If you’re a node operator, you should already know what to do, which probably looks different from the process the rest of us go through. Fortunately, there are several ways to verify a crypto transaction.
How to Confirm Your Crypto Transaction
The easiest way to verify a transaction is to check your wallet’s account activity. This looks a little bit different depending on what crypto wallet you use. From the dashboard of your wallet service, there’s usually a large friendly Activity button, just like you might see on your credit or debit account pages. Tap that.
Some crypto wallet dashboards are even friendlier and have an Activity window that just stays up all the time. PayPal’s crypto wallet feature is like this.
If you’re checking on an NFT, most platforms have a similar dashboard—though that Activity button might be a little harder to find.
How to Confirm Other Crypto Transactions
So far, we’ve looked at how you can verify your own transactions. However, if you know the wallet address or other information about the transaction, you can actually verify transactions on other accounts as well.
How to Use a Block Explorer
There’s a version of this for regular crypto transactions as well. It’s called a “block explorer.” Because different cryptocurrencies work on different blockchains, you need to be on the block explorer that corresponds with the chain on which the transaction took place. The screenshot here is from Etherscan, a popular Ethereum blockchain explorer.
The block explorer even has a search bar where you can browse the blockchain by address or ENS, the specific block or token, or even individual transaction. On Etherscan, there is even a line of text for whether the transaction was completed or not with a green checkmark that appears if the transaction was completed.
How to Check an NFT’s Item Activity
NFT marketplaces allow you to view an Item Activity just like you can view account activity. So, if there’s a particular NFT transaction that you want to verify, you can find the NFT on the marketplace and see which account has it.
Similarly, most NFT marketplaces allow you to view the account activity of other accounts. In either of these ways, you can verify a transaction even if the transaction had nothing to do with you.
Verifying Your Crypto Transactions Is Simple
If you’re new to crypto, you might be surprised at how transparent all of this is. That anyone can see any purchase from any person is definitely different from how most monetary systems have worked in the past. But that’s actually the point.
Cryptocurrencies are all about trust. The idea that you can verify a transaction yourself rather than taking someone else’s word for it is what crypto is all about.
