on the Ethereum blockchain browser, supporting ERC20, ERC721, ERC1155 token standards, Ethereum Name Service (ENS), DeFi, Dapps, and other project queries, making it the most powerful Ethereum browser.

References