Overview

Etherscan is a free BlockChain Explorer, Search, API and Analytics Platform, and a vital part of the Ethereum blockchain, allowing us to view account activity, transactions, and smart contracts. With all Ethereum interactions being public on a network that has 1,000,000 + transactions per day, having the ability to view all of these interactions is useful in many ways ranging from analytics to viewing a smart contract before minting an NFT.

Knowing how to navigate Etherscan is a skill that is not only valuable for developers, but everyone that uses the Ethereum network. Here we will try to unlock some of the powers that Etherscan provides us for free.

Tracking wallet activity & analytics

Etherscan provides an interface to easily view wallet activity, allowing users to view token transfers, transactions (including pending), and analytics. You can do this by entering any Ethereum wallet address into the search bar. On the address page, you can view every transaction and transfer made for that particular wallet. Etherscan gives you the ability to filter transactions by token type which makes it finding certain transaction information a lot simpler.

Etherscan also displays wallet analytics with graphs. These analytics can be filtered by ETH balance, transactions, transaction fees, and ether and token transfers.

Reading smart contracts

It is possible to view smart contract code directly on Etherscan. The world of web3 has seen its fair share of sketchy happenings, from rug-pulls to millions of dollars worth of ETH lost in smart contract exploits. Learning how to read smart contracts provides a safer experience for people interacting with the Ethereum blockchain. This feature allows you to view the code from that contract, giving you the chance to try and identify red flags before investing into something.

By navigating to the smart contract page you can view contract by clicking the Contract tab and selecting Code. The example image below is from the Crypto Coven contract, one of the more popular contracts amongst developers, mostly due to gas optimization.

Mint directly from contract

I am no expert on this, I have only done this twice before and it was real scary. There are many tutorials on how to do this so I’ll save myself the embarrassment of trying to explain. I just wanted to point out that if there are available NFTs for that collection it is possible to do it directly rather than through an NFT website. It is in the Write Contract section of the contract page, usually named mint or something similar to that.

Eth Price & Gas tracker

Forever nested in the top left corner you will find the current price of ETH and Gwei. Gas fees are one of everyones least favorite parts about the Ethereum ecosystem, but timing can play a huge part in the cost of transactions. When demand for miners is low, so is Gwei, so be sure to check that every now and again to minimize fees.

View NFT collections

If you view an NFT collection’s smart contract address on Etherscan, there is a tab named Inventory that you can select and it will show a UI displaying all of the NFTs in that collection. Clicking an image will take you to the page with all of the corresponding information and data for that NFT.