How to View Crypto Transaction History: 2024 Guide

Why Trust Techopedia

Crypto blockchains are designed to enforce transparency by default.

By making cryptocurrency transaction data available to the public, blockchain technology is revolutionizing the finance industry and promoting accessibility, tamper resistance, and trustlessness.

As a crypto user or investor, you can use blockchain transparency to your advantage by learning how to view crypto transaction history.

Key Takeaways

  • Real-time crypto transaction data is available to anyone with a mobile device and an Internet connection.
  • Crypto transaction history may not be made publicly available for private blockchains.
  • The best place to view crypto transaction history is on blockchain explorer websites.
  • You can use filters on blockchain explorers to refine their crypto transaction history search results.
  • Full nodes are devices that store a copy of the entire crypto transaction history and keep the data updated when new blocks are added.

What is Crypto Transaction History?

Crypto transaction history refers to the record of every transaction on a blockchain network.

On public blockchains like Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH), real-time transaction data is available to anyone with a mobile device and an Internet connection.

The transparency provided by public blockchains is one of its biggest value propositions. Openness and accessibility to transaction data allow anyone to verify transactions, track stolen funds, and conduct investment research.

It should be noted that crypto transaction history may not be made publicly available for private blockchains.

Where to View Crypto Transactions History

The best place to view crypto transaction history is on blockchain explorer websites such as Etherscan, BTCscan, and Solscan.

A blockchain explorer is an online platform that compiles and labels on-chain data and makes it readily available to the public in real time.

Users can view publicly available crypto information such as:

Each crypto network has its blockchain explorer website.

Here are the names of some of the most popular blockchain explorers in the world for tracking crypto transactions:

Crypto Network Blockchain Explorer
Bitcoin BTCscan
Ethereum Etherscan
BNB Chain BscScan
Solana Solscan
XRP XRPSCAN
Dogecoin Dogecoin Explorer
Tron TRONSCAN
Toncoin TON Scan

Technical Terms to Understand Blockchain Transaction History

It is crucial to understand technical crypto terms in order to effectively track and verify crypto and blockchain transactions.

Let’s go through them one by one:

Transaction hash
Transaction hash is a unique alphanumeric identifier that is generated for each transaction.
Status
The status of a transaction is reflected as pending, success, failed, dropped, and replaced.
Block
The block number tells users the exact number of blocks the transaction is included in.
Timestamp
Timestamp is the exact time that a transaction’s block was included in the blockchain ledger.
From
Sender’s address.
To
Recipient’s address.
Value
Amount of cryptocurrency included in the transaction.
Transaction fee
Gas fees paid during the transaction.
Gas price
Exact amount of gas fees paid during the transaction.

Burnt & savings fees
Amount of crypto burned during the transaction and amount of fees saved by the user out of the total amount the user was willing to pay.

How to View Crypto Transactions History on a Blockchain Explorer

In our guide on how to view blockchain transactions, we will take the example of Ethereum blockchain explorer Etherscan.

In the steps below, you will learn how to track crypto transactions and wallet history on Etherscan:

  1. Visit Etherscan’s official website.
  2. In the search bar, type the wallet address that you want to investigate.
  3. The search will take you to a page with all the on-chain information about the wallet address. You will information about the wallet’s crypto balance, token holdings, latest transactions, and more.
  4. Let’s say you want to check if the latest transaction has been successfully finalized. Under the “Transactions” bar, you will find all the crypto transactions and events associated with the wallet address.

  5. Select the transaction you want to verify under “Transaction hash.”
  6. On the next page, you will find the status of the transaction. If the status is “Success” it means that the transaction has been included in a block and added to the blockchain ledger.
  7. You will also find additional transaction information such as the timestamp, sender’s address, recipient address, transfer value, and gas fees.

Using Advanced Filters When Checking Blockchain Transactions

You can use filters on blockchain explorers to refine their crypto transaction history search results to perform targeted investigations and analysis.

On blockchain explorers like Etherscan, you can filter search results based on the following filters:

Transaction type
You can filter search results based on the type of transactions and token standards.

For example, selecting “txns” will show you token transfers from one wallet to another, while selecting “Internal Txns” will show you transactions triggered by smart contracts.

Method
The method allows you to filter your search according to the function used to execute a transaction. For example, you can select “Mint” to filter token minting transactions and “swap” to filter token swaps conducted on decentralized exchanges.
Age
Age allows you to filter transactions based on timeframes.
From and To
You can use “From” and “To” to include or exclude specific wallet addresses that received or sent tokens.
Amount
You can filter transactions based on the amount of crypto transferred. This filter is useful when analyzing high-value transactions.
Asset
Asset allows you to filter transactions involving a specific cryptocurrency.

Downloading Blockchain Transaction History

You can view crypto transaction histories by downloading a copy of the blockchain to your device. However, this method is not recommended because downloading an entire blockchain will require a substantial amount of free disk space.

Furthermore, as the blockchain grows your transaction data and crypto wallet history becomes outdated. If you want to proceed with this method, we recommend running a full node instead. Full nodes are devices or programs that store a copy of the entire crypto transaction history and keep the data updated when new blocks are added.

More importantly, full nodes validate and accept transactions and blocks. Therefore, full nodes are crucial to the decentralization, censorship resistance, and security of a crypto blockchain.

Having more full nodes keeps a crypto network more decentralized.

Note that running a full node will not earn you any crypto rewards (like mining or validating).

How to Use Alternative Solutions to View Transaction History?

You can use alternative solutions to blockchain explorers to check crypto transactions.

For example, Bubblemaps is a popular token analysis platform that makes it easy for users to understand complex blockchain data. Unlike blockchain explorer websites, Bubblemaps is designed to allow anyone to analyze on-chain data by providing easy labels and interactive visuals.

In contrast, technical difficulties and poor user interface make it difficult for beginners to use blockchain explorers as a crypto transaction tracker tool.

Other alternative platforms to view crypto transaction histories are Spot On Chain, Nansen, and DEX Screener.

The Bottom Line

Learning how to view and analyze crypto transaction history can take you a long way as a crypto user and an investor.

Easy-to-use on-chain data compilers like Bubblemaps and DEXscreener are a great place to start your journey in performing on-chain transaction analysis.

You can later step up to use blockchain explorers for market research, token monitoring, and stolen funds investigation.

FAQs

How to check crypto transaction history?

Can I track my stolen crypto?

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How to keep track of crypto for taxes?

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Mensholong Lepcha
Crypto Specialist
Mensholong Lepcha
Crypto Specialist

Mensholong is a experienced crypto and blockchain journalist, now a full-time writer at Techopedia. He has contributed with news coverage and in-depth market analysis to Capital.com, StockTwits, XBO, and other publications. He began his writing career at Reuters in 2017, covering global equity markets. In his spare time, Mensholong enjoys watching soccer, finding new music, and buying BTC and ETH for his crypto portfolio.