Etherscan
Solscan
DefiLlama
Dune
L2BEAT
Messari Research
SnapshotProject docs, GitHub and governance forums: what a project says, specifies or proposes.
The Web3 tool map
Estimated time · 20 min
Part 2 gave you the words. This gives you the places those words point to.
The instinct this page is building
When someone asks "is this project actually used, or does it just have a good website?", an experienced person does not know the answer — they know which tab to open.
That is most of what separates someone who can navigate this industry from someone who can only repeat what they heard on X.
You are not learning to use these tools today. You are learning that they exist and what each is for.
Learning objectives
- Name the right category of tool for a given question, without being told
- Explain what a block explorer shows you and why that matters
- Distinguish direct chain records from derived analytics
- Recognise the tools this programme will actually put in your hands
Core
The map
Do not memorise this. Recognise it. Bold tools are ones you will personally use.
| Tool | What do I open it for? | We use it in |
|---|---|---|
| MetaMask | Create a wallet, sign and send transactions | Week 1 |
| Etherscan | Check what actually happened on Ethereum | Weeks 1–3 |
| Solscan | The same, for Solana | Landscape |
| GitHub | Read a protocol's code, and store Deep Dive or Proof of Work evidence | Weeks 0, 4–8 |
| Remix | Write and deploy a simple smart contract | Week 3 |
| DefiLlama | Compare protocols and chains by size | Weeks 2, 4 |
| Dune | Explore on-chain data and dashboards | Week 4 |
| L2BEAT | Understand Layer 2 security and trust assumptions | Weeks 2, 4 |
| Messari Research | Read structured professional research | Week 4 |
| Snapshot | See how a change gets decided | Week 4 |
| Governance forums | Read proposals before anyone votes | Week 4 |
| X | Find out what is happening right now | Week 4 |
| Discord | Find community discussion and support | Week 4 |
| Telegram | Find community announcements and discussion | Week 4 |
The teaching idea is one arrow
Question → Tool
You are not memorising a directory. You are building the reflex of knowing which tab to open when you have a specific question.
The one idea that makes the map make sense
Everything above fits into five kinds of source. Knowing which kind you are looking at is more useful than knowing any individual tool.
Explorers and transactions: what actually happened on-chain.
Dashboards and aggregators: useful interpretations built from raw data.
Reports and audits: third-party interpretation and risk analysis.
Social, community and news: discovery and context, not final proof.
Different sources answer different questions. Use the source that fits the question, then cross-check before concluding.
The practical rule
Use social media for discovery, not as the final evidence for an important claim. X is excellent for finding out that something happened. It is a poor place to confirm it happened the way someone says it did.
The tools you'll actually touch
Wallets
A wallet does not hold your coins. It holds the keys that let you authorise changes to a shared record — the coins were never anywhere but the blockchain. Week 1 covers this properly.
| Wallet | Chains | Note |
|---|---|---|
| MetaMask | Ethereum and EVM chains | The default for this programme |
| Phantom | Solana, plus others | The Solana equivalent |
| Rabby | Ethereum and EVM chains | Shows more clearly what you are about to sign |
You will install MetaMask in Week 1, not today — and it will be a fresh wallet holding testnet assets only.
Block explorers
A search engine for a blockchain. Every transaction, address, contract and fee — all public, readable by anyone, no account required.
This is a genuinely unusual property
You cannot look up a stranger's bank transfer. You can look up any transaction that has ever happened on Ethereum.
On Etherscan you can check:
- whether a transaction succeeded or failed, and what it cost
- everything an address has ever done
- the verified source code of a contract, if its developers published it
- which tokens an address holds
That third one is the quiet one. Without verified source code, outsiders can see the deployed bytecode but cannot easily inspect the original human-readable code. You will use this in Week 3.
Solana's equivalent is Solscan.
Derived analytics
These sites turn on-chain data into useful comparisons and dashboards:
| Site | Answers |
|---|---|
| DefiLlama | Value deposited across protocols and chains |
| Dune | Query on-chain data and publish dashboards |
Derived analytics are interpretations
Someone chose what counts as "value locked" and what does not. Useful for comparison, not for settling a disputed claim.
Landscape
Recognise these; you will not use them before Week 4.
| Tool | What it's for |
|---|---|
| Dune | Queries indexed blockchain data and turns the results into dashboards. The result depends on the query and definitions used |
| Messari Research | Provides structured sector and protocol research. It adds interpretation, so important claims still need checking |
| Snapshot | Runs off-chain governance votes. It records a choice but does not itself change a contract's state |
| Governance forums | Where proposals get argued before anyone votes. The discussion can reveal assumptions and disagreement that a vote alone would hide |
| The Graph | Indexes chain data so applications can query it more easily. An index is useful, but can still need checking against the chain |
| OpenZeppelin | Publishes widely used contract libraries that reduce reinvention. Using a reviewed library lowers risk but is not a guarantee |
| Alchemy / Infura | Infrastructure providers running nodes so applications don't have to. An outage can interrupt access without meaning the chain stopped |
| Foundry / Hardhat | Developer toolkits for compiling, testing and deploying contracts. They help catch mistakes before a transaction is sent |
The Graph
Infura
FoundryWorked example
"Is Base actually used, or is the activity mostly marketing?"
Watch which tab opens at each step.
| Step | Tool | What it tells you | What it doesn't |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. What does it claim to be? | base.org + docs | An Ethereum L2 built by Coinbase | Whether any of it is used |
| 2. What is the trust model? | L2BEAT | Who can upgrade it, how withdrawals are secured | Usage |
| 3. Is value actually on it? | DefiLlama | Value deposited, and the trend | Whether it's a few whales |
| 4. Who is doing the activity? | Dune | Active addresses over time | Intent |
| 5. What are people saying? | X, Discord | Current narrative, complaints | Anything verified |
Notice the ordering
Step 1 uses a primary source. Step 2 uses independent research. Steps 3–4 use derived analytics. Step 5 is current discussion.
A beginner starts at step 5 and stops there, because it is the loudest and easiest. This workflow starts with what can be checked and uses social media last, for context rather than proof.
Also notice what no tool told you: whether Base is a good investment. No tool on this page answers that, and nothing in this programme is financial advice.
Further exploration — optional, not assessed
- ethereum.org — Block explorers — what explorers index and how
- L2BEAT — read one network's risk summary. The clearest public writing on trust assumptions you will find
- Dune — browse public dashboards. No account needed to look
Sources and attribution
- ethereum.org — Wallets — Reuse (CC BY 4.0), adapted
- ethereum.org — Block explorers — Reuse (CC BY 4.0), adapted
- Etherscan · L2BEAT · DefiLlama · Dune · Remix IDE — Link, referenced only