AppChains Latest Update — Chainscanner

Empowering consumers to interact with decentralized apps and their underlying blockchains.

5 min readOct 25, 2022

What would happen if interacting with Web3 and blockchain technology was as simple as browsing the web (and its apps) on your phone or computer? What if looking at the implementation layer (the building blocks) of Web3 no longer required deciphering lines of code — but could be viewed on an easily understandable user interface? With improvements like this, blockchain technology could deliver information and insights to more users without the current technical barriers to entry.

Our latest AppChain feature launch, Chainscanner, provides insights into Web3 and its decentralized applications (dApps) while making them accessible to all consumers, regardless of technical background. Chainscanner is a first-of-its-kind blockchain data platform and is the face of Ankr AppChains, our end-to-end infrastructure solution which creates application-specific blockchains for dApps. Exploring Chainscanner empowers Web3 consumers to look under the hood of Ankr’s AppChains to view all relevant user insights.

Additionally, consumers can participate beyond the application level to truly benefit from the unique aspects of Web3 — such as co-ownership, shared rewards, and democratized decision-making. The new Chainscanner platform allows users and developers to seamlessly interact with app-specific blockchains and complete all crucial tasks.

Why Build Chainscanner?

Just as highways and bridges are the physical infrastructures that allow us to drive, digital infrastructure is what powers the internet applications we use daily. Digital infrastructure (specifically blockchain infrastructure) consists of complex lines of code that power dApps. However, we can share the important insights that blockchain infrastructure provides without showing the actual code and programming languages that built it. This is accomplished by creating UI tools like Chainscanner, which allows both developers and consumers to view and interact with different chains.

Chainscanner provides a simple and understandable user interface over the blockchain infrastructure that powers our AppChain projects. The platform’s purpose is for developers to view the core infrastructure of a blockchain and for dApp consumers to analyze the application’s critical data points and visualize the actions available to them. Interacting with this new feature allows consumers to become truly knowledgeable and involved with their favorite applications. Chainscanner provides the educational experience for Web2 consumers to get comfortable utilizing Web3 dApps. And further, the experience will empower those consumers to go beyond positions as speculative investors and become experienced token/coin holders.

An Essential Building Block for AppChains

We built Chainscanner with the core benefits of Web3 in mind, like transparency, co-ownership, rewards sharing, and democratization of decision-making. The platform combines the following capabilities and packages them in one easy-to-use platform for a drastically improved and streamlined Web3 user experience.

Block explorer — Transparently displays all on-chain data.
Staking interface — Allows users to earn staking rewards with their favorite tokens.
Validator enrollment hub — Provides onboarding to contribute validator nodes.
Governance portal — Lets users vote on app updates and the direction of ecosystems.
Development resource — Offers devs testnet tokens, docs, and resources for building.
Information source — Provides unique insight into the hosted chains and apps.

Web3 Use Cases Now On Chainscanner

The all-in-one platform allows users to explore an ever-expanding ecosystem of new applications and their dedicated blockchains. The below applications are the first to integrate with AppChain Infrastructure. Soon, the Chainscanner platform will host various Web3 use cases on Ankr AppChains, supporting decentralized music, social media, news and insurance applications, and CBDCs. Anyone using Chainscanner can interact with all these dApps to view top stats, earn rewards, vote on app updates (if an owner), and easily see any info related to the chain.

Gaming

Meta Apes

Meta Apes is a viral Web3 game based on the original Age of Apes mobile strategy game and is now one of the most downloaded mobile games in Asia. Chainscanner makes it easy for players to keep tabs on their transactions and participate in things like staking and governance, which makes the Play-To-Earn mechanics more valuable and rewarding.

Finance

BOMB Money

BOMB Money is on a mission to become the safest and largest crypto-staking platform by offering a seamless user experience that is on par with easy-to-use traditional financial apps like Robinhood. Chainscanner will make it easy for BOMB Money users to earn more with the native assets of the BOMB chain while providing a window into all on-chain activity for enhanced transparency and assurance.

All of the blockchains on Chainscanner are powered by Ankr’s AppChain infrastructure, which means their performance is tied to the infrastructure that Ankr provides. Ankrs AppChain Infra builds all of the architecture needs for new AppChains and provides every building block for getting them off the ground. This includes core elements of blockchain infrastructure like validator nodes, block explorers, testnets, and RPC nodes that connect devs and dApps to blockchains. RPC nodes are critical; similar to how emails can’t be sent without an internet connection, dApps can’t be used without an RPC connection to their underlying blockchains.

A New Way To Connect Users With Web3 dApps

Chainscanner provides critical insights for consumers to learn about different chains and decentralized applications — combining CoinMarketCap-like research tools with Etherscan-like functionality (Etherscan is the Ethereum block explorer acting as a search engine that indexes all the transactions on the Ethereum blockchain). Merging the functionality of these two powerful platforms creates an indispensable new tool for dApps to showcase their offerings and attract new communities.

Bridging the Gap Between New Tech & Mass Adoption

History shows us that the most life-altering inventions are initially ridiculed as people fear new technologies that they don’t fully understand. Web3, crypto assets, and blockchain technology, in general, face this challenge today. Ankr’s AppChain Infra, alongside Chainscanner, aims to fix this by providing a user-friendly experience that teaches consumers about dApps while making them easier to use and understand.

Join the conversation on Ankr’s channels!