Ever felt like understanding blockchain analytics tools is like decrypting an alien language? Well, today we are going to demystify one of the most powerful tools in the world of Solana: Solscan. If you are a crypto enthusiast, Solana investor, or just someone curious about copytrading strategies, this step by step guide is tailored just for you. 🚀

To do so, we are going to cover 5 key points:

1. 🤔 What is Solscan?

2. 📖 How to Read and Understand a Transaction?

3. 🕵️‍♂️ Tokens Investigation Using Solscan

4. 💼 Wallet Analysis

5. 🔗 Track Down Related Wallets

By the time we are done here, you will not only understand how Solscan can help you explore wallets, analyze tokens, inspect transactions, and track wallets but also uncover pro-level strategies that others rarely talk about!

1. What is Solscan and Why is it Special? 🤔

Think of Solscan as your personal blockchain detective agency. It's the best (and easiest to use) block explorer custom-made specifically for the Solana blockchain, letting you peek behind the curtain of every transaction, wallet, and token movement happening on-chain. Instead of flying blind, you'll start seeing patterns and connections that most traders miss, track down a wallet’s activity, validate a token’s legitimacy and many more things!

The power of Solscan really shines through in its dashboard design. At first glance, you'll notice crucial network metrics like SOL supply, current epoch, and total transactions, but that's just scratching the surface. What makes Solscan truly indispensable asides from the real-time transaction feed, showing you every movement as it happens on-chain, is its search bar that will later on allow us to query anything!

2. How To Read a Transaction 📖

Think of each transaction like a letter in a blockchain mailbox. When you open one in Solscan, you're not just seeing numbers, but uncovering a story. Start by pasting any transaction hash into the search bar (or find a successful transaction without the "rent" label if you're just exploring).

Here's a breakdown of what each part tells us:

1. Signature: That long string starting with "4eeuc" is like a transaction's fingerprint. Its unique and permanent. Think of it as the ID code that lets you find this exact transaction again, no matter how much time passes.

2. Block: The number 315624922 tells us where in Solana's history this transaction lives. It's like a page number in the blockchain's endless book. The higher the number, the more recent the transaction.

3. Timestamp: More than just a date and time, the "January 22, 2025 11:06:13 UTC" tells us precisely when this transaction took place. UTC is crucial here, since it's blockchain's universal clock, making sure everyone's on the same time.

4. Result: When you see "SUCCESS" with "Finalized", it means this transaction is set in stone. That green checkmark isn't just for show, it means everything went exactly as planned, with maximum network confirmation.

5. Signer: The address starting with "3kgm" is our transaction's author. This is the wallet who kicked off the whole process and paid the fees.

6. Transaction Actions: Here's where the real story unfolds. In this case, someone swapped 2 WSOL (Solanas) for “PILL” tokens on Raydium. Each step is laid out clearly, showing you exactly how value moved around.

7. Fee: That tiny 0.00023 SOL charge is like the blockchain's processing fee. It's what keeps Solana running, and every transaction needs to pay it.

8. Priority Fee: Think of this 0.000225 SOL as a "fast pass" payment. When someone pays a higher priority fee, they're essentially telling the network, "I want this processed quickly."

3. Token Investigation 🕵️‍♂️

Now let's dive into token analysis. This is where Solscan really shines as your crypto background check service. Paste any token's contract address in the search bear, and watch as its story unfolds before you.

The immediate stats are helpful:

1. Basic Stats: Current price, Market cap, Total Supply, and Holder count.

2. Transfers: Stores every buy, sell, and movement of the token. You'll see exactly which wallets are trading this exact token and how much they're moving around.

3. DeFi Activities: Presents the same information as Transfers but with a cleaner, more user-friendly interface. If you're doing in-depth analysis, this is your go-to view.

4. Holders: Shows every wallet holding the token and what percentage they control

The most important part about analyzing a token using solscan is the “Holders" tab. It really is your best friend for spotting red flags. When you see multiple wallets holding suspiciously similar percentages (like several addresses each with 3.79% of supply in this case), that's often a sign of "bundling", which means multiple wallets controlled by the same person trying to hide their true holdings. This insight alone could save you from a potential disaster.

As can be seen above, the screenshot perfectly illustrates this bundling pattern. Notice how several wallets hold identical amounts, each representing precisely 3.79% of the supply. This isn't coincidence. It's a common tactic used to mask large holdings and potentially manipulate the token’s market to later on rug it.

