Blockscout Release Notes: Features and Improvements

Blockscout v7.0 is coming soon to an explorer near you... in the meantime we rolled out some needed improvements in our backend v6.10.0 and frontend v1.37.0 releases. Included below are some highlights from these recent releases.

Backend v6.10.0

🚀 New Functionality

The block explorer evolves alongside the blockchain, and these new features cover the expanding chain ecosystem.

• Multichain Search DB: Blockscout has started phase 1 of our multichain explorer which will provide full search coverage for some of the most popular chains. We are importing data into a new DB for this purpose, and we added functionality for batch importing data and backfilling the multichain search database. Next we'll be working on frontend features to support the DB. #11139
• Stylus contract verification: Stylus is an upgrade to the Arbitrum Nitro stack (powering Arbitrum One, Arbitrum Nova, and Arbitrum Orbit chains), and Stylus contracts allow developers to write smart contracts in languages like C++ and Rust that compile to WebAssembly (WASM). Stylus contracts are faster than Solidity smart contracts, have lower gas fees, and are fully interoperable with Solidity. This update added Stylus verification to the Blockscout smart contract verification microservice along with new fields and variables to support Stylus contracts. #11183
• Gas price base fee: New chains continue to launch daily, some with few transactions at the start. Without enough retrospective data to set an accurate gas price base fee, newer chains or low-volume chains were without a gas tracker on their instances. We updated our functionality to display a standard base fee value on chains without much transaction volume. #11132

👷🏼Safety and Robustness

Redundancy, backups, and fallbacks are vital when dealing with blockchain infrastructure. We added several features designed to increase Blockscout's robustness when issues arise.

• Multiple JSON RPCs: Relying on a single RPC is efficient until it suddenly goes down. In this update we introduced an option to specify JSON RPC urls as a list. Each JSON RPC request then picks a random url from this list. If a primary JSON RPC url is unavailable, it is disabled until it becomes available again. If all primary urls in a group are unavailable, fallback RPCs are used. #10934
• Auto DB request switching: To maximize resources, Blockscout uses replicas to handle API calls while the primary instance handles indexing and fetching. This upgrade provides a redundancy feature, whereby requests automatically shift to the master DB if the replica is not responding. #11020

🚄 Optimizations

Small optimizations add up to large resource and time savings. This latest upgrade provided optimizations across the board for a variety of tasks.

• Advanced Filters: Improved query performance for both internal and standard transactions related to advanced filters. The filtering logic for addresses was restructured into separate optimized queries, which were then combined using database union and intersect operations. #11186
• Token imports: Improved filtering and handling of token updates during bulk imports. #11389
• Transaction interpreter Improved request speed for transaction summaries by checking for cached summary data first. #11279
• Data compression Provided the option to use gzip encoding for instances wanting to maximize data resources (with slower indexing). #11292
• Static content (images) Functionality for image fetching, resizing and uploading to a CDN for static storage. When called, the API returns optimized resized images for faster loading time in the explorer. This feature can be enabled by self-hosted chains. #10675

Frontend v1.37.0

This frontend release featured several standalone pages along with functionality supporting the backend updates above. Additional updates added new views and personality to the explorer.

• Advanced filter view: This new page provides the ability to filter and display transaction details in a number of ways (by transfer type, token type, timestamp, contract method etc). CSV exports for filtered data will be available in the next release, providing a useful tool for tax preparation and other blockchain documentation needs. #1905
  💡 Try it here -> https://eth.blockscout.com/advanced-filter
• Pools page: This update added the DEX tracker page and pool pages to Blockscout via an integration with GeckoTerminal. The pools page displays a list of token pairs traded on popular DEXs, and details are available for each pair along with links to the pool in GeckoTerminal. #2426
  💡 Try it here -> https://eth.blockscout.com/pools
• Custom block ordering: Along with value and fees, you can now change the ascending - descending order of blocks when viewing transactions for a particular address. #2387

• Dappscout sort by ratings: A new sort feature allows you to sort DApps by most rated in addition to sorting by top rated and security score. #2415
• Capybara runner game: The Capybara runner game is a fun addition to the block explorer when landing on a non-existent block page. Jump over flowers and cactus in a game reminiscent of a certain search engine dyno game, and receive a prize for a score of 1000+. #2315

• Nouns identicon: An option to select a Nouns PFP as the address icon is now available in the Settings dropdown. #2447

Project Specific

Blockscout supports EVM chains and rollups across the board, and many of our newer features are custom improvements designed for specific ecosystems. In these updates we added various features and functionality for several blockchain heavyweights.

• Filecoin: Filecoin has five different address classes which encode different types of information. We added filecoin robust addresses to proxy implementations in this update. #11102
• Optimism: The Optimism Holocene Upgrade introduces EIP-1559 configurability, requiring several changes on the block explorer side to account for gas target % and the gas price oracle. We implemented handling for these changes (v6.10.1) #11355. On the frontend side (unrelated update), a flag was added to enable/disable the "Output roots" page for Optimism-based chains. #2414
• Arbitrum: In addition to Stylus contract verification mentioned above (#11183), this upgrade brought support for L2-to-L1 messaging on the backend. Future UI updates will provide claiming functionality for withdrawals within the explorer. #10804 . We also added the ability to customize L1 transaction status labels for Arbitrum-based chains to account for different parent chain names. #2414
• Scroll: Frontend updates were added to support Scroll rollups with new transaction fields related to L1 gas parameters and batches. New fields on the transaction page, a batches view and batch page, and views for deposits (L1→L2) and withdrawals (L2→L1) were added. #2418
• Celo Celo validators need the ability to export epoch transaction data via CSV. This feature is crucial for calculating earnings for validator participation, and was added to the latest version of Blockscout in this update. #11195
• Zilliqa: Scilla (Smart Contract Intermediate-Level Language) is the native smart contract language of the Zilliqa blockchain. Support for Scilla transactions and smart contracts was added to the Blockscout backend. #11069. New modules were also introduced to process Zilliqa consensus data. #10699. Frontend updates supported views for this consensus data along with Scilla transactions and logs #2375.

✅ What's Next?

Our team is continuously working on improving Blockscout and v7.0.0 will feature some major improvements to the product, notably around adding some key new indexes and removing unnecessary ones. We plan to release in Q1, so keep your 👀 out!

Thanks once again to our community for their ongoing support and feedback. These releases featured PRs from 6 new community contributors!

📣 A big shout out to...

BE first-time contributors

• @kustrun made their first contribution in #11202
• @defitricks made their first contribution in #11298
• @pucedoteth made their first contribution in #11352
• @EvgenKor made their first contribution in #10804

FE first-time contributors

• @Danyylka made their first contribution in #2432
• @MaxMustermann2 made their first contribution in #2466

Community input is invaluable in shaping Blockscout's evolution. We encourage you to explore these new features and share your experiences with us.