In a blockchain network, all the information is stored in the form of blocks which are joined together forming a chain of blocks.
If you want to learn more about how this works, check out this article.
Blockchain is a decentralised network where all the transactions are transparent. But how do you see all the transactions that are happening?
This is where the role of block explorers comes into play. Block explorers are like search engines for blockchain networks where you can search for transactions happening in the blockchain network.
It is a real-time system which shows the current new blocks that are being added to the chain along with a lot of valuable information.
- Number: It shows the serial number of the block added.
- Hash: This is a unique feature of the blockchain. Each block contains a unique hash code which is a combination of letters and numbers.
- Miner: This shows the miner’s name or the exchange from where it is mined.
- Mined: It shows the time taken to mine the block.
- Tx Count: It indicates the number of transactions the block contains.
- Nonce: NONCE ( number only used once )
….and a lot more.
You can check this block explorer for the Bitcoin blockchain.
https://www.blockchain.com/explorer/blocks/btc?page=1
There are different block explorers for different blockchain networks. Ethereum has a different block explorer.
If I click on a block I can see a lot of details to be precise all the details of the particular block. This is a pretty transparent system.
For Ethereum, you can check out https://etherscan.io/
