Key Takeaways
BscScan is a blockchain explorer that allows users to easily track transactions, check wallet balances, and interact with smart contracts on the BNB Smart Chain (BSC).
It also offers a range of features like monitoring gas prices, tracking BEP-20 tokens, and checking unique address counts.
These metrics can help users gauge network activity, identify congestion, and assess token performance, which can be very useful for investors, traders, and blockchain developers.
Introduction
We often talk about how public blockchains are permissionless, meaning that anyone with an address can interact with them. But did you know development on blockchains is permissionless, too? Anyone with the relevant expertise can deploy their DApp on a blockchain, and there's no one stopping them.
This fact has led to fast development speeds in the Decentralized Finance (DeFi) space. BNB Smart Chain (BSC) is still a young blockchain, but it's already seen impressive growth. How impressive, you ask? Well, there's a lot of publicly available on-chain data, making it easy for traders and investors to check the network’s activity.
If you're looking to access this on-chain data, a blockchain explorer like BscScan is the easiest way to find everything you need.
What Is BscScan?
BscScan is a blockchain explorer developed by the same team as Etherscan. It offers an analytics platform for BNB Smart Chain, but it also has many other neat features. These can be good sources of information if you want to keep an eye on DeFi projects built on BSC.
You can also use BscScan to:
1. Look up transactions and check their progress.
2. See the latest blocks added to the blockchain.
3. Check the balance of wallets and any transactions they have made.
4. Search for, read, and interact with smart contracts deployed to the blockchain.
5. Research the supply of tokens and other cryptocurrencies.
All of this information is available without signing up and totally free. A blockchain explorer just displays it all in a simple and easy-to-navigate way.
Why Should I Use BscScan?
BscScan comes from the trusted development team behind EtherScan, a popular Ethereum block explorer. Beyond its reputation, BscScan can help you navigate the blockchain world. With some basic knowledge of how to use it, you can quickly troubleshoot basic problems and queries.
For example, knowing how to look up a smart contract on BscScan is a handy skill for anyone who uses DApps. You can see if their smart contracts are verified and even interact with them directly through BscScan (which can be useful when the DApp's API is down). But there's more to on-chain information than just checking smart contracts and basic transactions.
For example, you could set up whale alerts to monitor large transactions. In some cases, a large amount of crypto moving onto an exchange might suggest that a sale is coming soon. You can even track the wallets of DeFi protocol founders to see if they are moving their tokens. Let's dive into some of the most commonly used tools and metrics that you can look up using BscScan.
How Do I Find the BNB Smart Chain Average Gas Price?
First, hover over [Resources], click [Chart & Stats], and then click [Average Gas Price Chart].
You’ll now see the average gas price chart used to calculate the gas fee that users pay for BSC transactions.
As we've mentioned, BSC has relatively low fees. In BSC, 1 gwei is 0.000000001 BNB. With an average gas price of around 3.5 gwei, sending 100 BNB should cost less than ten cents. In fact, sending ten or even a hundred times that amount still shouldn't cost you more than 30 cents.
From the transaction history, we can see that people have paid higher transaction fees than usual. Some users may have brought their old habits from Ethereum or other blockchains. It's really not necessary. BNB Smart Chain is still far from congested, so if network conditions remain stable, 3.5 gwei should be enough for a simple transaction.
How Do I Find the BNB Smart Chain Unique Address Count?
BscScans's unique address count is an excellent metric to use if you want to estimate roughly how many users the network has. You can find the unique address count by hovering over [Resources] and clicking [Chart & Stats]. Next, click [Unique Addresses Chart].
Does it mean that if a blockchain has 100 unique addresses, it has 100 unique users? Absolutely not! Anyone can create multiple addresses. But thanks to the magic of cryptography, even if they did, we wouldn't run out of addresses for a long time. And even then, it would be quite tricky to find out if those addresses belong to the same entity.
We know that anyone can create multiple addresses, and this metric is an overestimation of the number of users. Still, the unique address count can give us a rough idea of the network's growth.
How Do I Find BNB Smart Chain’s Daily Transaction Amount?
This chart shows us the total number of transactions on the BNB Smart Chain on a given day. Again, it’s available in the same [Charts & Stats] section.
While some smart contracts require more transactions than others to execute, this chart can still give us an idea of the network's activity and if it could possibly be congested. It’s also a good sign of a healthy network.
What Are the Top BEP-20 Tokens?
The Token Tracker page lets you track the top BEP-20 tokens by market cap or daily transaction volume. This will give you an idea of which tokens have the highest cumulative value on the BSC blockchain, along with the highest trading volumes.
One thing to note here is the token information. Token/contract owners can update their token's information on BscScan to give you more details about the token. If the BscScan team hasn't verified the token contract address, it may not be trustworthy.
You'll see a lot of wrapped tokens on this page. These are tokenized versions of a coin or token that belongs to another blockchain. Binance-Peg ETH is just one example.
This means that you can buy, sell, and trade a BSC version of ETH without having to move your BSC funds to the Ethereum blockchain. In other words, the wrapped ETH on BSC is a tokenized version of the original ETH, which belongs to the Ethereum blockchain.
Is BscScan Compatible With NFTs?
Just like any other digital asset available on BSC, you can quickly look up individual NFTs and their smart contracts. BEP-721 and BEP-1155 tokens are BSC's most common standards for NFTs, so let's look at a quick example. Here's a PancakeSwap NFT from the Pancake Squad collection:
If we copy its contract address (0x0a8901b0E25DEb55A87524f0cC164E9644020EBA) into BscScan's search bar, we can find the contract creator and token tracker.
If we click the Token Tracker link, we can check the total supply, number of holders, and total transfers. We can also use the tabs below to take a closer look at each of these metrics and other details, such as inventory and contract source code.
How Can I Look Up BNB Smart Chain Validators?
In simple terms, validators are the ones that make sure that BSC keeps going. By staking BNB, they process transactions and confirm new blocks. In return for their service, they earn transaction fees that stem from network activity.
BNB Smart Chain relies on a consensus mechanism called Proof of Staked Authority (PoSA). This model of consensus can support a short block time and lower fees. You can check the top validators on the BNB Smart Chain on the Validators Leaderboard under the [Validators] tab.
Who can become a validator? Well, basically anyone, but the requirements are relatively high. After all, the security of the network is at stake. If you'd like to read more about how to become a validator on the BNB Smart Chain, check out the official BNB Chain Docs.
How to Verify Smart Contracts on BscScan?
BscScan users can enter any contract address to verify it and see if the compiled code is the same as the one running on the blockchain. It’s easy to spot - you’ll see a green tick next to the contract on the toolbar, as well as a [Contract Source Code Verified] notice.
Allowing users to independently audit and verify code is a valuable feature, as it contributes to the overall transparency of the BNB Smart Chain ecosystem. You can also interact directly with smart contracts by connecting a crypto wallet like MetaMask.
Closing Thoughts
Whether you're a DeFi veteran or completely new to the BSC network, learning to use BscScan will help you better understand your way around a blockchain. However, keep in mind that the markets are unpredictable and prone to periods of extreme volatility. Doing your own research is crucial to success in trading. This can include checking whether a token is certified by the BscScan team, whether the contract is open-source and has been audited, and visiting the project's blog or social media accounts to get a deeper insight. Make sure you understand the risks of participating in DeFi before you jump in.
Further Reading
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