23 Etherscan Features in 2023
As the saying goes, bear markets allow builders to build. While 2023 had its fair share of distractions in the form of security incidents and infrastructure stress-tests, we’ve managed to continue introducing more features to Etherscan. As we head into an exciting 2024, here’s a wrap of 23 features rolled out last year. How many do you recognize?
- Explorer-as-a-Service (EaaS)
2023 saw more Layer 2 blockchains being deployed to scale Ethereum, offering faster transaction speeds and lower gas fees. These include both Optimistic and Validity rollups.
We helped build out block explorers for these L2 alongside other L1 chains as part of the EaaS product. In total there were 7 new explorers in 2023: Base, Polygon zkEVM, Linea, Scroll, Wemix, Kroma, and opBNB.
2. Shapella Support
When the mainnet Shapella upgrade went live in April, Etherscan quickly followed suit by displaying Beacon Withdrawals:
3. Advanced Filter
In June, we released one of our biggest features, enabling users to filter over 2 billion Ethereum transactions in a simple manner with minimal load time. It allows you to analyze various types of transactions in one single view.
Once you’re happy with a particular set of filters, you can even save and publish them to the community.
4. Code Reader
In a year where AI and ChatGPT are everyone’s new best friends, Etherscan dropped a ChatGPT-powered code reader that helps you interpret the source code of any smart contract.
Exploring Multichain Features
As some of you may have noticed, we’ve taken small steps into helping users explore addresses and contracts across multiple blockchains supported by Etherscan.
5. Multichain Portfolio
For any address on Etherscan, you can now view their total multichain balances with a breakdown of individual chains.
6. Multichain Charts
On Blockscan you can now compare metrics across multiple chains in a single chart, such as daily transactions and active addresses.
A fun anecdote: many chains experienced a spike in daily transactions in December 2023 due to Inscriptions.
7. Similar Contract Search
Devs also get their fair share of multichain goodness! With this feature, devs can easily search for contracts with similar bytecode across all chains with an explorer run by Team Etherscan.
8. Blockscan Chat Mobile App
To facilitate better wallet-to-wallet messaging, we launched a mobile chat app that allows users to chat with any EVM address. Use this to negotiate with the seller of an NFT, connect with new friends you met at an event, or any other interaction you can think of!
You can be rest assured that the person you’re chatting with is the owner of the address as they are required to connect their wallet before being able to chat.
9. IDM
Last year, we brought back Input Data Messages with a facelift to help with reading onchain conversations. Did you also know you can use it to send an onchain message?
User Security Remains A Priority
Last year we’ve seen address poisoning attacks evolve in complexity, and many users have fallen victim to these tactics. To counteract these, we released a number of features aimed at helping minimize the chances of being spoofed. We continue to look for more ways to prevent these attacks in addition to flagging suspicious tokens and addresses.
10. Hide Zero-Value Token Transfers
In April of last year, we decided to hide zero-value token transfers by default. For users who prefer to see all transactions happening onchain with no curation by Etherscan, there is an option to turn it off in Site Settings.
11. Popup Reminder
A popup reminder will appear when users are about to copy an address involved in the transfer of a token with poor or unknown reputation, or in a transaction that originated from an address that is different to the sender of the token.
12. Address Highlight
On top of the above, we also introduced address highlighting and made it the default. As more fake addresses with similar front- and back- characters have been created to spoof users, it has become tedious for users to discern an address relevant to them. This feature highlights other occurrences in a particular page of an address when hovered over.
However, we would like to caution that address poisoning tactics are constantly evolving and attackers are finding new ways to trick users. It’s a constant cat-and-mouse game and ultimately it’s your responsibility to make sure you are copying the correct address you intend to interact with.
Set up a domain name if you can!
13. Improved Domain Name Support
Speaking of domain names, we made it simpler to search for domain names using the search bar.
14. Holesky Testnet Support
In late September, we added support for Holesky, the first long-standing, merged-from-genesis, public Ethereum testnet. Check out the block explorer here: https://holesky.etherscan.io.
Builders, go get your testnet ETH from our faucet on Blockscan Chat 👇
15. Net Transfers
For transactions involving many token transfers to different addresses, the Net Transfers tab offers an aggregated view of the inflow/outflow of a particular token for each address.
16. Etherscan Browser Extension
Are you still keeping an Etherscan tab open just to check gas prices? Do yourself a favor: add this browser extension and enable badge notifications. Never miss out on low gas prices again!
The extension also allows you to quickly search for text from other sites in Etherscan.
17. Redesigned Gas Tracker Page
The Gas Tracker page itself has been redesigned, featuring the new Gas Price Heatmap. Analyze which time of day has the lowest gas price over the last 7 days and plan your transactions accordingly.
18. Metadata API
Builders, have you ever found Etherscan’s Public Name Tags and Labels useful and want to incorporate it into your projects? You can do so by getting the API Pro Plus Plan at https://etherscan.io/apis 🤝
19. Blockscan IDE
View and edit the source code of any verified contract in a VS Code IDE with one single click on chains with an explorer run by team Etherscan ✨
20. Choose Address Display Format
Middle truncation is now the default, allowing users to check the first and last few characters of an address in a single glance.
💡 Pro Tip: For power users, switching to back truncation allows you to quickly find a given address on any page using your browser’s search feature (i.e. CTRL+F or Command+F)
21. Local Time Zones
To turn this option on, simply head to https://etherscan.io/settings and update your preference ⚙️
22. Home Page Custom Cards
Simply plug your favorite Advanced Filter into your Etherscan homepage and see new transactions made that meet the criteria.
23. More Quality of Life Updates ✨
- Search Bar Shortcut — Access the search bar from anywhere on the website by pressing ‘/’ on your keyboard
- More than 2x increase — Private Name Tags and Transaction Private Notes max limits received yet another power up to 5,000 and 10,000 each
- Copy Button for Function Signatures & Lengthy Outputs - We’ve added a copy button to enable copying of function names + method IDs, and lengthy function outputs that are truncated
- Refresh NFT Metadata — Refresh an NFT’s image and metadata
And that’s it! Take this quiz to see how much you know about these features released in 2023 and let us know which features you wish to see this year.
Let’s look forward to a more fruitful 2024 together, cheers! 🎆
