Real-Time Bitcoin Data at Scale: Blockstream Explorer API Launches Electrum RPC

Applications that want real-time blockchain monitoring can now use Electrum RPC Protocol alongside REST API, giving builders the whole toolkit for constructing manufacturing Bitcoin and Liquid purposes with the Blockstream Explorer API.

What the Blockstream Explorer API Does

Every Bitcoin and Liquid software wants entry to blockchain knowledge. When a person opens a pockets, checks a transaction standing, or queries an handle steadiness, that software is asking: what’s taking place on the blockchain proper now?

The Blockstream Explorer API is the infrastructure layer that solutions these questions, indexing all the Bitcoin and Liquid blockchains and making that knowledge obtainable by a clear, quick API. Whether constructing a cellular pockets, a buying and selling dashboard, an analytics platform, or an alternate, Explorer API permits purposes to entry blockchain state with out working their very own infrastructure.

Running blockchain infrastructure is resource-intensive. A Bitcoin full node requires tons of of gigabytes of storage and fixed upkeep. But software growth requires greater than only a node. Indexing infrastructure is required to question addresses effectively, caching layers for efficiency, load balancing for reliability, and monitoring methods to make sure uptime. The Blockstream Explorer API handles all of this so builders can deal with constructing purposes as a substitute of managing servers.

Most purposes use the REST API. It’s easy, stateless, and excellent for on-demand queries. But some purposes want greater than queries. They want real-time notifications when addresses obtain funds, on the spot alerts when transactions affirm, and the flexibility to watch hundreds of addresses constantly with out repeated API calls.

That’s the place Electrum RPC is available in.

Why Electrum RPC Matters

Electrum RPC is a persistent, stateful protocol designed for real-time blockchain monitoring. Instead of repeatedly asking “has something modified?”, purposes subscribe as soon as and get notified robotically when one thing occurs.

Key capabilities:

• Subscribe to addresses to get push notifications when there’s a steadiness change.
• Subscribe to dam headers to get push notifications when a brand new block is discovered.
• Batch requests for environment friendly querying.

Address monitoring delivers on the spot notifications. Subscribe to an handle and get push notifications the second it receives a transaction or a transaction confirms. No polling. No delays. No wasted API calls checking for updates that have not occurred but.

Persistent connections allow real-time knowledge streams. Applications can keep long-lived connections that stream blockchain occasions as they happen. Perfect for dashboards displaying reside transaction feeds, exchanges processing deposits in real-time, or custody platforms monitoring chilly storage addresses.

Lower latency helps performance-critical purposes. Direct protocol entry means quicker response occasions for purposes the place milliseconds matter, like fee processors confirming transactions or buying and selling platforms monitoring mempool exercise.

Electrum RPC has been powering Bitcoin wallets for over a decade. It is a battle-tested protocol with broad tooling help, and intensive consumer libraries exist in each main programming language. Developers already aware of Electrum-based pockets integrations can use the identical instruments and patterns.

Available Across All Tiers

Electrum RPC is out there on the free public Blockstream Explorer (blockstream.info) with fee limits appropriate for particular person use and prototyping. Applications exceeding free tier limits might want to improve to a paid tier for continued entry.

What’s new: Electrum RPC is now obtainable throughout all paid Explorer API tiers with production-grade fee limits designed for high-volume purposes.

Basic and Advanced tiers embrace Electrum RPC entry that scales together with your API name limits. Enterprise tier gives limitless Electrum RPC connections with devoted infrastructure, customized fee limits, and precedence help. It’s constructed for exchanges, custody suppliers, and high-volume purposes that demand institutional-grade uptime.

Combining RPC and Quick sync for Maximum Performance

Production purposes can probably obtain optimum efficiency by combining Electrum RPC with QuickSync. The strategy would use Electrum RPC for real-time monitoring and on the spot notifications, whereas utilizing QuickSync for quick preliminary pockets synchronization. QuickSync is constructed on the Waterfalls protocol, an open-source descriptor-based sync protocol developed by Blockstream’s Riccardo Casatta.

Waterfalls presents versatile sync modes. Share a descriptor as soon as and obtain full pockets transaction historical past in a single response, or use UTXO-only sync to retrieve simply the unspent outputs. UTXO-only sync is quicker when making a transaction for the reason that pockets solely must know what it has obtainable to spend, not the total historical past. Waterfalls also can retrieve the final index, returning an handle that hasn’t been used but. What used to take hours now takes minutes.

The theoretical workflow: when a pockets first opens, QuickSync retrieves the whole transaction historical past shortly. Then Electrum RPC takes over, sustaining a persistent connection to ship on the spot notifications as new transactions arrive. This mixture might ship each quick preliminary sync and real-time updates with out the overhead of fixed polling. QuickSync is out there throughout all subscription tiers with pricing that scales as groups develop, and it is already working in manufacturing by LWK (Liquid Wallet Kit), with GDK and BDK integrations in progress.

Real-World Use Cases

Exchanges want to watch hundreds of deposit addresses concurrently with out overwhelming their infrastructure. Instead of polling every handle repeatedly, Electrum RPC lets exchanges subscribe as soon as and obtain on the spot notifications when deposits arrive. This reduces API overhead by orders of magnitude whereas enhancing person expertise with real-time steadiness updates.

Custody platforms managing chilly storage want rapid alerts when funds transfer unexpectedly. Electrum RPC eliminates the harmful hole between polling cycles. Security groups know immediately when monitored addresses present exercise, not minutes later when the subsequent polling run completes.

Payment processors want to verify buyer funds the second they hit the blockchain. Polling creates friction in checkout flows with “pending” states and delayed confirmations. Electrum RPC delivers on the spot fee detection so clients see confirmations instantly, not after ready for the subsequent polling cycle.

Trading platforms want real-time notifications when particular addresses obtain funds or transactions affirm. Polling introduces latency that issues for time-sensitive deposit processing and withdrawal monitoring. Electrum RPC delivers on the spot notifications for subscribed addresses, eliminating polling delays for essential transaction monitoring.

Analytics dashboards have to show reside blockchain exercise with out fixed web page refreshes or stale knowledge. Polling creates uneven, outdated interfaces. Electrum RPC retains dashboards synchronized with blockchain state in real-time, exhibiting customers Bitcoin because it occurs.

Ready to Get Started?

Electrum RPC is out there now throughout all paid Blockstream Explorer API tiers. Getting began is easy: create an account by the self-service dashboard, generate API keys, and begin constructing. The dashboard gives real-time utilization monitoring, billing administration, API key rotation, and entry to complete documentation.

Choose Basic, Advanced, or Enterprise based mostly in your software’s wants. Monitor API utilization in real-time, observe prices, and handle a number of API keys throughout environments, all from the dashboard.

Learn extra: blockstream.info/explorer-api

Enterprise enquiries: blockstream.typeform.com/enterpriseAPI

Documentation: github.com/Blockstream/esplora/blob/master/API.md