# A Crash Course on Etherscan By [choom](https://paragraph.com/@choom) · 2022-01-19 --- _Made for the Perpvangelists - relevant to anyone!_ [Etherscan](https://etherscan.io/) is a blockchain explorer for EVM-based chains (which means there’s an Etherscan equivalent for [arbitrum](https://arbiscan.io/), [optimism](https://optimistic.etherscan.io/), [fantom](https://ftmscan.com/), [avalanche](https://snowtrace.io/), and others!). It’s an incredibly useful analytical tool for any web3 adventurer and acts as an interface to data contained on the blockchain, presenting it in an easy to view/search format. Our task is to be able to: * Search and view a wallet’s address and balance * Learn the important details of an addresses page (are they a real person?) * View a transaction and figure out what’s going on * Viewing a wallet in Zapper ### Searching for a wallet On [Etherscan.io](http://etherscan.io), search for the address by inputting into the address into the search dialog: `0x2Ad4Dc274b0965B24C6136b19DeC569aA628D8ab` ![Search field on the homepage](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/dabcf522e92ae6b680921d439e373f2433e62f1927c3850640fb7f67846c4123.png) Search field on the homepage You can also search for a user’s ENS (Ethereum naming service) as well: ![ENS search](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/c80c09bc894e5aca67eac135e08e48d41c8b9ce587652ec2dde4c21f4cec1506.png) ENS search This will return an intermediary screen: ![ENS Controller and Registrant](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/a95bdc2e95ec929b607effcf72a7a9a6523b516afb2ad78a51726d5af704acb7.png) ENS Controller and Registrant I won’t go too much into detail on what these mean (essentially you can have your ENS direct to another user’s address). But typically the controller address is the page you’re looking for when searching for an ENS. ### The accounts balance After searching for the address, you’ll find yourself on the addresses page. At the top of the page, you’ll be presented with the user’s ETH balance and token holdings ![Balance in ETH, Value in $ at current ETH price, and list of tokens (ERC-20 tokens, ERC-721 NFTs, ERC-1155 NFTs)](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/b9c7fa1888600f393b81055ef1895ae238019d98a932417d7a66040603ddc7c0.png) Balance in ETH, Value in $ at current ETH price, and list of tokens (ERC-20 tokens, ERC-721 NFTs, ERC-1155 NFTs) ### Viewing a transaction and figuring out what’s going on Underneath this is where all the interesting information lies: ![Latest 25 transactions from the user's transactions](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/b836a94cd589a3b7a9ab830712e418f4dd53db53e8a661b02131d5bda1f263de.png) Latest 25 transactions from the user's transactions Transactions include any events that a user makes on the blockchain (excluding ERC20/ERC721/1155 transfers, as shown in their respective section at the top). By default, Etherscan will show us the latest 25 transactions, but we can click on the hyperlinked “181” to view all of the transactions the user has made. From left-to-right: * **Txn Hash** - the hashed signature of the transaction * **Method** - this is the method call that you make when calling a smart contract - from the transactions above, we can see that (from bottom-up): * `Transfer`: 0.9569 ETH has been transferred from another address **IN** to the wallet of the current user * `Swap ETH for Exact`: The user has swapped 0.91 ETH for another token via Sushiswap * `Approve` The user has approved a token for use on a smart contract * `Stake`: The user has staked a token via a smart contract * **Block** - this is the block in which the transaction was mined * **Age:** How long ago from present did the transaction occur * **From**: unless this is an **IN** transaction, this is usually the user’s address * **To**: this is typically the smart contract they’re interacting with, or if it’s a transfer event, the wallet that the user is transferring to * **Value**: This is the total of ETH being used in the transaction (excluding gas fees). If ETH is not being used, then this the value is 0 Clicking on a transaction hash will give you some more detail on what events are occurring in the transaction (as well as insight into gas, which is a whole other topic for another post!). ### Finding out how a wallet was funded ![Latest 25 Tx's](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/6758ed0b39d3d4bd778574bf2ea30acbac86568574e78824341232f58586efa8.png) Latest 25 Tx's After clicking on 181, you’ll be able to view the full list of transactions for an address. Head to the last page and look at the bottom transaction - this will usually be an inbound transfer of ETH: ![Inbound transfer of 0.025 ETH](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/e9e29a1db027d052c6e1342b4858cd13940ddb5eb487161b3fc4de19a33056d4.png) Inbound transfer of 0.025 ETH By clicking the from address, you can trace the ETH, repeat the process and find the source address. One example of how Etherscan can be pretty cool! :D ### Using Zapper! [Zapper](https://zapper.fi/) is a pretty neat dashboard which lets you view the total sum of assets, liquidity positions and loans/debt - all across multiple chains! (_note: recent tokens might be supported)_ This is a useful tool in case someone doesn’t use Ethereum (and their Etherscan page may appear vacant!), you can type their address into Zapper and check to see which chain they’re active on. Head on over to [Zapper.fi](https://zapper.fi/), search the address at the top and you can see a breakdown of their assets, as well as which blockchain they have assets on: ![Breakdown of a user's holdings across multiple chains!](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/3b7b401856d66416d0e4416622b0f7cff3f30c07276afbf8887ba1898a7f0dee.png) Breakdown of a user's holdings across multiple chains! Each of these chains also has their respective blockchain explorer (similar to Etherscan), but sometimes checking the address on each one is a pain! So this might be where zapper helps. And that’s pretty much it! hopefully this illustrates the basics on navigating through the blockchain using Etherscan. The cool thing is the layout is pretty much the same for Polyscan, optimistic etherscan, bscscan, etc. So everything here can be applied to those explorers too! If you made it this far, thanks for reading! If the information here proves useful, I’ll do a deep-dive onto how to calculate gas for transactions and other tips/guides! --- *Originally published on [choom](https://paragraph.com/@choom/a-crash-course-on-etherscan)*