What Is Etherscan Explorer? (And How to Use it For Tracking ETH Gas Fees?)

Blockchains may be transparent, but it takes more than a serviceable pair of eyes to decipher their blocks and nodes. Most of the time, you’ll need a specialized tool to access all the riches hidden in their vast hash caves.

One of those tools is Etherscan, the ultimate magnifying glass for the Ethereum blockchain. Sherlock-style, it lets you dig, snoop, and verify every transaction, token, NFT, and smart contract on the chain. You can track your ETH without breaking a sweat, monitor gas fees in real time, or keep track of whales and stay ahead of the curve. All of it free of charge.

Etherscan 101

At its core, Etherscan is a blockchain explorer for Ethereum. Simple as.

Think of it as Google Maps for every Ethereum transaction, wallet, token, and contract. Only more accurate and without the voiceover.

It’s the tool that makes sense of Ethereum’s sometimes messy and complex network that is constantly juggling between DeFi, NFTs, and dApps with gas fees that are notoriously complex to parse out. You can see who sent what, track token movements, trends, monitor gas fees, and even check contract authenticity.

Why You Need Etherscan in Your Life

Etherscan explorer is one of those use-it-to-abuse-it tools that does everything. You can:

• Track Transactions: Every transaction has a fingerprint called a transaction hash. Paste it in, and Etherscan will tell you the who, what, when, and how much.
• Peek Inside Wallets: Want to see a wallet’s ETH balance, tokens, or NFTs? Etherscan lets you spy responsibly (or check your own stash).
• Monitor Gas Fees: Ethereum gas is like surge pricing for blockchain and Etherscan helps you time your moves.
• Explore Smart Contracts: Ethereum’s dApps run on contracts. See the code, deployment history, and the history of interactions.
• Inspect dApps: Also, you can use Etherscan token approval checker to see which dApps and Smart Contracts are worth it.
• Verify Crypto Casino Integrity: By looking into an ETH casino’s wallet or smart contract, you can verify that the platform has enough backing.
• Follow NFTs: From pixel art to blue-chip collections, see minting events, ownership, and transfer history.

On a more meta level, stakers can see rewards, token performance, and bear witness to just how decentralized Ethereum really is.

How to Use Etherscan?

Easy. Etherscan blockchain explorer is designed to be simple. To get started, go to etherscan.io and take it from there. The homepage greets you with general info like the current ETH price, market cap, median gas price, as well as an overview of the latest blocks and transactions.

For specific inquiries, you’ll have to do a little copy-pasting.

How to Track Transactions

Every Ethereum transaction leaves a trail called a transaction hash. You can’t miss it, it looks something like this:

To track transaction status, confirmations, sender, recipient, ETH value, and gas fees, just paste the hash in the Etherscan search bar and voila.

How to Access Wallet Data

If you want a sneak peek at a wallet’s current ETH balance or transaction history, just paste its address into the search bar. If you scroll down, you’ll see even more details like exact amounts and gas fees for every transaction. And if you check the Multichain Portfolio tab, you’ll also see the wallet’s crypto held on other chains.

And don’t feel bad in the slightest, everybody’s doing it.

How to Check Smart Contracts

Similarly, to check or verify the legitimacy of a smart contract, just paste its address into the search bar and watch the magic happen. You can verify source code, read up on token movement, and interact with the contracts.

You can also do a background check on Ethereum Casinos by inspecting the platform’s official smart contract address.

How to Monitor Gas Fees

Gas fees tracker is one of Etherscan’s superpowers. The homepage shows the current median fee, but clicking it takes you to the Ethereum Gas Tracker page.

Here, you’ll find info on how much gwei you’ll pay for a transaction completed at a low, average, or high speed. It’s all there.

How to Follow NFTs

Again, simple. So long as they are built on ERC-721 and ERC-1155 standards, Etherscan explorer can track ownership, see minting events, and check an NFT’s entire transfer history. Navigate to the NFTs drop-down menu and take things from there.

Conclusion

Etherscan is to Ethereum what Solscan is to Solana: A practical, free, easy-to-use tool that lets you zoom into the details others can’t see. Those details include tracking transactions, reading wallets, verifying contracts, checking fees, exploring NFTs, and many other more advanced moves like tracking sepolia Etherscan testnet transactions, etc.

It’s not a wallet and you can’t send or receive crypto through Etherscan. There are other crypto tools for that.

But exploring every nook and cranny of the Ethereum chain? it does to perfection.