[ANN] MyChain - Your new favorite open source block chain explorer

[TrevinHofmann]

http://mychain.io/img/logo.png

Hi!

I've been developing an open source Bitcoin block chain explorer. It is now functional enough for public testing:

http://mychain.io

Please feel free to use it however you see fit. I would greatly appreciate any attempts to break it, especially if any discovered issues are reported on the Github repository: https://github.com/thofmann/mychain/issues. Pull requests are also welcome!

I was hoping to emphasize simplicity and accurate portrayal of block chain data, without promoting any misleading concepts such as "address balances" and "from addresses".

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[TrevinHofmann]

Next project: MyWallet

http://wallet.mychain.io/
https://github.com/thofmann/mywallet

Lots of work to be done.

[Jamesinatr]

I like the minimalist design. Are you planning on dogecoin/litecoin etc support?
However, if I copy and paste an address and accidentally copy a space at the start or end, it doesn't work. Blockchain.info cuts off spaces, but your site doesn't. Please consider trimming off spaces before processing the search.

[TrevinHofmann]

I like the minimalist design. Are you planning on dogecoin/litecoin etc support?
However, if I copy and paste an address and accidentally copy a space at the start or end, it doesn't work. Blockchain.info cuts off spaces, but your site doesn't. Please consider trimming off spaces before processing the search.

Thanks! I am not currently planning altcoin support, but it would be fairly easy to switch to a different coin's RPC daemon.

That's a great suggestion. I'll add whitespace trimming ASAP.

[the_beast]

Not so bad, I like minimalist interface. Sadly, your webserver doesn't show up so much responsiveness, for now.
I would consider adding it to Goochain "Links To" when you will fine-tune your great new block explorer.

[TrevinHofmann]

Not so bad, I like minimalist interface. Sadly, your webserver doesn't show up so much responsiveness, for now.
I would consider adding it to Goochain "Links To" when you will fine-tune your great new block explorer.

Thank you for the feedback. Could you be more specific in regards to a lack of responsiveness? The site seems to be running smoothly for me.

It would be great if you could add it to Goochain! Is there anything I could do to help you with this?

[TrevinHofmann]

Please consider trimming off spaces before processing the search.

Thanks again for the suggestion. It has been implemented.

[the_beast]

Thank you for the feedback. Could you be more specific in regards to a lack of responsiveness? The site seems to be running smoothly for me.

It would be great if you could add it to Goochain! Is there anything I could do to help you with this?

Files takes between 300ms and 500ms to be served. Maybe this is linked with my FAI (still with 2 different it's same, in France), or it can be linked with your cache system is you have any. I just notice it takes time to load your interface, but not always, some times it's fast.

About GooChain, since you use similar system as other block explorers (/block/, /tx/, ...) , it will be really easy for us to add in Goochain.

PS: Oh yeah, I will also add space-trimming in Goochain. I noticed it, and this is very easy to add this.

[SirLolicon]

In response to the wallet,
yes, the log-in sequence is quite secure, but it's a hassle for many users and it's
quite confusing with all the same repeating colors and such.

[RocketSingh]

Hi!

I've been developing an open source Bitcoin block chain explorer. It is now functional enough for public testing:

http://mychain.io

Please feel free to use it however you see fit. I would greatly appreciate any attempts to break it, especially if any discovered issues are reported on the Github repository: https://github.com/thofmann/mychain/issues. Pull requests are also welcome!

I was hoping to emphasize simplicity and accurate portrayal of block chain data, without promoting any misleading concepts such as "address balances" and "from addresses".

Great to see that more block explorers are coming live. I'm a little confused about how balance is shown on mychain.io. I was testing with an address where the final balance is 50.02498463BTC. But when I'm checking http://mychain.io/address/12c6DSiU4Rq3P4ZxziKxzrL5LmMBrzjrJX it is showing the following...

Received:   0.02 BTC
Possibly received: 0.004984630000000001 BTC

How do I know the spendable amount of an address from the above data ?

[TrevinHofmann]

Files takes between 300ms and 500ms to be served. Maybe this is linked with my FAI (still with 2 different it's same, in France), or it can be linked with your cache system is you have any. I just notice it takes time to load your interface, but not always, some times it's fast.

The longer times are probably when looking up something more processor-heavy, such as an address where it must look through the entire outputs database to see what outputs pay to that address. I'll continue to optimize where I can.

About GooChain, since you use similar system as other block explorers (/block/, /tx/, ...) , it will be really easy for us to add in Goochain.

Great!

[TrevinHofmann]

In response to the wallet,
yes, the log-in sequence is quite secure, but it's a hassle for many users and it's
quite confusing with all the same repeating colors and such.

The wallet is far from finished. That login sequence you see is basically all I have so far, and it is only experimental. The most common login method right now seems to be the ~12 word passphrases, but I thought this grid sequence was not any harder to remember and would easier to input (particularly on mobile). It is not final, and I am completely open to suggestions for other login methods.

Great to see that more block explorers are coming live. I'm a little confused about how balance is shown on mychain.io. I was testing with an address where the final balance is 50.02498463BTC. But when I'm checking http://mychain.io/address/12c6DSiU4Rq3P4ZxziKxzrL5LmMBrzjrJX it is showing the following...

Received:   0.02 BTC
Possibly received: 0.004984630000000001 BTC

How do I know the spendable amount of an address from the above data ?

I chose to display data with an accurate description, rather than use misleading terms such as "from address" and "address balance". Deciding the terminology was partly inspired and assisted by luke-jr, but I agree with the decisions I made.

The 'received' value is the largest amount paid to an address by any single confirmed transaction. Any extra transactions are added to the 'possibly received' value. This is because addresses should be used as one-time payment destinations, not as accounts or wallets. Address reuse is bad for privacy as well as security.

That specific address you linked to does not include the generation transaction it should have received in the second block of the chain. That's a bug you just found, and I'm looking into it right now. It seems like it applies to more than just that block. I've marked the issue on Github and will be fixing it ASAP. Thank you very much for reporting it!

Edit: To clarify my answer to your last question, mychain.io does not show the spendable amount an address has because an "address balance" is a misleading term that encourages address reuse (bad). Balances should be displayed on a wallet/account level by your software wallet.

[TrevinHofmann]

I was testing with an address where the final balance is 50.02498463BTC. But when I'm checking http://mychain.io/address/12c6DSiU4Rq3P4ZxziKxzrL5LmMBrzjrJX it is showing the following...

Received:   0.02 BTC
Possibly received: 0.004984630000000001 BTC

I found the reason for this. The missing transaction (the generation transaction for 50 BTC from the block at height 1) on the page doesn't use the now-standard pay-to-pubkey-hash (P2PKH) redemption script. It instead pays directly to the pubkey (P2PK). This is why the lookup for the scriptPubKey_hash in the database failed to find the transaction. I'll have to consider whether this is something that should be changed, but at the moment I think it is most accurate to leave it as it is.

The other transactions that pay to that address use P2PKH, probably from people trying to donate to Satoshi by using the address generated by some other block explorer that displays P2PK scripts as addresses.


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On a side note, I've restructured the database. This requires syncing with the block chain all over again, so the mychain.io server will not be up-to-date until it finishes indexing the outputs. I've added a Server Status message at the bottom of each page showing the progress when syncing.