Business,Operations,GuideModule 4.5

Module 4.6

Block Explorers and Transaction Hashes

A block explorer is an indispensable tool in the daily life of anyone interacting with blockchain. It’s a web application that allows you to search and view details of transactions, addresses, smart contracts, and blocks on a given blockchain. Etherscan is the most widely used explorer for Ethereum, and similarly Polygonscan for Polygon, BscScan for BNB Chain, etc. These explorers are basically user-friendly windows into the raw blockchain data.

When you perform a transaction (say you send ETH to someone or you confirm a Safe transaction), that action will produce a transaction hash (tx hash), which is a unique identifier (a long hex string) for that specific transaction. You can think of a transaction hash like a receipt or tracking number for your transaction. Using a block explorer, you can input that hash and see the status and details:

  • Whether the transaction is pending or confirmed.
  • Which block it was included in, and at what time.
  • The from and to addresses, and any contract addresses involved.
  • The amount of cryptocurrency moved, and any tokens transferred (ERC-20, ERC-721, ERC-1155 details).
  • Gas fee paid, and any error messages if it failed.

For example, after executing a Safe payout, we get a tx hash. We plug it into Etherscan and we can verify that the intended amounts went to the right addresses, and we can share that link as evidence of payment (e.g., to a contractor: “Here is the Etherscan link showing we sent you the funds.”). This is extremely useful for transparency and record-keeping. It’s like having an always-accessible audit log.

How to use explorers in operations:

  • Tracking confirmations: If you’ve initiated an important transaction (like moving funds on behalf of the company), you might watch the tx on Etherscan to ensure it gets confirmed. If it’s pending too long, you might decide to speed it up (if you have control) by increasing gas, or at least inform stakeholders of the delay.
  • Verifying addresses and contracts: If someone shares an address or a contract link, you can inspect it on Etherscan. For instance, verifying the contract of an ERC-20 token to ensure it’s the official one before interacting. Etherscan often has a green check if a contract source code is verified and might show a token’s name, symbol, and decimals.
  • Viewing token holdings: By entering an address (research.bittrees.eth) on Etherscan, you can see its token balances and all transactions. This is a quick way to check “what is our treasury balance right now?” or “did we receive that grant from X?” etc.
  • Investigating issues: If a transaction failed (perhaps a contract call ran out of gas or was executed incorrectly), Etherscan will show a failure status and sometimes a reason. The Ops team uses this to troubleshoot – e.g., why did a distribution transaction fail? Maybe one of the token transfers was to an address that rejected it, etc.
  • Security audits: If suspicious activity is noticed (like an unexpected outgoing transaction), exploring it via Etherscan can reveal where funds went and which contract was involved, aiding in incident response.

Transaction Hash as reference: Transaction hashes serve as immutable proof of action. In a traditional setting, you might keep copies of bank transfer confirmations; using blockchains, the transaction hash is your confirmation. For example, as we do the monthly BTREE distributions from the safe located at capital.bittrees.eth, the transactional data is auto-compiled as a list of the tx hashes or one multi-send tx hash and stored under the capital.bittrees.eth account located on etherscan ensuring transparent and verifiable accounting records. If any dispute arises (“I didn’t get receive ___ ”), we have the on-chain proof of the transaction.

One can search Etherscan without a hash too: by address, by block number, by token name (to find token contract), etc. As part of onboarding, it’s good to practice:

  • Search your own wallet address on Etherscan (Ethereum mainnet) to see how it appears.
  • If you did mint the Bittrees Research membership, search your address on etherscan and see the token under the ERC-1155 tab.
  • Familiarize with reading a transaction’s “From/To” and “Method” (if it’s a contract call, like Safe transactions often show method “execTransaction” since the Safe contract is executing something).
  • Note that block explorers also show gas fees used; this can help in cost analysis for budgeting (e.g., we spent X in gas for operations this quarter).

In summary, block explorers are your blockchain magnifying glass and ledger. Every team member should be comfortable using at least Etherscan to verify transactions. It reinforces the transparent principles of public decentralized systems – nothing is a black box; if in doubt, look on-chain.

Module 4.7 -- Snapshot – Decentralized Governance Voting