makevoid / explorer

Blockchain Block explorer in ruby using Bitcoin Core's RPC API (status: MVP)

Blockchain Explorer

(BTC, LTC, DOGE etc. compatible)

Based off the Bitcoin Core JSON RPC API.

It uses bitcoin's default JSON RPC API, meaning that you need bitcoind / bitcoin-qt running in background with txindex=1 enabled, the explorer will use the data directly from the index, no extra index is added.

Prerequisites

• redis
• bitcoin-core (btc, bch, ltc, doge, etc...)

API

This project includes also an API:

API_PATH: http://explorer.example.com/api/

GET /blocks/:block_number

Retrieves block info including all the following fields: block, hash, confirmations, size, height, version, versionHex, merkleroot, time, mediantime, nonce, bits, difficulty, chainwork, nextblockhash

Plus on tx you will get an array containing all the transaction hashes of the transactions included in the block

Few examples:

Genesis block: http://explorer.example.com/api/blocks/0

Pre-fork block: http://explorer.example.com/api/blocks/556765

GET /blocks_latest_num

Gets the latest block number, sample response:

  "block_num": 556766
}

GET /txs/:tx_id

Gets all the information contained in a transaction such as: txid, hash, size, version, locktime and then all the inputs (vin) and outputs (vout).

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Local Development Setup

Install Dependencies

bundle

Run

bundle exec rackup

or

rackup

Docker

Build locally:

docker-compose up --build

or, get it from dockerhub:

URL: https://hub.docker.com/r/makevoid/explorer

docker pull makevoid/explorer

docker run -e

Bitcoin Core configuration (bitcoind / bitcoin-qt) (valid for BTC bitcoind, Bitcoin "Core" ABC, Bitcoin "Core" SV)

This is a sample ~/.bitcoin/bitcoin.conf to make sure this explorer can connect and get all the infos from your bitcoind / bitcoin-qt whatever chain is on.

txindex=1
rpcuser=bitcoinrpc
rpcpassword=YOUR_PASSWORD
rpcallowip=YOUR_IP

rpcallowip is used to whitelist IPs, you can have multiple lines for rpcallowip (for example if you have multiple application servers for high/availabilty or horizontal scaling)

Note that for a recent version of BTC bitcoind/bitcoin-qt (bitcoin core) you will need to use rpcauth instead of rpcuser/rcppassword.