How to Read Etherscan: A Beginner's Guide
Learn how to use Etherscan to check wallet balances, verify transactions, and investigate smart contracts. Step-by-step for beginners.
Etherscan is the most popular blockchain explorer for Ethereum. It lets anyone view transactions, wallet balances, and smart contract activity on the Ethereum network. Understanding how to read Etherscan is an essential skill for any crypto investor.
Searching for a wallet
Navigate to etherscan.io and paste any Ethereum address (starting with 0x) into the search bar. The result page shows the wallet's ETH balance, the total value in USD, and a list of all transactions. The "Transactions" tab shows standard ETH transfers, while "Internal Txns" shows transfers triggered by smart contracts. "ERC-20 Token Txns" shows all token movements.
Understanding a transaction
Each transaction shows several key fields. The Transaction Hash (Tx Hash) is a unique identifier — click it to see full details. Status shows "Success" or "Fail." From and To show the sender and receiver addresses. Value shows how much ETH was transferred. Transaction Fee shows the gas cost in ETH and its GBP/USD equivalent.
Gas and fees
The "Gas Price" field shows what rate was paid in Gwei. "Gas Limit" is the maximum gas units the sender was willing to use, and "Gas Used" is what was actually consumed. For a simple ETH transfer, gas used is always 21,000. Smart contract interactions use more — a Uniswap swap might use 150,000–300,000 gas units.
Checking token balances
The "Token Holdings" dropdown on any wallet page shows all ERC-20 tokens held. This is useful for verifying that a token transfer actually arrived, checking the holdings of whale wallets, or researching which tokens a smart contract holds.
Verifying smart contracts
Etherscan allows developers to verify and publish their smart contract source code. On any contract address, the "Contract" tab shows whether the code is verified. Verified contracts are more trustworthy because anyone can read the code. Unverified contracts are a red flag — you cannot see what the code actually does.
Beyond Etherscan
Other chains have their own explorers — BscScan for BSC, PolygonScan for Polygon, Solscan for Solana. They all work similarly. CryptoLens scans across 8 chains simultaneously, saving you the trouble of checking each explorer individually.
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