You can now monitor live activity on the Ethereum network using TradeBlock’s Ethereum blockchain explorer. The explorer serves as an interface to navigate the Ethereum network, offering high consumability and access to detailed contract and transaction data.

To get started, simply navigate to tradeblock.com/ethereum or look for ‘Ethereum’ within the side menu. Additionally, you can search for Ethereum network blocks, transactions, or account/contract addresses in the search bar at the top of every page, as seen in the screenshot below. Just remember to select Bitcoin or Ethereum prior to searching.

Key Features

The interface of the Ethereum explorer works similarly to TradeBlock’s Bitcoin explorer. The main explorer page shows a list of recent blocks with the following basic information: date/time the block was found, block number, miner’s address, and transaction count (per block).

Blocks: Upon clicking on or searching for a specific block, you are presented with an in-depth block overview page that provides key information grouped under the following categories: technical, monetary, and transactional data. The screenshot below shows the information for block 166,002, as an example.

Note, by selecting “Show details” under the Technical section you can view additional information pertaining to parent hash, uncle root, state root etc.

Transactions: Transactions refer to transfer of ether between two accounts/addresses, the addition of contracts into the blockchain, and/or the calling of a function listed in one of those contracts. The screenshot below shows the transaction level data for the first transaction confirmed by block 166,002.

Gas determines the transaction fee, in terms of ether, charged to the transaction sender, and paid to the miner who includes those transactions in a block. Ether Unit Converter provides additional information regarding the units of ether.

Accounts/Contracts: Similar to the bitcoin network, Ethereum accounts are identified by public key-based addresses and they hold a specific amount of ether. Meanwhile, contracts are a special account type within the Ethereum network as they contain code that can be used to perform other functions. You can select any account or contract address within the explorer or using the search bar at the top of the page. As an example, the screenshot below shows information for the sending account in the transaction referenced above.

Note, clicking any data displayed in yellow provides additional information regarding that specific block, address, or transaction.

Ethereum Background Information

Ethereum is a crowdfunded project that positions itself as a “decentralized platform that runs smart contracts,” as described on its website. Similar to Bitcoin, Ethereum is based on a decentralized blockchain; the key difference being Ethereum’s blockchain is considered to be turing complete, thereby allowing users to write their own applications with their own rules and transaction formats.

Ether (ETH) is the token native to the Ethereum blockchain that can be used to pay transaction fees, denoted in terms of gas, to build or purchase decentralized application services on the Ethereum platform. Parties who validate transactions are rewarded in ether for resources contributed. Ether trade data from Gatecoin, Kraken, and Poloniex is available on TradeBlock Markets.

Over coming weeks we intend to incorporate additional features into the Ethereum blockchain explorer. Please reach to out with any comments or suggestions.

View TradeBlock’s live Ethereum blockchain explorer.