Blockscout unveils a full-featured explorer for the Filecoin ecosystem
Over the past eight months, Blockscout and the Filecoin ecosystem have worked closely to build, customize, and rollout a full-featured Filecoin Virtual Machine (FVM) explorer.
We’re excited to announce the explorer is now LIVE and available for use at https://filecoin.blockscout.com/
Transaction data accessibility and transparency have arrived for the FVM. The blockchain scanner offers faster indexing, comprehensive search, and views for transactions, receipts, addresses, and metadata.
Built as a first-class explorer to support developers, the FVM explorer also provides advanced contract (actor) interaction capabilities, robust APIs, access to logs, and complete internal transaction views.
While the explorer interface is familiar, providing the same functionality and frontend features users expect, the underlying architecture has been calibrated to support the unique Filecoin environment. In fact, the explorer development process began in 2023!
Following the successful nv21 Filecoin mainnet update in December of 2023, Blockscout set up an archival Lotus node for the Filecoin EVM. At first, indexing was slow going for no obvious reasons. Fortunately, both teams were aligned on improving the process, and several working sessions later, the issues contributing to bottlenecks were identified along with concrete steps to address them.
These technical sessions led to various refinements in how Blockscout queries and backfills data, and also led to improvements in the Lotus implementation resulting in better parameter encoding and gas limit displays. While the process was not as straightforward with Filecoin’s unique protocol for decentralized storage, the results were well worth it!
This kind of collaboration is only possible when both teams are willing to commit to small refinements that collectively result in larger performance gains. It requires a deep dive into the architecture, cooperation, trust, and patience to complete the process over time.
“Working with Filecoin on their explorer has been an extremely rewarding experience,” said Ulyana Skladchikova, Product Lead at BlockScout. “It’s been fantastic collaborating with a team that shares BlockScout’s commitment to performance optimization, transparency, and supporting developers.”
The Filecoin VM represents a new explorer standard for speed in RPC data indexing and advanced developer tooling, and Blockscout is now added to the Filecoin docs as a powerful new explorer for the ecosystem. We are excited to continue development in the months to come, adding additional features as they are requested by users and developers on the Filecoin network.
Explore the Filecoin Virtual Machine with Blockscout
About Filecoin
Filecoin is the world’s largest decentralized storage network allowing users to store, request, and transfer data via a verifiable marketplace. Filecoin is completely open-source, enabling people from all over the world to participate. Filecoin’s advanced technology provides a robust foundation to store the world’s most valuable data sets. An alternative to costly cloud storage, the Filecoin network offers efficiently priced and geographically decentralized storage, minimizing financial barriers and allowing users to take advantage of its unmatched network capabilities.
For more information, follow Filecoin on X or visit filecoin.io
About Blockscout
Blockscout is the #1 open-source block explorer available for all EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) based chains. Live on 1000+ networks, Blockscout is a robust scanner for searching blocks, transactions, token, account and addresses. Advanced tooling for developers includes smart contract verification and read/write functionality and access to a suite of optimized APIs. The new DAppscout marketplace built into Blockscout offers a secure environment for decentralized app discovery, exploration, and interaction.
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