What Does Etherscan Do?
Etherscan is the most trusted blockchain explorer searching through the endless points of data on the Ethereum blockchain. It serves as a search engine for the Ethereum blockchain (blockchain explorer) and analytics platform. For example these points of data include; transaction data, wallet addresses, and smart contracts to name a few.
Built and launched in 2015 it is one of the longest-running independent projects built for Ethereum. Although, it is not sponsored by the non-profit organization known as the ‘Ethereum Foundation’.
What Is Etherscan Used For?
Etherscan can be used to;
- Search and verify smart contracts
- View the assets within any Ethereum wallet
- Track the top Ethereum nodes
- View live and pending transactions within the Ethereum blockchain
- Calculate Ethereum gas fees
- Revoke access to wallets for any DApp (decentralized application)
- Build DApps with Etherscan API keys
- Determine if NFT projects are Wash Trading through wallet analytics
Etherscan cannot be used as a wallet, it is simply a blockchain explorer.
How Etherscan Works
Google is a seach engine that searches through all the data points on the internet, similarly Etherscan works as a search engine known as a blockchain explorer. Moreover, Like a standard search engine a blockchain explorer will search through all data on a given blockchain.
To use it, simply enter any Ethereum address. After that, all available data for said address will be provided to you. The current balance and transaction history will be provided along with any gas fees and smart contracts associated with the address.
How To Use Etherscan
Is Etherscan Safe?
Despite working to make data from decentralized networks easier, Etherscan is a centralized platform. If you want 100% reliable information on a contract the best place would be the node running the contract, obviously this may be hard and annoying to access as the data would have to be stripped from the blockchain itself.
Etherscan does this already for users, but because Etherscan is offchain it is not perfectly secure. Despite this fact, Etherscan is still the most trusted website for running data related to the Ethereum blockchain so it is safe to say it is pretty safe.
Who Owns Etherscan?
Etherscan was founded by Matthew Tan, who is also the current CEO of the analytics platform. Currently, Etherscan has 20 developers running the platform. The ‘Etherscanners Team’ is built around individuals who are truly passionate and excited about the kinds of decentralized information and infrastructure applications Ethereum makes possible.[1]https://etherscan.io/aboutus
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