Exploring Blockchain Data

Overview

Query and analyze blockchain data across multiple EVM-compatible networks including Ethereum, Polygon, Arbitrum, Optimism, and BSC. Supports transaction lookups, address balance checks, block inspection, token balance queries, transaction history retrieval, and whale wallet tracking via a unified CLI.

Prerequisites

• Python 3.8+ with requests and web3 libraries installed (pip install requests web3)
• Etherscan API key (free tier provides 5 requests/second; set via ETHERSCAN_API_KEY environment variable)
• Optional: API keys for Polygonscan, Arbiscan, and other chain-specific explorers for higher rate limits
• blockchain_explorer.py CLI script, chain_client.py, and token_resolver.py modules available in the plugin directory
• RPC endpoint access (public endpoints work; dedicated providers like Alchemy, Infura, Chainstack, or QuickNode recommended for reliability)

Instructions

1. Set the Etherscan API key as an environment variable: export ETHERSCAN_API_KEY=<key> to unlock higher rate limits beyond the default 5 requests/second.
2. Run python blockchain_explorer.py tx <hash> to look up a transaction by hash, returning status, block number, from/to addresses, value transferred, and gas details.
3. Append --detailed to the transaction query to decode the function call, identify the interacting protocol, and display input parameters.
4. Specify --chain polygon, --chain arbitrum, or --chain bsc to query transactions on alternative EVM chains when the hash is not found on Ethereum.