Chainlens Block Explorer, the Future of On-chain Exploration

From Blockchain-Centric to User-Centric Perspectives

We recently rebranded our Sirato blockchain explorer to Chainlens. The new name, Chainlens communicates the intent of the product far better than what has gone before.

Chainlens is the lens by which you and your users should be viewing blockchain data and assets.

Reframe the Blockchain

We believe that users of blockchains are still not catered for adequately by a number of existing products and services:

• Blockchain data is typically presented in a blockchain-centric manner — think blocks, transactions, etc being at the forefront of the experience.

• Different web3 users have different needs, they should not all be presented with the same information.

• Many tools are focussed on web3 natives, less so web3 curious or web3 ambivalent users

The goal with Chainlens is to redefine how blockchain data is presented to users and to focus on the needs of our users. Not just bubble up the same information that many existing tools and services do.

Filter to track token types with ease in Chainlens

User centricity

We will achieve this via a number of key initiatives:

• Creating a user-centric experience. Different users have different needs when they want to look at a blockchain. They may be interested in regular tokens or NFTs, or perhaps just their account balances. Finding this information needs to be as simple as possible for users.

• Providing a customisable experience for users. This is achieved via lenses. Lenses are views of blockchain information focused on specific types of data. 

• Simple data integrations via Chainlens' API to easily integrate the rich normalised blockchain data sets in Chainlens with other systems.

This focus on being user-centric powered by multiple lenses and the Chainlens API will enable Chainlens to become a new generation of blockchain product. One that emphasises assets and user accounts over low level details.

Creating New Perspectives

The barriers to entry for working with on-chain assets are still too high. Underpinning blockchain networks there is a lot of incredible technology, but this still tends to bubble up to the users — how many people understand hexadecimal? Yet they are presented with it constantly when looking at blockchain information. 

We want to change that. When you look at a bank statement, you see what is happening to just your funds, it should be easily be able to see such information in Chainlens. 

If you're just interested in looking at a particular NFT collection, you should be able to easily locate it, without getting bogged down into details.

View NFT collections in Chainlens

Just like how search engines doubled down on providing the information users wanted as quickly as possible, we want Chainlens to optimise this user journey as much as possible. Providing a very clean and comprehensible experience in the process.

Onboarding the Next Generation of Users

It shouldn't matter if the user knows nothing about blockchains, they should still be able to easily find the information they care about.

We believe that Chainlens will help bridge this gap for not just web3 curious users, but also those who are completely oblivious to web3. 

Blockchain is an implementation detail for decentralised applications, and the more this detail can be abstracted away from users the better it is for widespread adoption.

Read more about the Chainlens Blockchain Explorer, sign up for the FREE Developer edition or take a look around on the public-facing instance.