New Protocol Discovered! Check it out with the Pocket Block Explorer

The Pocket Block Explorer (codenamed Leif) is a native block explorer for the Pocket Network! From the Pocket Block Explorer, users will be able to check:

• The total number of staked nodes and staked applications
• The total amount of POKT staked in the protocol.
• Info from the latest block such as Block #, Block Hash, Timestamp, and Network.
• Additional information like Chain ID, Consensus Hash, Transaction (TX) Number, and Total TXs.

Similarly to the Pocket Wallet, the Pocket Block Explorer is a native application that is staked and is driving relays to Pocket’s network of node runners to serve. As the native block explorer for Pocket, it leverages the redundant-by-design architecture of the Pocket Network protocol.For example, every hour the Pocket Block Explorer automatically gets paired with a pseudo-random set of 5 nodes through a mechanism called session tumbling.This level of redundancy adds an unprecedented amount of security and robustness to the explorer. Because load balancing spreads the work evenly across the protocol, every node has the chance to become a part of a session and receive the work of servicing relays.The problem of Static Explorers?As the Arcadia Group outlined in “Building Lightweight Block Explorers using Pocket”, legacy block explorers have been static in their core architecture, as well as, have shared issues related to handling forks and block reorganizations.This can be further boiled down to only having a single perspective that comes from pulling from one full node. It has led to incorrect displays of forks and reorgs when displaying data on an explorer, which then requires a manual reindex to solve.What does Pocket enable for Block Explorers?With Pocket, block explorers will be able to become more robust because by querying multiple perspectives from the network, they could very easily stream the mempool state of a global set of nodes. Imagine seeing the live view of how transactions get ordered and accepted through a beautiful UI. With blockchains using Nakamoto consensus, block explorers using Pocket will enable easier verification by providing multiple perspectives on the longest chain. By querying many nodes this eliminates the need to manually reindex since only the accurate data would be surfaced.Because it pulls from multiple nodes, the accuracy of the data would be cross-checked and verified by the nodes in a session. In addition to pulling from multiple nodes, the Pocket Block Explorer uses the native Pocket-JS library which allows for an application to cross-check the data for the user and returns the majority answer. If a node were to serve inaccurate data, then it could have its stake slashed and the node itself jailed. The tokenomics of the Pocket Network (i.e. skin in the game) encourages good behavior, so one would be safe to assume with a high probability that the data served is indeed accurate and that the nodes are properly maintained.Altogether, this allows a block explorer to maintain the integrity of the chain it is serving. For the Pocket Block Explorer, that is the Pocket Network itself.In the spirit of composability, this framework can be applied across every base blockchain and layer 2 solution to build dynamic and robust block explorers.See for yourself 👀

• Block Explorer
• Github Repo

… and don’t get us started on the many positive implications for oracles. We’ll save that for another day!

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