How to use Etherscan: reading transactions, gas fees and smart contracts with real examples

Etherscan is a free search engine for the Ethereum blockchain: you enter an address, a transaction ID or a token name and immediately see what happened there. You can use it to check whether a transfer has arrived, how high the fee was, which tokens an address holds and whether a smart contract is genuine. You need neither an account nor a wallet to do so.

The technical term for such a tool is block explorer: a website that reads in, sorts and makes searchable all the data on a blockchain. Etherscan is the best-known explorer for Ethereum and, by its own account, is run independently, meaning it is neither funded nor controlled by the Ethereum Foundation. One point matters for understanding it: Etherscan is not a wallet and not an exchange. It holds no coins, knows no private keys and cannot reverse a transaction.

This guide shows you step by step how to read Etherscan. The examples come from a real block of November 4, 2026. If you are mainly interested in gas fees and sending ERC-20 tokens, you will find the details in our guide to Ethereum gas and Etherscan.

What is Etherscan? The block explorer for the Ethereum blockchain

Every Ethereum transaction ends up in a public ledger that exists in identical form on thousands of computers worldwide. For humans, however, this ledger is hard to read, because it consists of raw data. Etherscan translates that data into tables, timestamps and amounts. The principle is that of a public bank statement, except that anyone can view any statement without knowing the person behind it.

The homepage shows four things at a glance: the current ether price, the latest blocks, the latest transactions and the state of network fees. Above them sits the search bar, with which you can find almost anything:

• Address: a string that starts with 0x and is 42 characters long
• Transaction ID (hash): a string with 0x and 64 further characters
• Block number: for example 26337953
• Token name or ticker: such as USDT or LINK
• ENS name: a readable address such as name.eth

A block is a data package in which the network bundles a batch of transactions roughly every twelve seconds and records them permanently. Block 26,337,953 of November 4, 2026, for example, contained 276 transactions and used around 27.8 million of a maximum of 60 million possible gas units.

Finding a transaction on Etherscan: hash, status and confirmations

The most common question put to Etherscan is: has my transfer arrived? For that you need the transaction hash, also called TxHash or transaction ID. Your wallet or exchange shows it after sending, usually behind a link such as "View in explorer". You paste this hash into the search bar.

The key fields are at the very top of the transaction page:

• Status: "Success" means executed, "Fail" means failed, "Pending" means the transaction is still waiting to be included in a block.
• Block: the block number and, next to it, the number of confirmations, i.e. how many blocks have been added since. The more confirmations, the more final.
• Timestamp: the time of inclusion in the block.
• From and To: sender and recipient.
• Value: the amount sent in ether.
• Transaction Fee: the network fee paid.

If it says "Success" but the money is missing from your exchange account, the problem is almost never on the blockchain. Common causes are the wrong network on the recipient's side, a missing allocation on the exchange's side or a token the wallet does not yet display. In that case, the hash serves as proof for customer support.

Reading gas fees on Etherscan: Gas Limit, Gas Used and Base Fee

Under "More Details", Etherscan shows how the fee is made up. Gas is the unit in which Ethereum measures the computational effort of a transaction. The price per gas unit is quoted in gwei, one billionth of an ether. Since the EIP-1559 upgrade it has consisted of two parts: the base fee, which the network sets automatically and which is burned, and the priority fee, a voluntary tip to the validator.

A real example from block 26,337,953: a simple ether transfer used exactly 21,000 gas units, the fixed minimum for a transfer between two wallets. At an effective price of around 0.045 gwei it cost 0.00000094 ether, which at the November 4 price of just over €2,000 is less than a cent. The base fee in this block was only 0.035 gwei.

The page shows two gas values side by side. "Gas Limit" is the ceiling the wallet set in advance. "Gas Used by Transaction" is the actual consumption. If consumption is at 100 percent of the limit and the status is "Fail", the transaction ran out of gas. According to Etherscan's help section, the actual amount stays with the sender in a failed transaction, but the fee is gone all the same.

ERC-20 tokens on Etherscan: a USDT transfer with 0 ETH in the Value field

Many people are alarmed when they look up a USDT or USDC transfer: "Value" shows 0 ETH and "To" shows an unfamiliar address. This is not an error. ERC-20 is the standard for tokens on Ethereum, and every such token is its own smart contract, a program on the blockchain. Your wallet sends the instruction "transfer 74.45 USDT to address X" to this contract, not directly to the recipient.

The real example 0x7b9984c5…f0e4 from the same block illustrates this well. "To" shows Tether's USDT contract and "Value" shows 0 ETH. You find the actual recipient and the amount of 74.45 USDT in the "ERC-20 Tokens Transferred" line. The transaction used 63,209 gas units, three times as much as a plain ether transfer, and still cost only 0.0000022 ether, less than half a cent.

Etherscan distinguishes three kinds of movement, each shown in its own tab on an address page:

1. Transactions: normal transactions that a wallet sent itself or received directly.
2. Internal Transactions: ether movements triggered by a smart contract, for example during a swap on a decentralised exchange.
3. Token Transfers: transfers of ERC-20 tokens and of NFTs under ERC-721 or ERC-1155.

