The DerivaDEX explorer is similar in concept to “block explorers” you may be familiar with from most public blockchains.
The explorer allows users to search by address (trader account), epoch ID, or market (i.e., ETHP). You can view data by trader, market, epoch, strategy, and transaction.
You can find the Explorer on both mainnet and testnet.
Why Does DerivaDEX need an explorer?
DerivaDEX is unique among decentralized exchanges because it employs a purpose-built Layer 2 (L2) solution. This approach allows DerivaDEX to enhance speed and performance by efficiently handling all computational tasks off Ethereum, while maintaining the essential features of transparency and security inherent to a decentralized network.
The execution logic for the DerivaDEX platform is handled by operator nodes that use trusted execution environments (TEEs). These operators are chosen through a governance proposal process. TEE security guarantees ensure that they are only able to execute code that has been approved through governance mechanisms.
The DerivaDEX stats API provides programmatic access to all updates to the exchange state, including trade orders, fills, price updates, and more. This tool was built by consuming only data from public apis. DEX Labs has led engineering on this release, but anyone from the DerivaDEX contributor community could have built this.
To improve the accessibility of this data, this explorer provides an interface for users to explore the current state of the exchange, ensuring transparency and insight into the exchange state from several views.
For example, you can view all transactions that occur within a particular epoch, all positions currently open for a certain product, or all strategies and positions currently opened by a specific trader address.
In short, the DerivaDEX explorer enables the same level of transparency into the off-chain execution of DerivaDEX that users expect from L1 blockchains like Ethereum.
How to use the Explorer
The explorer supports traders and analysts in understanding the current state of the exchange. In addition to searching on the explorer itself, users of the exchange can also navigate directly to:
- positions
- strategies
- orders
- trader accounts
The explorer is organized by "views". Here, you can see a sample transaction in the Transaction View. The explorer presents all available data about the Transaction, including its epoch, what type of transaction it is (POST), and other pertinent information.
Here is a sample of the "epoch" view. The explorer displays the history of all transactions that have been included in this epoch, its epoch ID, as well as start and end times. It also notes whether an epoch is also a settlement epoch (whether the epoch contained funding rate payments).
The DerivaDEX Explorer is intended to radically increase the accessibility of all data related to the DerivaDEX platform. In conjunction with the DerivaDEX stats page, users have options to view data as granular as individual transactions, or in aggregate.
If you have ideas about new types of data analysis products or interfaces, the stats and realtime APIs are excellent resources for contributors.