The Explorer Problem
Every blockchain promises transparency, but the tools we use to observe them tell a different story. Today's explorers were built for developers: they render raw logs, opaque method IDs, and pages of hexadecimal that only make sense if you already know what you're looking at. For everyone else — traders, auditors, researchers, community members — the chain's "transparency" is theoretical.
The problem compounds across ecosystems. Each chain ships its own explorer with its own quirks, its own API, and its own decoding gaps. Verified contracts get partial decoding; unverified contracts — the majority on any network — get none at all. Teams building on smaller chains often have no credible explorer at all, which quietly undermines user trust in the entire network.
We believe an explorer should answer the question users actually ask — what just happened? — in plain language, on any chain, without requiring the reader to reverse-engineer a trace. That is the problem OpenScan.AI exists to solve.
OpenScan Architecture
OpenScan.AI is built as a pipeline with four layers, each independently scalable and replaceable:
- Chain node layer. Archive nodes ingest blocks, transactions, receipts, and traces directly from the network. Nothing enters the system except through the chain's own consensus data.
- Indexing layer. A purpose-built indexer normalizes raw chain data into a consistent schema: blocks, transactions, internal calls, token transfers, logs, and contract metadata. Finality-aware head tracking keeps the indexed view honest during reorgs.
- API layer. A single REST API serves the indexed data to the UI and to external developers, with identical semantics across every chain we operate.
- UI layer. The explorer interface renders decoded, human-readable activity — address pages, transaction summaries, token dashboards — on top of the same API we expose publicly.
Because the layers are decoupled, onboarding a new chain means connecting its nodes and letting the same indexer, API, and UI do their jobs. This architecture is what makes Explorer-as-a-Service practical — more on that below.
The AI Insight Engine
The insight engine is what separates OpenScan.AI from a conventional explorer. It operates in three stages:
- Decoding. For verified contracts, we decode against the contract's own ABI — exact parameter names and types, always. For unverified contracts, the engine infers structure from event signatures, bytecode patterns, and observed behavior, and labels inferred decodes so they are never confused with verified ones.
- Behavior analysis. Individual events rarely tell the whole story. The engine clusters logs and internal calls into behaviors — swaps, mints, liquidations, governance actions — and recognizes token standards by how contracts act, not just what they claim.
- Predictive insights. With behavior understood, the engine surfaces what matters: unusual activity on a watched contract, anomalous token movements, trending interactions across the network. The explorer stops being a passive ledger viewer and becomes an active observability tool.
You can see all three stages live today on XDCScan, our explorer for XDC Network — and on our deployments for EVS, Wanchain, and Velas.
Blockscout-Compatible API
Developer ecosystems already integrate against established explorer APIs, and we don't believe adoption should require a rewrite. The OpenScan REST API v2 is Blockscout-compatible: wallets, analytics tools, and dApp backends built for the Blockscout API surface work against OpenScan with minimal changes.
- Base URL for XDC Network: https://xdcscan.io/api/v2
- Full endpoint documentation: xdcscan.io/api-docs
- The same API semantics on every chain we operate — one integration, many networks.
On top of the compatible surface, the API exposes OpenScan's decoded and AI-enriched data, so builders get human-readable activity in their own products without running an indexer of their own.
Explorer-as-a-Service
Running a credible explorer is a permanent infrastructure commitment: archive nodes, indexing pipelines, decoding coverage, API uptime, and a UI that keeps pace with the chain. Most layer-1 and layer-2 teams would rather spend that effort on the chain itself.
Explorer-as-a-Service (EaaS) is OpenScan.AI's answer. We operate the full stack for your network under your brand:
- A production explorer UI on your domain and branding.
- The full indexing and AI insight pipeline for your chain.
- A public, Blockscout-compatible API your ecosystem can build on.
- Ongoing upgrades as the OpenScan platform evolves.
XDC Network is the reference deployment. If your chain needs an explorer its users can actually read, talk to us through the contact form.
Roadmap
This document describes the direction; the public roadmap tracks what's shipping and when — new chain deployments, insight-engine capabilities, and API surface expansion. For the short-form version of what we're building week to week, read The Scan, our engineering notes publication.