In-depth blockchain explorer (III): Transactions

We teach you how to find all the information you are looking for about transactions on the Bitcoin blockchain using the Bit2Me Explorer.

EIn this third article dedicated to understanding the block explorer we are going to talk about blockchain transactions. It will help you whenever you make a transaction on the network, check its status, know how to interpret its status and the information that a browser shows you as Bit2Me Explorer.

Bitcoin transactions

It is likely that after reading our Bitcoin guide you already know that every transaction made on the network is stored on the blockchain. Refreshing the memory a little, at the moment you want to send bitcoins to anyone, you will be making a transaction with the following procedure:

Let's imagine we want to send 0.5 BTC to a friend. First of all, your wallet selects a number of bitcoins from all the previous outputs you have received in your wallet. In your wallet you had 1 BTC that you received in a single transaction. Your wallet will select that bitcoin received and incorporate it as a new entry in the shipment you are about to make. So 0.5 BTC will be the output that your friend will receive and can use as input in new transactions and, 0.5 BTC more will also be cataloged as output remaining in one direction of your wallet.

As you can see, any transaction made in a block of the Bitcoin network is much more than a simple exchange of assets between two people. Each transaction carries with it information that we can consult from our wallet (in case it incorporates said functionality) or by entering the transaction ID in a block explorer.

Now that we have refreshed our memory with the process followed in a transaction, what technical details can we extract from any transaction?

Transactions in Bit2Me Explorer Block Explorer

Following the usual methodology, we will use transactions present in the address that received the first block of the network or genesis block. In this case:

Address: 1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfNa

RIPEMD-160 hash: 62e907b15cbf27d5425399ebf6f0fb50ebb88f18

This address currently has 1.967 transactions to date, that people may have done as a curiosity. Or to add a message in the transaction and reserve a bit of Bitcoin's history, as it is one of the first Bitcoin addresses.

If we click on the link present in any transaction identifier, we will access the information page of a specific transaction. Let's look for example at the details of the first link.

As you can see, its appearance is the same as the pages described in previous articles, but with slight variations in the content shown. We are going to separate this information into sections in order to make a simpler and more understandable explanation of all the resources.

Summary of a Bitcoin transaction in Bit2Me Explorer

In the first column of information we can find a generic summary of the information of the blockchain transactions. In our example we have the following data:

1. Transaction value: total bitcoin transaction that you want to carry out.
2. Confirmations: as of the emission of a transaction in the network and of being included in a block, each new mined block will suppose a confirmation. It is recommended that whenever we make a shipment we wait for you to receive more than 6 confirmations to be able to say that the payment has been made correctly. This transaction has 11 confirmations at the time of illustration.
3. Height: As we saw in the Blocks section, it refers to the position of the block within the blockchain. Here the number 616.732 represents the block number on the network.
4. Receiving time- Indicates the date and time that the network received the transaction.
5. Blocking time: the time in which the time stamp of a block can be so that the nodes. continue to accept blocks. This is necessary because not all node clocks are synchronized worldwide.

In the second column of information we can see the following summary of the transaction:

1. Total entries: number of bitcoins selected in order to successfully complete the transaction.
2. Total outputs: total entry minus transaction fees.
3. Mining rate- Bitcoin cents that vary based on the priority with which the issuer wants the transaction to be added to a new block.
4. Confirmation date: indicates the date and time the transaction was confirmed on the network.
5. Size: The size in bytes that the transaction occupies within a block.

After understanding all the parts that make up the transactions and how they are displayed in Bit2Me Explorer, you are already in control of this block explorer.