All terms
A website for reading everything on a blockchain.
A block explorer indexes the chain and presents it as searchable pages. Paste an address, a transaction hash or a contract and you can see exactly what happened.
Learning to read one is the fastest way to stop depending on other people's claims. You can verify a transfer, check a contract's source, or see who holds a token.
Etherscan for Ethereum, Solscan for Solana, BaseScan for Base. Each shows the same underlying data in a familiar layout.
That an explorer is the source of truth. It is one company's view of the chain, and explorers do disagree, mislabel and lag. What it is genuinely good for is that anybody can check the same data on a different explorer and see whether the answers match.
Common questions
What can I actually find on a block explorer?
Can I see who owns an address?
Where this comes up on the site
The guides that actually use this word, rather than a list of everything we have written.
Where to go next
More technology terms
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