What is a block explorer?
DefinitionA block explorer is a website that lets anyone search a blockchain’s public records: transactions, addresses, blocks and token contracts. Paste a TXID or an address and it shows the status, amounts, fees and confirmations, without any login.
What you can look up
A block explorer reads one blockchain, so an explorer for one network can’t see another. Each major blockchain has its own explorers, and the most common lookups are:
- A transaction, by its TXID: status, sender, receiver, amount, fee, time and confirmations
- An address: its balance, token holdings and full history
- A token: its contract address, total supply and holders
- A block: when it was produced and which transactions it contains
How to check a transfer step by step
Use this routine whenever a payment seems late or someone sends you a screenshot as proof:
- Open an explorer for the network that was used, such as Tron, TON or Ethereum
- Paste the TXID or the receiving address into the search box
- Check the status: successful, pending or failed
- Compare the receiving address, the token and the amount with what you expected
- Check the token’s contract address to make sure it is the genuine token, not a copy
Limits and risks
Explorers are read-only. You never need to log in, connect a wallet or enter a recovery phrase to use one, and a site that asks for any of these is a phishing site. Open explorers from your own bookmarks rather than search ads, because fake copies exist.
An explorer also shows that your activity is public. Anyone with your address can see its balance and history, and the labels and token names an explorer displays can be misleading, since scammers name their tokens after real ones.
Block explorers and Waletifi
Waletifi’s business receipts list the payment network and the transaction hashes, and Raste orders show the address of their escrow contract, so both can be checked on an explorer for that network.