4. Wallet Analysis: Understanding the Players 💼

Here's where things get really interesting. Every wallet is like a public character (because can be seen by anybody) in the Solana story, and Solscan helps you read their entire history.

Starting with the basics, we have:

1. SOL Balance: How many Solanas does this wallet have.

2. Token Holdings: Gives you an immediate picture of a wallet's current state.

3. DeFi Activies: Shows all the transactions relation to SPL Tokens (Tokens that are not Solana), AKA memecoins. Inside, we can find valuable filters and metrics:

   

   DeFi Activities tab of a Given Wallet.

   1. Signature: The signature of the transaction.

   2. Time: When was this transaction performed.

   3. Action: What type of action was this transaction. Most of the times will be “TOKEN SWAP”, which means that there was a buy/sell of a given token.

   4. From: The wallet who performed this transaction. Note how this address will always be the wallet we are analyzing.

   5. Amount: The exchanged ammounts.

   6. Value: Value of the transaction in Dollars.

   7. Platform: The platform it was used to perform the said transaction.

   8. Source: Which DEX (Descentralized Exchange) was used.

Note that you can apply filters to most of the above mentioned columns, making it easier to find out what you are looking for.

Moving on, we have the “Portfolio” tab, it complements this by giving you an overview of all current token holdings, their quantities, and current market values.

Think of it as a snapshot of the wallet's current positions rather than its trading history. This tab is particularly useful for understanding a wallet’s overall exposure and investment strategy.

5. Tracking Down Related Wallets 🔗

Here's a pro secret most traders never share: finding profitable wallets is just the beginning. The real skill lies in tracking related wallets to uncover larger patterns. When you find a successful wallet that's gone quiet (no SOL balance), don't stop there. That's when the real investigation begins!

5.1 Untrackable Wallets ❌

For example, the wallet in the image has earned over $21k in the last 7 days but has no SOL in its balance, which means it has withdrawn its funds to another wallet, making the chances of it trading again low (if not practically nil).

In these cases, you have to turn to Solscan to pull the thread and find potentially related wallets.

To do this, we need to look at 2 things:

1. Which wallet was used to send funds for the first time (i.e., the parent wallet that supplied the wallet we are analyzing). If we can successfully identify it, we can monitor and copytrade the freshly funded child wallets.

2. Wallet(s) where the profits were sent. Surely, this “storage” wallet(s) can receive SOL from other child wallets that may still be active (so we can copy them).

Often, you'll find that crazily good wallets are funded by centralized exchange wallets (like Binance, Coinbase, OKX, etc), which makes it impossible to track down due to how this platforms internally manage their transaction (off the blockchain).

Since we can’t identify the original funding wallet, let’s have a look to where were the profts sent. To do so, we will filter the outgoing Solana transactions and look for big enough amounts (Like 35 SOL in this case).

Unluckly, if you open the destination wallet, you will quickly realize that it does not belong to a human person (because it is Off the Curve and has a transaction every few seconds), which makes it not worthy to keep tracking it down.

As you have just saw, sometimes you'll hit dead ends, especially when dealing with exchange wallets or complex transaction paths. That's normal. The key is to stay organized and methodical in your investigation. Each dead end teaches you something new about how sophisticated traders operate.

5.2 Trackable Wallets ✅

On the other hand, we have wallets that are actually trackable, like the we are about to cover together!

As you can see, the above shown wallet made almost $5.5k in just 1 day but it’s not doesn’t have Solanas, so let’s apply the same technique as before.

Unlike the previous case (in which the wallet was provisioned by a Binance hot wallet), this wallet was funded by a human wallet with just 1 Sol. If we open it and search for other outgoing SOL transactions, we can see that before funding our current wallet, it sent 1 SOL to another wallet:

And, if we double check this wallet on Solscan, we can see that it’s indeed active and very profitable, which means it’s potentially copytradeable!

Final Thoughts 💭

Mastering Solscan won't happen overnight, but it's a skill that can transform your trading journey. Each investigation makes you better at spotting patterns and understanding the flow of smart money on Solana. If you are a begginer, take it easy and don’t worry too much. You will eventually become better!

Want to learn more about Solscan? Don’t forget to check out my YouTube channel for detailed tutorials and subscribe to free my Telegram Group for daily insights about crypto and copytrading. I share profitable wallets, live analysis, and copytrading strategies that could help boost your returns.

Remember: Knowledge is power in Copytrading. Let's grow together! 🤝