Big data is at the foundation of all of the megatrends that are happening today, from social to mobile to the cloud to gaming.” – Chris Lynch

The blockchain is the new trend in the online world. It has joined the long list of trends which big data is at the foundation. The blockchain which processes and stores its data on blocks has become one of the most secure methods of storing data in a decentralized way.

One advantage of the blockchain is that it makes the data stored accessible by all and in some cases, can only be altered by the creator. There have been different projects whom have created their own blockchain with unique features for different kinds of data. Some popular blockchains include, Bitcoin blockchain, Ethereum blockchain, Tron blockchain, EOS blockchain, and Steem Blockchain. Each of these blockchains has explorer tools with which you can access each data (blocks) stored when a transaction is carried out.

This blog post is about a steem blockchain explorer. A tool with which you can access and track different activities which are carried out on the steem blockchain. This tool is known as Steemdb.

What is Steemdb

This is a steem tool created by @jesta with which you can explore the different blocks registered on the steem blockchain and also access the database stored on each of those blocks. It is a common mistake for people to confuse Steemit and the steem blockchain as one thing. Steemdb does not just register blocks from steemit, but blocks on the steem blockchain in general, which includes blocks from other dapps. Although other dapps use steemit as a front-end for now, they still have some unique data that also registers on the steem blockchain.

Steemdb Interface

The steemdb's interface is quite easy to navigate through. The site comes with five different pages, they are;

Posts

This page shows different metrics and statistical data from the most recent irreversible blocks. Blocks registering posts voted on, payouts (author and curation rewards), network performance (e.g, txns per second).

Accounts

This is the page where you can view the blocks registered by a single account. With this, you can access all the activities that were carried out by that account according to the time of action. Activities ranging from posts, comments, reblogs, reward claims, votes (upvote and downvote), coin transfers, power-ups, delegations and even logins to other steem dapps e.t.c. To explore an account's blocks, you simply type in the username in the search field at the top screen and go to that accounts page. To avoid mistakes in spellings, the search button brings up suggestions for you as you type.

Witnesses

Steem witnesses are steemians who have been elected by other steemians through a delegated prove of stake (DPOS) consensus to produce blocks for the steem network and also act as a governing body. This page shows the different blocks created by each witness according to the time created. It shows both the approved and unapproved blocks. It also gives an ordered ranking of the steem witnesses.

Updates

This page contains a list of experimental pages on the steem blockchain which do not yet have a home on the site. Looking at this page, you will see some more amazing data that could be explored for statistical purposes.

Benefits of Using Steemdb

This tool serves as an automatic recorder of all your activities on the steem blockchain. It serves as a place where you can go to gather data for statistical analysis or purpose. Unlike most other steem explorers which give light or general statistics of your activities on the blockchain, steemdb gives you detailed data on every single activity. Also, its ease of use is another feature which makes it my favorite steem blockchain explorer. Steemdb is more organized than Steemd which looks quite unorganized and will be a problem for newbies to understand.

Some Problems With Steemdb

Although Steemdb is a good tool to explore and monitor blocks created on the steem blockchain and different activities on the steem blockchain, it is not so good for tracking some features. Features like a change in voting power, steemit reputations, pending payout, followers, totals posts, and following. It does not update these features regularly, so when I want to check these features, I have to view on steemd. It would be better if one could do all of this right on Steemdb rather than surfing through multiple sites for almost the same thing. For the aforementioned features, Steemdb still displays a snapshot taken from 6 months ago. It then gives you an option to view your account on steemit or on Steemd.

Conclusions

Like I stated at the beginning of the post, big data is the foundation of all megatrends. A proper record of your data is very important for statistical, analytical purposes and history. Since the blockchain technology guarantees a secured database which can never be lost, all that is left is a way to access those data easily. That is exactly what steemdb does for the steem blockchain. The developers should get active and make some updates to the site because this tool will be crucial upon the launch of the SMTs when other dapps will now be able to operate single-handedly. That time, new activities will be done on the steem blockchain and would need a tool to track those activities. Overall, I give the site a 3.7/5 rating.

Links

• Project Repository : https://github.com/aaroncox/steemdb

• Project Link : https://steemdb.com/

• Resources : All photos were screenshots from my mobile device

• Github Profile: https://github.com/tony-duke