Draft:Etherscan

Etherscan is a blockchain explorer that tracks, analyzes, and publishes information about cryptocurrency transactions and smart contract activity on Ethereum. The company is headquartered in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where it was founded by Matthew Tan in 2015. Etherscan is the leading blockchain explorer for Ethereum. It is widely used by blockchain developers, investors, journalists, and researchers for tracking and measuring account transactions and state changes to the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). General users can also use the platform to view the price of Ether, the default token and cryptocurrency of the Ethereum network, as well as gas fees for creating transactions on the network.

History
Etherscan was founded by Matthew Tan in 2015. It is a for-profit company based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It has become the most popular blockchain explorer for analyzing real-time data from the Ethereum network. In early 2023, Etherscan acquired Unstoppable Domains to provide Web3 domain registration and analytics services.

In May 2022, some visitors to the Etherscan website received pop-up advertisements containing phishing links that compromised their browser-based hot wallets, causing the company to temporarily suspend third-party integrations on the website. In April 2023, Etherscan began to hide suspicious accounts, such as those that engage in phishing and zero-value token transfers, in order to protect users from "address poisoning" hacks.

Business model
Etherscan data is free to access and the company does not charge a user fee for its general services. However, it uses on-site advertisements and other Software as a Service (SaaS) features, including on-chain messaging, staking, user support, and API services, to generate revenue. Following its 2023 acquisition of the Web3 company Unstoppable Domains, Etherscan also provides decentralized domain registration and analytics services.

Etherscan has developed similar blockchain explorers for numerous other blockchains, including Polygon.

Features
Etherscan provides multiple data tracking, analytics, and verification services. The company visualizes blockchain data to represent state changes to the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). These graphs depict information about recent blocks, market capitalization, smart contract transactions, account balances, gas prices, and the transfer of Ether (ETH) (Ethereum's native token and default cryptocurrency) between accounts. The historical and current price of ETH is displayed on the website. Additionally, Etherscan measures network bandwidth and congestion, which are factors that determine gas fees for users (i.e., the fee requested by Ethereum validators who confirm proposed transactions on the network). Smart contract owners can validate their source code on Etherscan, which verifies to users that the code viewable on their website corresponds to the bytecode stored on-chain.

Etherscan publishes a regular and comprehensive log of all activity that occurs on the Ethereum network, from its inception to today. Researchers have described how the company supports "code transparency" by making a vast amount of data available for public use.

Some researchers have critiqued the use of Etherscan for gathering blockchain data, finding that the platform has built-in limitations that prevent a full analysis of on-chain data due to the company's API restrictions, bandwidth limitations, and an inability to easily identify numerous accounts that have interacted with a given contract.

Using Etherscan to examine an individual Ethereum block, users are able to see the block number, timestamp, block reward, gas fees, validator information, and all the proposed account transactions contained within.

Although Etherscan publishes data about the Ethereum blockchain, the platform exists off-chain (meaning it is does not function on the Ethereum network itself). The company has not created its own token or coin.

Applications
Etherscan allows users to read and interact with Ethereum smart contracts. By looking at an account's internal code, users can request account balances, owner information, and identify the location of digital assets on the network (such as cryptocurrency, smart contract tokens, or NFTs). This feature also allows developers to identify and troubleshoot technical problems of published contracts (though they cannot edit the code of a smart contract once it is published).

Etherscan is regularly used by blockchain developers, researchers and journalists because it provides easy access to complex blockchain data. For example, it has been used to categorize Ethereum users based on network activity and social behavior, verify market capitalization following initial coin offerings (ICOs),, to study gas consumption on the network, and to identify hacking and phishing attempts on the network. In 2022, the migration of funds across the network following the Axie Infinity hack was tracked by journalists using the website.

Arts and culture journalists have also used Etherscan to conduct research on blockchain technology and cryptocurrency culture, including the sale of artworks and other digital collectibles as non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Game studies scholars have used Etherscan to identify how value is created in decentralized gaming environments, such as CryptoKitties (2017) (an early example of on-chain gaming on the Ethereum network).

Etherscan publishes a monthly newsletter, which began in 2020 and provides updates about the Ethereum infrastructure and economy, including changes to the network and international cryptocurrency regulation.