I have been building a bitcoin block explorer and I feel it's good enough to show:
The site runs its own hardware, bitcoin node and address index. No third-party blockchain API used.
Inside the site:
- Explorer: blocks, transactions and addresses at root-level URLs. (very important, a feature I always wanted with other explorers, a quick easy way to query an address) For example you can type openbitcoin.com/block_number_here or openbitcoin.com/txid_here or openbitcoin.com/address_here to load the page instantly without visiting the site to use the search bar :)
- Node census (openbitcoin.com/nodes): reachable nodes counted by my own P2P crawler, 8,958 nodes from 92 countries last run.
- Rich list (openbitcoin.com/rich-list): top 10,000 addresses and balance distributions.
- Prices: spot price as a median of three exchanges, with a quick conversion tool on the front page.
- Tools: fee calculator, address validator, message verifier, QR generator, and key tools built to be downloaded and run offline.
- Guides: on confirmations, UTXOs, self-custody, stuck transactions and more. Newbie friendly.
- Games (openbitcoin.com/games): three arcade games built on real bitcoin mechanics, stack blocks, clear a mempool backlog, and a slot machine that plays the actual odds of guessing a private key.
The website is open source. What stays private is my server's operational layer.
Would appreciate any feedback, happy to contribute to the community.
Really cool and well put together, very smooth site, ux is smooth and well laid out
Like the interactive way of clicking txs as they come in
Lots of educational material to choose from
A lot of work went in to that, congratulations hope it gets seen 👏
Thanks for the kind feedback @npub1zapsats, yes spent quite a bit of time putting it together, I hope people can find it helpful.
I just want to say that your proposal is very interesting; games can be educational, allowing children and others to learn about how mempool works. Keep creating, and thanks for sharing with the community.
Ya block heads
awesome site, I'm using it now, thanks! :)
My only recommendation is that, in the section on buying Bitcoin without KYC, MOSTRO should be added to the P2P options. @openbitcoin
https://github.com/MostroP2P/mobile/releases/tag/v1.4.1
yes @openbitcoin we have nothing less than the other P2P:
start here --> https://mostro.network/
Hi @robbabuona it has been added now to the page https://openbitcoin.com/buy
Thanks a lot guys!
Good job 👍
Good recomendation
And also here:
https://mostro.world/
Great recommendation @Wellknow35, its added now https://openbitcoin.com/buy
is there software we can buy BTC without KYC today?
Nice work. Running your own node and index makes this more useful than just another block explorer. I especially like the root-level URLs for blocks, txs and addresses. 👌
Appreciate it @ditchondominic, Root URLs are a must for any explorer, easy access.
Any chance your API can return the bitcoin price in other currencies than the USD? I'm asking because I see the site already supports several currencies...
Thank you!
Hi @398ja,
You already can: /api/v1/summary returns the USD price and an fx table side by side (ECB daily reference rates, 15 currencies).
Multiply price.usd by fx.rates.EUR (or GBP, JPY, BRL etc.) and you have your price. It is the same data the site's own converter uses.
The self-hosted indexing is probably the strongest part of this project. Not relying on third-party blockchain APIs makes the explorer much more aligned with Bitcoin’s trust-minimized philosophy. One thing I’d love to see is a small “data transparency” page showing exactly where each metric comes from and how frequently it is updated, that could make the project stand out even more.
Hi @c1893b01e5 thanks for checking it out! What do you mean about data transparency? The site is loading data directly from the bitcoin node.
This post has been downzapped 35000 sats.
Why? Who?
Probably chainalysis and the kyc crew. The idea that blockchain data might be harder to surveil is bad to them.
Thanks for pointing that out @Signal312, I am brand new here and just learning how things work, I definitely noticed my post was falling off the front page abruptly.
After scanning the front page I assumed it was ok to keep zapping my post up, is that not the case? Wasabi Wallet is doing exactly this without being downzapped for it. Their post from July 24th is still going strong.
Downzapping is a very controversial topic. It's been used heavily to censor political opinions (mostly anti-Iran war) that certain people don't agree with. (#1480182)
It's why I don't put a lot of effort into Stacker News anymore. It's just not worth it, what with somebody not liking your post, and - no explanation, no discussion - downzapping it into oblivion. All anonymous, and then your post disappears.
I've suggested that the default option for people on stacker news is that the main feed NOT take anonymous downzaps into account.
I don't know if that's the best answer, but there definitely needs to be an open discussion on this topic.
This is actually really cool running your own node and index instead of relying on third party APIs makes it much more trustworthy the simple root level URLs are a great touch too.
