BTC.com Introduces Ethereum Block Explorer

BTC.com, a major Bitcoin pool operator, wallet provider, and block explorer, is expanding its services further into the crypto market. The site announced that it has added an Ethereum block explorer to its array of services.

The new block explorer provides data that is typically found in other explorers: it will display Ethereum’s price, market cap, transaction fees, and expected confirmation times. It also allows users to track transactions involving ETH and see rankings of ERC-20 tokens. These features will be useful to various audiences, according to BTC.com’s director, Zhong Zhuang:

“We will present more comprehensive data related service for our users. We are going to provide data insights for miners, investors, media, developers, and entrepreneurs in blockchain data service.”

In some ways, BTC.com’s new block explorer is fairly standard. Other sites, such as Etherscan, provide similar data. What is most notable is the fact that BTC’s block explorer accompanies the site’s recently-opened Ethereum mining pools.

These mining pools combat the reduced profitability of Ethereum mining by making it possible to mine the coin on basic hardware. Mining pools can significantly increase the profitability of crypto mining by allowing users to share mining effort and rewards. However, users must choose between various mining pools and options, and statistics can influence that choice.

With that in mind, BTC.com’s block explorer provides information that is of interest to Ethereum miners, such as mining difficulty, hashrate, and pool distributions. As such, the information provided by the new block explorer may be vital in attracting users to BTC.com’s Ethereum and Ethereum Classic pools.

BTC.com certainly has a head start in terms of attracting users: it is already one of the largest Bitcoin mining pools, accounting for about 18% of Bitcoin mining at the moment. It is also one of three major pools owned by the mining giant Bitmain. The site’s now-comprehensive Ethereum data could attract many existing users to mine that coin.

But whether BTC.com will dominate Ethereum mining is unclear: months after the launch of the site’s Ethereum mining pool, it controls less than 1% of ETH mining. Nevertheless, the block explorer will generate traffic from audiences other than miners, such as investors and developers, as Zhuang has noted.

source: https://unhashed.com/cryptocurrency-news/btc-com-introduces-ethereum-block-explorer/