Building a Local Full Node Blockchain Explorer from Scratch

As a developer, you’re no stranger to building tools and exploring blockchains. However, third-party blockchain explorers like Blockscout, Etherscan, or Infura often have a limited number of requests per second (RPS) you can make before hitting your internet connection’s bandwidth limits. But what if you want more control over your own blockchain? Want to build a local full node explorer that lets you query the blockchain without relying on external APIs?

Open Source Project Case

In this article, we’ll explore the benefits of building an open source blockchain explorer from scratch and show you how to do it in a few simple steps.

Why Build Your Own Blockchain Explorer?

Building your own blockchain explorer offers several benefits:

• More Control

  

  : With full control over your code base, you can ensure that everything works as expected without having to rely on third-party services.

• Scalability: As the number of users grows, local full node exploration allows for more simultaneous connections, potentially resulting in faster performance and higher availability.

• Security: With direct access to blockchain data, you can implement powerful security measures, such as encryption and authentication, to protect your users’ data.

Basics: Building a Local Full Node Explorer

To build a local full node explorer, we will use Python as the programming language. We will focus on creating a simple, lightweight implementation that uses only the Ethereum blockchain protocol.

import hashlib
import json
class block:
def __init__(self, hash, index, previous_hash, timestamp, miner):
self.hash = hash
self.index = index
self.previous_hash = previous_hash
self.timestamp = timestamp
self.miner = miner

Step 1: Configure Ethereum Node

First, we need to create a local Ethereum node using Web3.py. We will use the ethereum library to connect our blockchain.

From Web3 import Web3
w3 = Web3(Web3.HTTPProvider(' 
Replace with your local Ethereum network

Step 2: Create a Block

Now that our node is configured, let’s create a new block. We use the “createTransaction” method to create a transaction and add it to the blockchain.

def create_block(data):
return w3.eth.getTransactionCount(w3.currentProvider)

Step 3: Sign the block

Before we can send the block to the network, we need to sign it with our account’s private key. We use the “signTransaction” method for this.

def sign_block(tx_data):
return w3.eth Account.sign_transaction([tx_data], w3.eth.getTransactionCount(w3.currentProvider)).signedTransaction

Step 4: Add the block to the blockchain

Now that we have a signed transaction, we add it to the blockchain using the “add_block” method.

def add_block(block_data):
return w3.eth.sendrawtransaction(block_data)

Putting it all together

Here is a simple example of how you can use these steps to build a local full node explorer:

“` python

import hashlib

import json

class block:

def __init__(self, hash, index, previous_hash, timestamp, miner):

self.hash = hash

self.index = index

self.previous_hash = previous_hash

self.timestamp = timestamp

self.miner = miner

def create_block(data):

return w3.eth.getTransactionCount(w3.currentProvider)

def sign_block(tx_data):

return w3.eth.Account.sign_transaction([tx_data], w3.eth.getTransactionCount(w3.currentProvider)).signedTransaction

def add_block(block_data):

recovery w3.eth.