O3 Labs, a Japan-based development group best known for its mobile and desktop wallet software, has released O3 Explorer, a block explorer to view the NEO blockchain. O3 Labs’ full-featured offering includes information on NEO’s latest blocks, mempool (pending transaction) data, information about smart contracts deployed on NEO, a customizable address watchlist, and a network status monitor.
NEO News Today recently reached out to the team at O3 Labs for more information about its explorer’s development, which was led by O3 Labs co-founder Apisit Toompakdee.
Motivation
O3 Labs told NEO News Today that their primary motivation for creating the O3 Explorer was as a portal for users of O3 Labs wallet software to check their balances. According to O3 Labs, a significant amount of its support emails were from users wanting to verify their token balances when other block explorers showed inaccurate data.
Solution
O3 Labs’ solution for accurate balances is to fetch data “directly from a NEO-CLI node” (currently running NEO-CLI v2.10.0) to avoid use of a notification system or a database. According to O3 Labs, “What we need to do [to display accurate data] is to keep the neo-cli node up and running properly,” a task that has reportedly gotten easier due to the increased stability of recent versions of the NEO-CLI full node software.
O3 reports that it is using the “RpcNep5Tracker” and “ApplicationLogs” plugins for its NEO-CLI full node, as well as a custom plugin that was built “specifically for the explorer.”
Future Plans
O3 Labs went on to share further details of its explorer’s future development. Firstly, the team noted that address tagging and name support for known wallets (such as exchange wallets) was recently added. Support for O3 Labs’ NFT (non-fungible token) explorer is also “definitely” planned.
Further features will include launching public APIs, a dApp listing, a paper wallet generator, offline transaction signing, and smart contract deployment tools.
O3 Labs also reported plans to open source its explorer, and also to offer it in a bundle with a NEO private net to help teams during their local testing and development.
O3 Labs’ block explorer can be viewed at the following link:
https://explorer.o3.network
About The Author: Colin Closser
Colin Closser, M.D., was a speaker at the first NEO DevCon in San Francisco. A devoted contrarian, he has managed the improbable: a peaceful and healthy life, despite holding a medical degree. He aspires towards the wisdom of Michael Lewis and Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
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