Blockscout News: December 2023
Thank you fellow explorers for a great year ☃️!
2023 has been full of major milestones for the Blockscout team and community. We've helped deploy new instances across the ecosystem, reimagined the block explorer user experience, and added a ton of new features to Blockscout, helping make it the #1 open-source decentralized explorer available today. Thanks to your support, Blockscout is now deployed on more than 600 chains! Below are a few highlights from a busy EOY.
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New December Releases
Blockscout Frontend
Blockscout's UI continues to evolve with several frontend releases this month. These include NFT view updates, improvements to the DAppscout marketplace, standalone contract verification pages (supporting 7 verification methods!), a new Dim 🌚 mode, and many optimization improvements.
Blockscout Backend
A fresh backend release introduced BENS, the new Blockscout ENS service. This Rust microservice provides indexed data of domain name services for Blockscout instances. A new major update is coming soon which will provide full compatibility with EIP-4844 chains among other updates.
Setup and Migration Guide
We've updated our deployment docs to include an all-in-one solution for projects looking to install Blockscout. We also have a migration guide for projects using the old Blockscout UI, including a compatibility matrix for FE/BE versions. We encourage all projects to update to the latest UI version and take advantage of new features coming in 2024!
Security Focus
Safety and security in web3 is more important than ever. Users must remain ever vigilant, and Blockscout continues its efforts to guard against hacks, scams, bad actors, and theft.
- Proactive Mitigation: On December 14, a major security incident with Ledger impacted WalletConnect (WC) functionality across the ecosystem. As the events unfolded, Blockscout sent out an advisory warning with instructions, contacted projects, and paused wallet connect functionality on hosted instances out of an abundance of caution. Fortunately, Blockscout users were not effected by the breach (Blockscout did not use the exploited WC version) and full functionality was quickly restored. WalletConnect 3 will be integrated into future Blockscout releases.
- Smart Contract Safety: This month, an integration with SolidityScan gives users security details and info about verified smart contracts in Blockscout. A safety score is generated on all supported instances to provide additional information regarding on-chain contracts. All projects should verify their contracts as an initial safety step.
- Info and Public Tagging: Blockscout offers basic project info directly in the smart search dropdown as well as on the address page. You can see if a project has (1) verified information such as project links and a pubic listing on CoinMarketCap or CoinGecko, and (2) that the contract is verified. We are also working to bring in additional 3rd party metadata, and encourage users to submit public tags for contracts and addresses to help provide vital information for the community.
DAppscout updates
The DAppscout marketplace is moving full steam ahead 🚀 including a new deployment on the Ethereum mainnet Blockscout instance! The best place to acquaint yourself with all the new features is in our latest X recap thread.
New features include:
- Universal Wallet Login: Login once to interact with all DApps in the marketplace.
- Nested Display: DApps are searchable and displayed directly in the Blockscout interface.
- IPFS Hosting: Decentralized hosting for DAppscout DApps.
- Link Referrals: Blockscout links earn ad rewards.
1/7 🚀 DAppscout Marketplace #Recap 🎉
— Blockscout (@blockscoutcom) December 26, 2023
Blockscout has developed a marketplace to bring the relationship between users and applications closer together.
Let’s check out some features that are currently live!https://t.co/AJU1IsbK2a
If your project is eager to participate and be listed in our expanding DAppscout marketplace directory, you can fill in your info and get listed now!
Featured DAppscout DApp
Base Name Service (BNS) is Blockscout's featured DApp for December. BNS is a native naming service built on Base. BNS maps human readable names like “bob.base” to crypto wallet addresses, AA addresses, decentralized webs, hashes, and metadata.
BNS is offering a limited-time discount code for Blockscout users - SAVE 60% OFF off when you register your base name today and use the discount code weloveblockscout.
Project Updates
ETC Grants DAO
The ETC Grants DAO provides funding for projects working to invigorate the Ethereum Classic ecosystem. Blockscout was the recipient of a grant in the first round of funding in August to update and host the Ethereum Classic instance at https://etc.blockscout.com/. The final grant payment was issued this month for a successful deployment. Thank you ETC Grants DAO for your support 🎉!
Astar UI is Live
We are excited to unveil the new Blockscout UI for Astar, including the advanced statistics module, APIs, and contract verification module. Visit the new instance at https://astar.blockscout.com/
Tenderly's EVM Network Landscape Report
If you haven't had a chance to checkout Tenderly's comprehensive report, carve out some time (it's over 50 pages!!) to learn about everything happening in the EVM landscape. This report features includes insights about the leading ecosystem networks and tooling that supports those networks, including Blockscout.
Tenderly
Blockscout's quote from the report
"Deploying a blockchain has never been easier. We’re seeing exciting new chains pop up daily - gaming chains, institutional rollups, finance-focused chains - the list goes on. To serve this expanding ecosystem, we need transparent, cross-chain tools to tie everything together and create a consistent developer experience. Developers shouldn’t be spending time learning new tools for every new chain, they should be using the tools they know and trust to create the next killer app.”
❄️ Thank you!
Thanks again friends for your support of Blockscout and Happy Holidays! We are looking forward to BIG THINGS IN 2024, and are excited to have you with us on the journey.
The Blockscout monthly newsletter goes out to all MyAccount community users on supported chains. We hope you find it informative, and would love to get your feedback on topics you'd like to see covered or any questions you have. Visit us on X or Discord to get your explorer questions answered or get your project added to our growing network list ⬇️