Thanks @Stackernerd
I love this, it is very easy to understand and the website layout is clear and concise. Keep it up, will definitely be sharing this with some people wanting to know more about bitcoin.
Thanks that's nice to hear @SatsMate !
So this my interest for long now.
Great Job on the website, I'm definitely going to bookmark
Thank you @TheCryptoApex1
what a cool stuff! Thx for sharing
in halving countdown page, using mobile version, information is hide until I scroll sideways.
Hi @Fenix thanks for pointing that out, fix complete. Please refresh.
This is great! 👏👏👏
Thanks @satoshiplanet appreciate it!
keep building :)
Looks cool!
Thank you @Coinsreporter !
thanks for sharing, keep building!!!
Will do :)
Excellent work – this website is very comprehensive and packed with really good information, with lots of useful resources linked to it – brilliant.
Thanks for checking it out @Wellknow35 , happy you like it :)
I really like the self-hosted Bitcoin data.
Thanks for checking it out @WaxLuw
This is very well done IMO.
Unfortunately people gonna hate because “it is vibe coded”, but there is a lot to this.
It brings together a lot of information and is surprisingly complete.
I ask that you consider linking out to all of the pages/resources, I found I was wanting to dig into source material, but there were no links a lot of the time.
Hi @deadmanoz thanks for checking out the site, there is a bit of hate for using AI but I don't care, I put a lot of effort to make the site look nice, it wasn't a few prompts and done. I went over everything and put in a lot of time for this project.
I like your suggestion, I have added it to my task list.
Really nice site! Clean, simple, and packed with useful Bitcoin tools.
Hi @LightOfBitcoin thanks for checking it out!
another soulless website, just what the whole bitcoin community wanted!
Vibecoded UI!!
The gift card section is interesting. How did you assemble it?
Also the impossible slot machine is cool:
they're just links to other websites, this is a fully vibe coded product
Thanks for the feedback! The gift cards are mirrors from two websites, Bitrefill and CoinCards, all of those link out to either or. It's a nice way to see what's available without leaving the site until you're ready to purchase.
I dug through the repo after seeing this. Nice work.
I especially like that the chain data comes from your own Bitcoin Core node, the API is documented, and the offline key tools are actually designed to run with no network access.
One thing I'm curious about: the Astro frontend builds locally, but the live explorer routes still expect a loopback data service that isn't included in the main repo.
Any plans for a minimal self-hostable data adapter that talks directly to Bitcoin Core + address-index? That could turn OpenBitcoin into a really nice private local explorer too.
Thanks for the kind words @SkyLords
This is done: https://github.com/openbitcoincom/explorer-adapter
Core alone gets you blocks, txs, mempool and fees. Add an electrum server (electrs or Fulcrum) for address pages, and the address-index for heavy-address caching. Same response shapes as the live site, so the public frontend plugs straight in.
Good idea!
I just went through the repo. I like that Bitcoin Core is enough to run the basic explorer, while Electrum and the address index can be added only when those extra features are needed.
The fallback for address totals is a nice touch too: correct but slower without the index, rather than simply unavailable.
This is pretty close to what I had in mind. Nice to see the idea turn into actual code so quickly. 👍
@openbitcoin — a concrete bug in the /verify page's promise, reproducible right now:
The two offline tools do not hash to the checksums published on
/verify. Downloaded a minute ago:tools/offline/bip39-toolkit.html→ 58,734 bytes, published: 57,796 bytestools/offline/authenticator.html→ 46,842 bytes, published: 45,904 bytesBoth are exactly 938 bytes larger, and the SHA-256 changes on every download (I got
787958b7…then8da8133c…for the same file). The cause is Cloudflare: it appends its bot-detection snippet (window.__CF$cv$params={r:'…',t:'…'}+ a loader for/cdn-cgi/challenge-platform/scripts/jsd/main.js) before</body>on every response. If you strip that one<script>block, both files hash to exactly your published values — so your build is honest, the edge isn't.Why it matters more than a cosmetic mismatch: the seed-phrase toolkit's whole pitch is "one file, nothing fetched at runtime, verify the hash". Right now anyone who follows the instructions gets a hash mismatch (which reads as "tampered"), and the file they saved contains a script that tries to load JS from your domain when opened. Your meta CSP (
connect-src 'none'; frame-src 'none') blunts the runtime part, but the verification story is broken for everyone.Fixes, any one of which works:
/tools/offline/*.Content-Disposition: attachmentand/orContent-Type: application/octet-stream— Cloudflare only injects into responses it treats as HTML pages..zip/.tarof the tools; injection never touches non-HTML bodies.Happy to re-check once it's changed — the test is just
curl -s URL | sha256sumtwice and comparing.