Tales from the Crypto Explorer

Blockchain. Bitcoin. Bored Ape. Buzzword. Benevolent. Beer. Bungalow.

How do you even begin to imagine what the blockchain is?

When I was tasked with displaying the Provenance Blockchain to the world, I knew enough to be curious, but not enough to know what I was actually going to be diving in to. Provenance, and the blockchain world as a whole, is expansive in what it offers to the user, but unless you know the technical details of how to operate within a blockchain, you may find yourself a bit lost amongst the trees.

Enter Explorer.

As the name implies, the Provenance Explorer was developed to allow anyone to explore what data is stored on the Provenance Blockchain. No knowledge of blockchain technology is required. From the basic blocks to the inner workings of a Smart Contract, Explorer is there to help you understand where your Hash is, where it’s going, and how it can be leveraged to do more with Provenance.

Dive in! The water’s fine

When you first open Explorer, you find yourself faced with The Dashboard. Here you notice a constant cycle of numbers, images, prices, and what looks to be cryptic text, but is actually a stream of transaction hashes.

You may notice that the block numbers are constantly increasing. This is actually the number of blocks in the chain. Also, those prices? They refer to something called Hash, and it seems to be rather important.

What does that cryptic string mean?

Clicking on one of those random strings of letters and numbers (the transaction hash) leads you to details about the transaction. That transaction hash is a unique identifier, and every transaction has one. You see the cost of the transaction, and realize in order to do anything on Provenance, you will need Hash.

Where do I get some of that sweet, sweet Hash?

In your quest to be a part of the best blockchain ever (Provenance, natch), navigate your way to Wallet creation and follow the instructions diligently. Once you have your brand-spankin’ new Provenance wallet address, you head back to Explorer, and something catches your eye — something you hadn’t noticed before….. it looks like a key?

You click on it, wondering what you are unlocking, and discover your new wallet address is the key to… something. You’re not sure yet, but are determined to press on.

You see two types of wallets you can connect. From your initial wallet creation, you know you have a Provenance Wallet, so you select that option. You follow the prompts, successfully connecting your wallet to Explorer!

Your curiosity piquing, you click on your address, and it delivers you to yet another page in Explorer, this one showing your account details.

You can see your approximate account value (”assets under management,” or AUM) — all of those sweet assets that you own — and all of the transactions that have been attributed to your account, either as the transaction signer or as a party to the transaction processing.

You also spy a set of collapsible menus. Intrigued, you open the one that says Rewards, but theres nothing in there! “What does this mean? What are rewards?” you calmly (:cough:excitedly:cough:) ask yourself. You decide to set off on your own and discover the different areas of Explorer and what they have to offer.

You’ve explored the Dashboard, Transaction detail, and your account page. What’s next on the map? What new things do you want to discover?

Let’s go Staking!

Staking. Staking. Stakes. Steaks….

Great. Now you’re hungry. Focus!

Staking. You click on Staking and are taken to a list. Wonderful. Now what?

You see monikers, and large numbers of Hash, and how much power these monikers seem to have. Those monikers are the names given to Validators, the institutions and individuals running a copy of Provenance to help support and keep in pushing forwards. When Hash is delegated to a Validator, they collectively receive more power in the process of adding blocks to the chain.

“Delegated to”… Ahh! Delegations! You make to connection between the menu you saw on your account page, and these Validators, to whom you can delegate. As Hash is the official token of Provenance, delegations are made in Hash only. You decide you want to delegate to a validator, and notice a bright blue button next to each of the validators’ names.

But which one do you choose? You see a number of different attributes associated with the validators, and following this guide, you make a choice. Clicking on the button brings up a form with a great big warning… something about locking funds…

You hastily read it [NOTE: Please seriously read these warnings] and enter the amount you wish to delegate to your chosen validator, clicking Delegate when you are ready.

Ooooh! Your first transaction through Explorer! How exciting! You verify the information is correct, and click Sign to sign and submit the transaction to the blockchain.

Digging those Rewards

You wait a couple minutes refresh the Staking page because it takes about 30 seconds for the transaction to make its way into a block and for the Explorer to pick it up and register it. A wild new section has appeared!

You see your delegation has shown up, and spy, yet again, that Rewards label. “What is that?” you ask again. As a Validator participates in adding blocks to the chain, it earns fees from each transaction it processes. As a delegator to that Validator, you are able to reap your proportional amount of those fees, and that is what shows up as your Rewards.

In return for delegating your Hash, you earn rewards. The only caveat being, to realize those gains, you must Claim Rewards. To do that, you find your list of delegations, and click on the Manage button. This time, there is a drop-down option next to Undelegate. Select the drop-down, and then select Claim Rewards.

This will take you to that now-familiar transaction signing page. It does cost a transaction fee to claim those rewards (can’t make money without spending money, right?), but once you claim those rewards, they will be immediately available in your wallet.

“Oh shoot, I delegated to the wrong Validator!” you mumble to yourself, super embarrassed, because how could you have chosen that validator, when theres another, better! validator you should have chosen…

Well, if you had read that great big warning when you initially delegated, you would know that from your time of delegation, your funds are locked for 21 days with that validator. So be patient, and watch your rewards amount climb.

However, after 21 days, if you decide you still want to move your Hash to another validator, there is that Redelegate option you spied earlier when you were laying claim to your rewards.

You just have to determine, once again, which validator you want to Redelegate to. But do not fear! There is no need to Claim Rewards first, as redelegating will automatically claim your rewards for you!

Boundless wandering

While you wait, there is more to explore:

• Assets — Where you can view all assets on Provenance, their approximate pricing, and, clicking into an asset, the details including wallets holding that asset, and associated transactions.
• Gov — Want to know whats going on in Provenance-land? Governance is how we make modifications to how the chain behaves. Clicking into a proposal shows you the details about the proposal and the voting statistics determining whether is passes or fails.
• IBC — Still in its early stages, this is where Provenance connects to other Cosmos-based blockchains. This currently shows open channels to other chains and the last time a transaction to passed through that channel.

About the Network:

• Upgrades — Interested in running a node? You can find the sequential binary upgrade heights here. Helpful when running from scratch.
• Chain Parameters — A list of all parameters for the Provenance blockchain. Unless you are heavily interacting with Provenance in a technical role, these are less useful.
• Gas Statistics — Charts showing the average gas cost of a transaction type, and volume of gas and fees moving through the chain.
• Token Statistics — A breakdown of where Hash is currently allocated, between bonded amounts and total in circulation, as well as what percentage is held by the top sets of wallets.

Carry onwards, fellow Provenance purveyors, into the great unknown!

… Until it is known….

… And then keep pushing that Hash out into the great wide world (via IBC transfers) and wait, with bated breath, for the next adventure of….

Provenance Explorer!

CAROLYN RUSSELL

Carolyn is a software engineer from Albuquerque, New Mexico, working to make Provenance Blockchain more accessible. In her off-time, she can be found wrist-deep in the ground, begging her plants to grow; chasing after her precocious toddler; riding big horses over small jumps; or spending time shooting other players with her husband, which she promises is more fun than aggravating.

Carolyn is a 2022 Moxie Award Winner for her outstanding contributions in tech.