What a block explorer shows, and what it does not
Transaction ID, address, confirmation, fee: how to read a block explorer page, with the XRP Ledger and Bitcoin as examples, and what an explorer cannot tell you. Educational content.
A wallet app shows you its own view of a transaction. A block explorer shows you what the public ledger itself recorded. When the two disagree, the ledger is the one that counts.
What a block explorer is
A block explorer is a website that reads a public blockchain and displays it in a readable form: blocks or ledger versions, transactions and addresses. Two widely used examples are the XRPL Explorer, an open-source explorer for the XRP Ledger, and mempool.space, an open-source explorer for Bitcoin.
The four things to look at
- The transaction ID (hash). A long string that identifies one transaction. Wallets usually let you copy it; pasting it into an explorer opens the transaction's own page.
- The addresses. The sending and receiving address, and on the XRP Ledger, any destination tag. Check them character by character, not only the first and last few.
- The status. On Bitcoin: unconfirmed, or the number of confirmations. On the XRP Ledger: whether the transaction is in a validated ledger, and its result.
- The fee. What the network charged for the transaction.
Reading the status correctly
On the XRP Ledger, a result shown at the moment of sending is only tentative. The XRP Ledger documentation on finality explains that a transaction which succeeded at first could still fail, and that a success result (tesSUCCESS) becomes final once the transaction is included in a validated ledger.
On Bitcoin, mempool.space shows transactions that are waiting to be included in a block (the mempool) and the current fee rates in sat/vB. A transaction waiting there has not yet been confirmed.
What an explorer does not tell you
- Who the person is. An address is not a name.
- Why a payment was made, or whether it was a good idea.
- Anything about a price in the future.
- What a service promised you. An explorer shows the transfer, not the agreement behind it.
A good habit
When you send or receive anything important, save the transaction ID with the date. It lets anyone, including you a year later, check the record without relying on a single app.
Related: What a block confirmation means · XRP Ledger destination tag explained · Kripto Akadémia
Educational content. Not investment advice.
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This article is a companion piece to the book.
RIPPLE — the book
An Unofficial Documentary Study of Ripple and the XRP Ledger
22 chapters · every claim with a named source · numbered first edition · $29