If a deposit is missing from the first tab, it is worth checking the other two. Withdrawals from exchanges in particular often run through contracts and then appear as internal transactions.

Checking a wallet address on Etherscan: balance, tokens and labels

If you enter an address, Etherscan shows its ether balance, the estimated equivalent value and a drop-down list of all tokens held there. Below that are all transactions in chronological order. The list can be downloaded via "Download CSV Export", which is useful for tax purposes (more on that below).

Well-known addresses carry a label, a so-called name tag. It lets you recognise, for example, wallets of large exchanges, known protocols or addresses linked to reported fraud cases. A missing label proves nothing, though: the vast majority of addresses are unlabelled, and Etherscan assigns labels after its own review.

Important for privacy: anyone who knows your address can see your entire balance and every movement on Etherscan. Do not publish your main address carelessly, for instance on social media, and use a separate address for donations or public payments.

Address poisoning and fake tokens: scams in your Etherscan history

Precisely because Etherscan shows everything publicly, fraudsters exploit it. The most widespread scam is called address poisoning. Attackers send tiny amounts or worthless tokens from an address that matches the start and end of your real destination address. Anyone who copies the next transfer address from their history then picks up the fake one.

Etherscan describes the scale of the problem in a post on address poisoning: a study cited there counted around 17 million such attempts against roughly 1.3 million users on Ethereum between July 2022 and June 2024, with confirmed losses of at least $79.3 million. The protective rule is simple: never copy an address from your transaction history, but from your address book or directly from the recipient, and compare it in full, not just the first and last characters.

Fake tokens work in a similar way. Anyone can create a contract named "USDT" and send it to other people's addresses. A token is only genuine if the contract address is correct. Check it on the token page in Etherscan or with the issuer itself, and never interact with a token that turns up unsolicited in your wallet.

Smart contracts on Etherscan: verified code, Read and Write Contract

On a smart contract's page there is a "Contract" tab. A green tick means the source code is verified: the operator has uploaded the readable program code, and Etherscan has confirmed that it matches the program on the blockchain exactly. A verified contract is not automatically safe, but an unverified contract is a warning sign, because nobody can read what it does.

Below that are two sections. "Read Contract" queries public data, such as an address's balance or a token's total supply. Such queries change nothing and cost no gas. "Write Contract", by contrast, sends real transactions and requires you to connect and sign with your wallet. Etherscan itself warns that every signed action can move money or grant permissions. Only use "Write" if you know exactly which function you are calling.

A practical use case is revoking token approvals. Anyone trading on a decentralised exchange often grants the relevant contract a permanent permission to move tokens out of the wallet. Etherscan's token approval page shows all open permissions and lets you withdraw them. That costs a small fee. We describe this in detail in our guide to gas and approvals.

Etherscan for other blockchains: BaseScan, Arbiscan and BscScan

Etherscan shows only the Ethereum mainnet. For layer-2 networks and other compatible blockchains, the same team runs separate explorers with an almost identical interface, including BaseScan for Base, Arbiscan for Arbitrum, BscScan for BNB Chain, PolygonScan and OP Mainnet Etherscan. A layer-2 network is a separate blockchain that bundles transactions and secures them collectively on Ethereum to bring fees down.

This is the most common cause of a "missing" transaction: you search on Etherscan, but the payment went through Arbitrum or Base. If Etherscan cannot find a hash, check in your wallet which network was selected and open the matching explorer. For Solana, Bitcoin or Tron you need entirely different explorers, because these blockchains are not compatible with Ethereum.

Etherscan and crypto tax: exporting transaction lists as records

For a tax return in Germany, you must be able to document purchases, sales and swaps of crypto assets with date, quantity and value, because gains within the one-year holding period are taxable under Section 23 of the German Income Tax Act once they reach the annual exemption limit of €1,000. Etherscan supplies the raw data for this: an address's CSV export contains the hash, time, sender, recipient, amount and fee of every transaction.

You should know two limits. First, the export lacks the euro values at the time of each movement, which the tax office wants to see. Second, Etherscan separates token movements and ether movements into separate lists. If you use several addresses and networks, a tax tool that reads in addresses directly and adds prices saves you a lot of manual work. Our comparison of crypto tax tools offers an overview. You should also note the hash of larger transactions: it is the unique record if the tax office asks.

Etherscan: hash, address and contract address document every payment

Etherscan answers most questions about an Ethereum payment within seconds, without any sign-up. Three steps make you safer in everyday use:

1. Combine tools: Alongside Etherscan, analytics platforms help you keep track of large-address movements and market data. Our comparison of crypto analytics platforms shows a selection.
2. Use a wallet with an address book: The best protection against address poisoning is a wallet that offers saved recipients and warnings. Which apps can do this is covered in our comparison of software wallets.
3. Secure your records: Export your addresses' transaction lists once a year and have a tax tool add the euro values.

(As of November 4, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)