Why We Prefer BitRef Over Other Bitcoin Explorers

As a financial service, we make a lot of Bitcoin transactions per day. We need to use different tools to create, track, publish, accelerate, and analyze the Bitcoin transactions we make. In most cases, we use BitRef. They have all the tools we need, all in one place. In the following lines, we will describe in more detail what exactly we use and how.

1. Easy-to-Understand Address Transaction List

This is the fundamental difference between BitRef and other Bitcoin explorers. Other Bitcoin explorers display Bitcoin address transactions as inputs and outputs. This is confusing for the regular user and very hard to understand. BitRef (https://bitref.com/), on the other hand, displays Bitcoin address transactions as a bank statement with income and expenses. This is a lot easier to understand and analyze. It's also a lot easier to analyze all transactions related to a Bitcoin address because the information is compacted and grouped.

2. The Best Bitcoin Transaction Analyzer

BitRef has the best-in-class Bitcoin Transaction Analyzer (https://bitref.com/tx/check-status/). Especially for unconfirmed transactions, the system shows all mempool ancestors and descendants. The effective fee rate is calculated so you can view the actual fee rate miners consider when deciding whether to include a transaction in a block. You can also view the vMB from Tip, which shows the actual position of the transaction in the mempool. If the value is less than 1, this means the transaction will be included in the next block.

3. Bitcoin Block Explorer and Visualizer

BitRef is not a typical Bitcoin block explorer. It's much more user-friendly than traditional block explorers, but it also has a block explorer, located at https://bitref.com/block/. All the information about every block is available in a structured and easy-to-understand way.

There is also an option to visualize the block in a chart and see how much space every transaction in it occupies. Each transaction is shown in a different color depending on its type. This tool can also be used to explore what is currently happening on the Bitcoin network. For example, many batch payout transactions usually mean users are currently buying Bitcoin from exchanges.

Many consolidation transactions usually mean fees are currently low and users are consolidating their outputs to save on fees in the future.

4. The Leading Bitcoin Fee Estimator

When creating a new transaction, we need to know the optimal fee rate to use. BitRef has one of the best and easiest-to-understand Bitcoin fee estimators. You can test it at https://bitref.com/fees/. With their fee estimator, you can calculate the optimal fee rate in a variety of ways. The easiest is to just use their already-calculated values, but you can also calculate the fee yourself using their Bitcoin fee calculator, or analyze the charts in the mempool explorer, sorted by transaction count and vsize, to find fee levels that aren't congested.

You can also preview the next Bitcoin block currently being mined. You can visually explore it, see what types of transactions are in it, and how much block space each transaction is taking. The current tip fee rate is also displayed — usually the transaction with the lowest fee rate in the next block. If you bid a little above this value and fees don't change in the meantime, you can get your transaction included in the next block very cheaply.

5. Bitcoin Node Stats + Map

After the collapse of Bitnodes, BitRef remained the only source of Bitcoin node data and stats. They support two separate pages. The first is node statistics, at https://bitref.com/nodes/, where you can monitor Bitcoin node client distribution — for example, Bitcoin Core vs. Bitcoin Knots and BTCD — as well as Bitcoin nodes by client version, for example Bitcoin Core v30 vs. previous versions.

BitRef crawls the entire Bitcoin network once per day with its own crawler. They display the number of reachable (listening) Bitcoin nodes vs. nodes hidden behind NAT or a firewall, or that simply don't have port 8333 open. There is also a tool to live-test your own Bitcoin node — you can check whether it's currently accessible from the public internet (whether port 8333 is open and forwarded) and see other information about your node.

On another page, https://bitref.com/nodes/map/, BitRef maintains a live map of all reachable Bitcoin nodes around the globe. You can view the exact location of every public Bitcoin node on the map, and zoom in to explore even small towns around the world. This is the backbone of the Bitcoin network — these nodes support the network for free, and it's an honor to be on this map. We maintain our own public Bitcoin node and regularly test its accessibility with BitRef's tools.

6. Bitcoin Transaction Accelerator

Sometimes the Bitcoin network gets congested after a new transaction is submitted, and the transaction gets stuck in the mempool for a long time. This happened to us three times in the last month, so it's not something rare. There are systems we're not sure support RBF, so we don't want to risk replacing the transaction because we don't know if the new one will be detected — we prefer to prioritize it instead. Fortunately, BitRef offers a Bitcoin transaction acceleration service through its BitAccelerate (https://bitaccelerate.com/) brand. The tool is also available here: https://bitref.com/accelerator/

We have tested the BitAccelerate Premium service three times, and it works very fast — within 20 minutes, the transaction is usually confirmed, basically in the next mined Bitcoin block. So we can confirm it works, and their prices are the best for this service. I mean real transaction prioritization with Bitcoin miners, not just rebroadcasting, which is free and is also offered by BitAccelerate at no cost.

7. Bitcoin Address Validator

This tool is available only here: https://bitref.com/address-validator/. You can validate all Bitcoin addresses before sending money to them. For most popular Bech32 addresses, the tool highlights the exact problematic character(s). We haven't seen anything like this anywhere else.

We always check with this tool before sending money to an address.

These are just some of the tools the BitRef platform offers. There are many more, but we've listed the ones we use and have tested. The BitRef platform helps us with our Bitcoin operations every day, for which we are very grateful.