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Bitcoin => Bitcoin Discussion => Topic started by: citb0in on April 23, 2023, 10:49:16 AM



Title: incorrect output of information on blockcypher.com
Post by: citb0in on April 23, 2023, 10:49:16 AM
Hello all. I am puzzled about the information showed on blockcypher.com and can not explain it at the moment. For example, it is about the following Bitcoin address 1BFhrfTTZP3Nw4BNy4eX4KFLsn9ZeijcMm

On the most diverse block explorers like mempool.space (https://mempool.space/address/1BFhrfTTZP3Nw4BNy4eX4KFLsn9ZeijcMm) or blockchair.com (https://blockchair.com/bitcoin/address/1BFhrfTTZP3Nw4BNy4eX4KFLsn9ZeijcMm) or blockchain.com (https://www.blockchain.com/explorer/addresses/btc/1BFhrfTTZP3Nw4BNy4eX4KFLsn9ZeijcMm)  I see following information for this address:

Total transactions: 173
Total received: 0.16381090 BTC
Total sent: 0.16381090 BTC

However block explorer blockcypher.com outputs for that address a fewer amount of total received/sent amount
https://live.blockcypher.com/btc/address/1BFhrfTTZP3Nw4BNy4eX4KFLsn9ZeijcMm

Total received: 0.1474109 BTC
Total sent: 0.1474109 BTC

Why? All explorers show the correct total transactions of 173 though. How can the mismatch be explained? So far, blockcypher seems not outputting correct information.

I must add that the API service of this page could be used for several Bitcoin tools available out there, and these tools might therefore output incorrect or incomplete information. One example is the python library pycoin (https://pypi.org/project/pycoin/).




Title: Re: incorrect output of information on blockcypher.com
Post by: Charles-Tim on April 23, 2023, 10:53:26 AM
I do not know how true this is and I am not checking it, just know that the blockchain explorers are third parties and their information may or may not be correct unlike when using your own node for it. Anything can be misrepresented by third parties.


Title: Re: incorrect output of information on blockcypher.com
Post by: Obari on April 23, 2023, 11:04:48 AM
Most times we necessarily don't have to worry ourselves over some irrelevant things especially Blockchain explorers and why getting so worried about blockcypher.com when you already got several correct results from other explorers and just as Charles Tim said, I'm not also checking this out because you already know what you want and also got what you wanted and there is no need bringing this up as well.


Title: Re: incorrect output of information on blockcypher.com
Post by: Cantsay on April 23, 2023, 11:14:21 AM
I believe this is the only one you have found because I tried the explorer you provided with several other wallet and it displayed the correct amount I'm not sure why it did that for that address.
Probably because of this issue here.https://twitter.com/BlockCypher/status/1148195418527784960?t=ehAtSFlHxwE0I-nbGKRZuw&s=19
https://i.ibb.co/0n1Fxwn/Cypher.jpg

Just a guess tho.


Edit:
But this is almost four years ago. Since Jul 08, 2019 was that tweet.

I just realized my dumb mistake, the wallet started receiving and sending coins in 2012. So it's impossible that that is going to be the cause of the issue.


Title: Re: incorrect output of information on blockcypher.com
Post by: Charles-Tim on April 23, 2023, 11:18:39 AM
I believe this is the only one you have found because I tried the explorer you provided with several other wallet and it displayed the correct amount I'm not sure why it did that for that address.
Probably because of this issue here.https://twitter.com/BlockCypher/status/1148195418527784960?t=ehAtSFlHxwE0I-nbGKRZuw&s=19
https://i.ibb.co/0n1Fxwn/Cypher.jpg

Just a guess tho.
But this is almost four years ago. Since Jul 08, 2019 was that tweet.


Title: Re: incorrect output of information on blockcypher.com
Post by: BitMaxz on April 23, 2023, 11:22:53 AM
I already tried and check them and yes they do have a different result.
I think maybe they do have different source or node and maybe Blockcypher source or nodes is not updated yet compared to mempool, blockchair, and blockchain.

Another thing is not all block explorers have the same ways of fetching data from nodes so maybe blockcypher is a bit delayed compared to other block explorers.

Or sometimes it's a bug just like what happened before on blockchair where the data is not accurate as blockchain does.


Title: Re: incorrect output of information on blockcypher.com
Post by: citb0in on April 23, 2023, 11:37:38 AM
in this case it is nothing important or relevant and I came across it by chance. Nevertheless, it attracted my interest because it means that there are discrepancies and that output information -in this case blockcypher- is not accurate. That each service is responsible for its data and offers no guarantee is already clear to me. However, if I find that a service I use provides inaccurate information, I would like to avoid it in the future. That is one point. The other point is of a technical nature and is of particular interest to me. If you have read and/or watched carefully, all block explorers show the same value of 173 for the number of transactions. This means that even the criticized service blockcypher has the 173 transactions listed. Therefore, without looking closer, I would assume that there must be some transaction at blockcypher.com whose coin value must be different from the other block explorer services. To be exact, it is a difference of 0.0164 BTC. I have searched all transactions for this value but found nothing. So it is possible that this difference was caused by more than one transaction. Unfortunately, I have not yet done a deep analysis and comparison so that I can find the discrepancy.

I would have been primarily interested to know if there were already such or similar problems with this service blockcypher.com in the past. The tweet, as already corrected and mentioned, was several years ago and I can't (or don't want to) imagine that the bug hasn't been fixed. Of course I will now first look for the corresponding functions in the pycoin library and replace the default service provider blockcypher with another one because I can't trust blockcypher anymore, but still I am interested in the solution of this mystery.


Title: Re: incorrect output of information on blockcypher.com
Post by: DaveF on April 23, 2023, 12:33:42 PM
I have seen this once or twice before. I do not know if it is the case this time BUT in the past some block explorers did not properly display information if

1) The in and out were in the same block
1a) There was a CPFP to do it.
1b) It was a 0 balance to start.

2) Also on my local explorer there is something odd. It sees all 173 transactions BUT it will only show 172 of them.

https://i.imgur.com/DWx1oK3h.png

If you look it's on the last page and it's showing 170 to 172 of 173 so I can't display all of them.

So I'm going with whatever is not right with blockcypher is causing the issues on the RPCexplorer.

3) Or it could be some really odd nonstandard transaction.

Don't really have time to dig more at the moment but I know things like this have been discussed here previously with other explorers.

-Dave


Title: Re: incorrect output of information on blockcypher.com
Post by: Potato Chips on April 23, 2023, 03:23:58 PM
Okay, it appears blockcypher count the sats more accurately.

Notice that some transaction has a "more" function which brings this if you expand:

Quote
"Estimated Value Sent" excludes known change addresses. For example, let's say we have a single transaction where address A sends 1 BTC to address B and also 1 BTC back to address A as change, then only 1 BTC is estimated to have been sent. Proper use of a new change address for each transaction (like all HD wallet implementations) obfuscate this feature.

If we take the same situation in mempool.space: When 1 BTC goes back to address A as change, it will still be counted as a new addition in "Total Received" which inflates the amount.

Take a look at address bc1qhzdcqgeta3kh5an7354zln7ghmznlrm0ltnher (https://mempool.space/address/bc1qhzdcqgeta3kh5an7354zln7ghmznlrm0ltnher) with far less transactions made.

Blockcypher total received: .12
Mempool.space total received: 0.38284160

After receiving .12BTC, succeeding transactions used the same change address as the input's 'every time' so it's quite obvious this address has only received .12BTC. Now, count the sats everytime address ...m0ltnher is an output in a transaction and it'll equate to 0.38284160BTC :D