We are very excited and proud to present the newly upgraded Big Dipper Interchain Explorer! The first implementation of Big Dipper 2.0 is Big Dipper for Desmos.

This upgrade is one step closer towards a true Interchain explorer. With its new interface, updated codebase and added functionalities, Big Dipper is ready to serve in the Interchain era.

Becoming an Interchain explorer

Big Dipper started as an open source and award-winning monitoring tool for Cosmos SDK-based blockchains in 2018. After years of hard work, Big Dipper is well known throughout the Cosmos ecosystem, supporting over 10 blockchains including Cosmos Hub, Akash, Band and Kava. Moreover, it has been forked over 140 times on GitHub, and many other Cosmos SDK chains have built their own block explorers based on Big Dipper’s codebase.

In 2020, our team began building Big Dipper explorers for non Cosmos SDK blockchains, such as Flow Network, Celo and Solana. After IBC was successfully enabled on Cosmos Hub in February 2021, we saw the need for an user-friendly interchain explorer, and started upgrading Big Dipper to a high-performance and customizable explorer that can support any blockchain.

Big Dipper is for the user

“Big Dipper is built for the users.” Forbole’s Co-founder, Kwun, who built the first ever Big Dipper explorer, has emphasized this notion on multiple occasions. Big Dipper is intended to accommodate different types of users, whether with sophisticated blockchain experience or not. Its main purpose is to help any crypto adopter and developer navigate the blockchain world smoothly.

Information-rich

Big Dipper 2.0 comes with a cleaner UI and smoother user experience. The idea is to capture and display the on-chain data as comprehensive as possible but also easy to understand for everyone. Responsive design makes all pages render well on any device including computers, tablets, and phones.

You can start with Big Dipper home page, where all the Big Dipper explorers maintained or associated with us are listed.

When in a specific Big Dipper explorer, you can find abundant information of this chain, including the state of the chain, its tokenomics, transactions, account details, validators, and so on. We also made some adjustments on the validator page. For example, the “Condition” column indicates a validator’s performance, the “Delegator” column shows how many delegators (accounts) each validator has. A validator with more delegators and in a good (green) condition might be more popular and trustworthy in the community.

The Params page provides an overview of the chain, where you could quickly grasp the whole picture of the project.

We have started a knowledge base to explain concepts in blockchain and staking, which can be of help for newbies and enthusiasts. There are also sufficient hints to help you navigate around the site. We try our best to minimize the barrier to enter the blockchain world for you.

User-friendly

Big Dipper 2.0 comes with a light mode, a dark mode, and two color-blind friendly modes. We hope to serve people with different needs. There are two time formats to choose from: UTC and local time, which will come in handy as most projects are talking in “UTC term” to accommodate a global audience. You can easily switch between two time formats instead of calculating the time difference yourself.

There are many charts and tables across the site to help you visualize and analyze the on-chain data.

We are also going to design a customized theme color for each explorer that is maintained by us to resonate the project’s brand identity.

Supporting Desmos Profile

Big Dipper is supporting Desmos Profile. Desmos profile is a pseudo-anonymous social identity in the blockchain world. Everyone can display their own profile on Big Dipper to showcase their interests and fun facts!

Connected to Forbole X

Big Dipper will be connected to the Forbole X asset management tool, through which token holders can execute all sorts of transactions and participate in governance.

For developers: modular-based implementation

When we are building Big Dipper 2.0, we keep another type of potential users in mind: the developers. Big Dipper is an open-source software, and we have been welcoming other developers to utilize it from day one.

Thus, we would like to provide a better “user” experience for our fellow developers. Big Dipper 2.0 is modular-based, which gives Big Dipper more flexibility to support different blockchains. It also grants developers the freedom to choose what components they would like to implement for their own projects. Developers could choose the whole package, or just the BDJuno to query data, or any other module they see fit.

One important improvement of Big Dipper 2.0 is the BDJuno data indexer. BDJuno (shorthand for Big Dipper Juno) is the Juno implementation for Big Dipper. Juno allows developers and clients to query indexed chain data using GraphQL APIs instead of relying on Tendermint RPC endpoint and Cosmos APIs, so the on-chain data querying speed is greatly enhanced. It also enables developers to build more stable and better performing client applications that can even work on devices without high computation capacity, like smartphones. BDJuno extends the custom Juno behavior by adding different handlers and custom operations to make it easier for Big Dipper to show the data inside the UI.

It is a team effort

We have spent a huge amount of effort researching, designing, and developing Big Dipper 2.0. Shout out to: Kwun, Terence, Monika, Paul, Ravi, Riccardo, Rooty, Tina, Wingman.  

We would like to thank the community for their support and help. They have provided constructive feedback, asked good questions, and given generous donations. We’d also like to thank the Interchain Foundation for supporting us to develop the Juno project, the base of BDJuno.

To find out more

Please visit Big Dipper to start your Interchain journey today! We will gradually migrate all Cosmos-SDK chains’ explorers that are maintained by us to Big Dipper 2.0. As for the legacy Big Dipper, we will not continue developing the codebase and put its GitHub repo into archive mode, but you are still welcome to fork it to have an instant block explorer with Ledger Hardware wallet support.

If you have any questions or suggestions, please don’t hesitate to reach out at: Email - [email protected]

Or find us on: Twitter  |   Github  |   Website

If you would like to show some love, please check out the donation details.

May Big Dipper be your gateway to the Interchain world!