What is Block explorer?
A web tool for inspecting blocks, transactions, addresses and mempool state.
Explorers make the public ledger legible: you can verify that a payment was broadcast, see its fee rate, and watch its confirmation depth.
An explorer is a convenience layer, not an authority. It reports one operator's view of the network, and using one to check your own transactions means trusting their node instead of running yours.
Related terms
Node
A computer running Bitcoin software that independently validates every block and transaction against the…
Transactions & feesMempool
The set of valid transactions a node has seen but that are not yet in a block — the queue competing for block…
How it worksConfirmation
A block containing your transaction. Each subsequent block adds another, making reversal exponentially more…
How it worksTransaction
A signed instruction consuming one or more UTXOs and creating new ones. Once confirmed it cannot be reversed.
This definition is part of the Bitcoin Logical glossary. For the fuller explanation, start with Learn, or see the live numbers on The Bitcoin Signal.