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Blobscan
100%
average score over 2 application evaluations
First blockchain explorer for EIP-4844 blobs, offering a platform to track, filter, and visualize blob transactions, aiding Ethereum scalability by storing large data off-chain to reduce main chain load.

Blobscan: The First Blockchain Explorer for EIP-4844 Blobs

We’re Blobscan, and we focus on ONE thing: blobs. Blob transactions are a new type of transaction that temporarily stores data on-chain. This temporary data, called a "blob" (short for "binary large object"), plays a crucial role in Ethereum’s scalability by allowing Layer 2 rollups to store large amounts of data off-chain. This reduces the burden on Ethereum’s main chain, enabling more transactions to be processed in parallel, improving efficiency, and lowering costs.

As the first blockchain explorer built specifically for EIP-4844 blobs, Blobscan gives you the power to filter, track, and visualize these transactions in just a few clicks.

Our Story

Born at a hackathon in Devcon Bogotá, Colombia, in 2022, we are well-versed in receiving grant funding and putting it to good use. Thanks to the support we've received, we’ve been able to achieve the following:

What we have built so far

  • A frontend that allows navigating the data, having specific pages for blocks, transactions, addresses, and blobs, as well as stats and analytics.
  • An API that allows you to retrieve blocks, transactions, blobs, along with related statistics and time series data.
  • Enables other teams to build on top of blobscan's database.
  • An indexer that communicates with consensus and execution layer clients, fetches blob information, and stores it in different online storage solutions.
  • Easy to deploy using docker images.
  • Support for blob archiving in 2 different storage systems: Google Storage and Ethereum Swarm.
  • Support for 4 networks: Ethereum Mainnet, Sepolia, Holesky, and Gnosis.
  • Support blob decoding for 2 rollups: Starknet and Optimism.
  • Developed swarm-batch-exporter for monitoring Ethereum Swarm stamps in Prometheus.

Ecosystem

  • Collaboration with the Ethereum Foundation DevOps team (EthPandaOps) to deliver a user interface for Ethereum core developers to test blob transactions during the Dencun devnets.
  • Collaboration with Kurtosis (Added support to spin up a local PoS Ethereum testnet with Blobscan).
  • Collaboration with Ethereum Swarm (Sponsoring the archival of blobs in distributed storage).
  • Collaborated with rollups like Starknet to decode their blobs and display the contained information.

Milestones

Documentation:

  • Created and deployed a documentation site detailing usage, guides, troubleshooting, etc.
  • A guide has been added for deploying Blobscan using Kurtosis and Kubernetes.

Web App Upgrades:

  • Enhanced the views for blocks, blob transactions, and blobs by introducing a tabular format to display all elements.
  • Revamped homepage for richer insights.
  • Implemented filtering options for blocks, blob transactions, and blobs using parameters such as block timestamp, rollup, block number range, or slot range.
  • Improved stats view with interactive time series charts and added new metrics: gas expenditure comparison, blob price, blob base and max fee, blob gas usage, etc.
  • Added support for displaying decoded Starknet blobs (all blobs pre-Bolt upgrade). See example here.
  • Refined responsive design for seamless performance on all screen sizes.
  • Added support for easier navigation across transactions by the same sender.
  • Finalized status and reorg badges are now visible for easier tracking of transactions and blobs.
  • Displayed new parameters on top and bottom bar such as current blob gas price and Swarm blob data expiry date

Backend Upgrades:

  • Migrated the indexer to Rust to improve performance, robustness, and reliability.
  • Added support for Google Storage and Eth Swarm as blob data storage layers by creating a service with an auto-propagation mechanism.
  • Added support for filter query params to retrieve blocks, blob transactions and blobs by block timestamp, rollup, block number range, or slot range.

Repository Refinements:

Features Still In The Works

Blob Decoding

  • Add support for Starknet post-Bolt upgrade blobs.
  • Add support for decoding Optimism and OP Stack L2 chain blobs such as: Base, Blast, Boba, DeBank Chain, Metal, Mode, etc.
  • Display decoded blobs directly on our website for easy access.
  • Store the decoded data in a persistent layer for efficient retrieval and storage.
  • Provide access to the decoded data via our API for seamless integration.

Analytics and Metrics

  • Introduce blob analytics based on rollups or categories.
  • Provide access to all these new metrics through our API.

UI Improvements

  • Enable navigation through direct transactions and blobs by sender.
  • Add support for filtering blocks, transactions or blobs by category or multiple rollups.
  • Introduce functionality to allow users to fund blob persistence in Ethereum Swarm.

API Improvements

  • Improve API stability.
  • Enhance API error handling and return more detailed error messages.
  • Enhance API documentation.

Upcoming Features

Broaden Blob Decoding Support

  • Decode blobs from rollups such as: Arbitrum, Scroll, ZKSync, Linea, Paradex, etc.
  • Decode Blobscriptions blobs.

Blob Archiving

  • Add support for other decentralized storage solutions such as Filecoin and Arweave.

General UI Improvements

  • Enhance the address details page by including the first and last block or date when the address sent or received a blob, total blob gas consumption, and total blob base and max fees, among other metrics.
  • Add a blob gas tracker page.
  • Add a new page to display reorged blocks.
  • Improve the feature request tool for better user engagement and issue reporting.

Further Enhance Analytics: Charts & Metrics

  • Support additional time frames for metrics analysis.
  • Improve chart interactivity for a more intuitive user experience.
  • Introduce new metrics and charts by category, rollup, or overall, including blob effective size, blobs-per-block distribution, blob fees in USD, blob size capacity usage, pruned blob data size, blob fees burn, blob gas price min/max values and more.
  • Add ranking leaderboard metrics for deeper insights: top blob submitters, top accounts by gas used, top accounts by blob max fees, etc.

Web Traffic and Engagement Metrics

Over the past 12 months, Blobscan has garnered 24k visitors and a total of 97k page views, reflecting sustained interest in the platform. These metrics indicate an actively engaged user base.

How You Can Help

Your donations will directly fund the continued development of Blobscan’s features, ensuring that Ethereum’s scalability advancements are accessible to everyone. Every contribution helps us build a more scalable, efficient, and user-friendly Ethereum experience.

Thank you for supporting open-source tools that empower the Ethereum community.

Learn More

Blobscan History

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