Band Protocol Announces Release of CosmoScan An Open-Source Cosmos Block Explorer

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Band Protocol

5 min readMay 22, 2020

🚀 Band Protocol is excited to launch CosmoScan, a new public block explorer that is fully compatible with the latest version of the Cosmos-SDK to power the next generation of interoperable blockchain platforms. All code and instructions are 100% open-source allowing any blockchain built on top of Cosmos to use the block explorer built on a cutting-edge technology stack completely free!

Why Another Block Explorer?

High-quality block explorers, such as Etherscan for Ethereum, are a critical component of every blockchain ecosystem that provides visibility into transaction status, historical data, fees, overall performance, and on-chain statistics.

When Band Protocol started working on Cosmos in late 2019, we found that high-quality block explorers are often closed source and under a restrictive paywall, which is a step backward for the decentralized ecosystem vision Cosmos is building. Many open-source block explorers were also lacking the modularity and extensibility. Furthermore, most open-source solutions have no longer been maintained and come out from hackathons from teams that aren’t building on Cosmos in the long-run.

To begin, we used one of the top open-source block explorers such as Big Dipper. We quickly realized that we needed something more extensive to support our oracle functionalities that can withstand a load of millions of blocks per month. Hence, the birth of CosmoScan.

In addition, decentralization has been a core tenet of Band Protocol oracle. Our development of BandChain has been open-sourced and transparent from day 1. We continue that ethos by releasing an open-source block explorer for the entire Cosmos ecosystem.

Band Protocol’s Take On The Block Explorer Problem

Having worked closely with the Cosmos team to develop BandChain (which is built on the Cosmos-SDK), host a Cross-Chain Hackathon with over 300 participants and with plans to collaborate even further — this was our chance to contribute back to the community, back to the Cosmos ecosystem.

As such, we’ve decided to code our new block explorer from the ground up with multiple decision principles that favor security, information integrity and extensibility for any Cosmos-based blockchain to reliably use. Here are the key features of CosmoScan:

Real-Time Updates
Everything from the transactions to account information is updated in real-time thanks to the GraphQL subscription and Hasura backend. This means you no longer need to refresh pages when looking to find transactions in progress.
Ledger Wallet Support
Whether you want to send tokens, stake to a validator, or withdraw rewards, you can do this securely using your Ledger hardware device. Don’t have your Ledger? No problem, we also support the option to use a wallet with mnemonic so it even works when you lose your Ledger.
Comprehensive Summary of Validators & Block Productions
The explorer allows users to visualize each validator’s stats and stake on their behalf in a few clicks of a button. This means token delegators will be able to conduct their due diligence in a comprehensive and easy-to-understand manner.
Optimized User Experience
We’ve used a single page, modern and vibrant visual design with various loading animations after numerous user flows and tests to ensure that the user experience is always at the highest degree. We’ve also conducted a suite of 100+ tests that covers critical functions and ensures the security of the block explorer.

The Architecture

Backend Stack

We have used the world’s most advanced open-source database, PostgreSQL to construct the backend. All on-chain data is stored directly from the node to PostgreSQL database allowing any blockchain to conduct indexing, searching, and querying large amounts of data in a lightning-fast response time.

Instead of operating a web server that pulls the data from PostgreSQL, we are utilizing an awesome tool called Hasura to build public realtime GraphQL APIs with relatively zero effort. This has immensely improved productivity and allowed Band Protocol to move rapidly without worrying about the underlying infrastructure — something any developer will appreciate.

Frontend Stack

React. Everyone loves React — we use the frontend development framework from Facebook that is used to build extensible and composable web applications.

Instead of Javascript, we have opted for ReasonML — a programming language derived from OCaml and built by the creator of React at Facebook HQ. The language allows us to minimize friction by catching errors and reduce common programming mistakes by a large margin while also maintaining full compatibility with the traditional Javascript framework. We definitely urge all blockchain projects to give it a try!

Apollo, the data graph layer solutions enable the frontend of the explorer to connect with Hasura while abstracting away from all the difficulties of maintaining connections, caching, indexing, and optimizing the performance of GraphQL query engine.

Lastly, we have used Emotion a CSS library that allows many design elements to be reused with ease — no more copy and pasting everywhere! The library excels in maintaining composability while offering maximum interoperability with the React framework, a significant benefit for large-scale applications such as a block explorer.

Next Steps

With the block explorer for BandChain completed, we’re another step closer to the mainnet launch. We will be deploying CosmoScan as the official explorer for BandChain during this mainnet launch.

Band Protocol will continue to iterate the explorer based on feedback from the community and users in preparation for v2 along with the launch of BandChain Phase 1 which will have the functionality to inspect oracles including validator service levels to ensure visibility and accountability in our partners to uphold a high level of data security.

With the decentralized finance and oracle space growing rapidly, Band Protocol without a doubt has an exciting journey ahead and are always grateful to have you onboard with us!

About Band Protocol
Band Protocol is a cross-chain data oracle platform that aggregates and connects real-world data and APIs to smart contracts. Blockchains are great at immutable storage and deterministic, verifiable computations — however, they cannot securely access data available outside the blockchain networks. Band Protocol enables smart contract applications such as DeFi, prediction markets, and games to be built on-chain without relying on the single point of failure of a centralized oracle. Band Protocol is backed by a strong network of stakeholders including Sequoia Capital, one of the top venture capital firms in the world, and the leading cryptocurrency exchange, Binance.