How I Track ERC‑20 Tokens and NFTs on Ethereum (Practical, No-BS Guide)

Whoa! This stuff still surprises me.
Tracking tokens on Ethereum feels obvious until it really isn’t.
My first instincts were simple—check a wallet, see transfers, done—but that was naive, and then I got burned a few times by proxy contracts, wrapped tokens, and wildly misleading token names.
Here’s the thing: transaction hashes are honest, interfaces are not, and the explorer you use matters a lot if you want the truth rather than noise.

Seriously? Yep.
Most people think a token ticker tells the whole story.
That’s wrong, often dangerously wrong.
On one hand the ticker is a quick clue, but on the other hand it can be spoofed by a new contract that rips off trust by copying a logo or a name—so you need to dig into the contract address and events to verify somethin’.

Hmm… check the contract first.
Look at the contract creation transaction and the verified source code when available.
Scan the constructor, see if minting occurs to a single address, and check for owner-only functions.
If you see arbitrary mint functions or pausible transfer controls, treat the token like a fragile egg and proceed cautiously, because newly minted supply can vanish or dump on holders.

Really quick tip.
Use the token’s contract address, not the ticker, when you add a token to a wallet or tracker.
That prevents you from accidentally following a clone.
Also, check the token decimals field; a 9-decimal token looks very different from an 18-decimal token when you eyeball balances—which messes with human perception and pricing displays.

Okay, so what do I look for in an explorer?
I want clear token transfer logs, easy-to-read event decoding, and quick access to verified contract source.
I also want holder snapshots and top token holders, with a way to follow internal transactions and token approvals.
When an explorer gives me all that in one place, I can go from suspicion to a solid hypothesis about a token’s safety and distribution—though I don’t blindly trust any single tool.

Initially I thought most explorers were roughly the same, but then I learned better.
Actually, wait—let me rephrase that: many explorers display the same raw data, though they parse and present it differently, and that makes a big UX impact on how quickly you can spot red flags.
For day-to-day work I rely on a go-to explorer that decodes events cleanly and highlights unverified contracts, and that helps me avoid scams where the code isn’t visible.
One practical favorite is the etherscan blockchain explorer because it surfaces token transfers, holders, contract verification, and event logs in a user-friendly way.

Whoa, visual proof matters.
Check the token transfers tab and look for repeated transfers from the deployer early on.
If the deployer holds a big chunk of the supply and immediately transfers to many wallets, ask why.
There are legitimate reasons—airdrops, liquidity provisioning—but there are also obvious rug patterns: concentrated ownership plus token approvals for a contract you don’t control.

Here’s a small checklist I run through fast.
1) Contract verification status.
2) TotalSupply vs circulating supply oddities.
3) Owner functions like mint, burn, pause.
4) Top 10 holders concentration.
If any item rings alarm bells, stop and dig deeper—don’t chase APYs without a safety baseline.

Wow, internal txs save lives.
When a transfer seems weird, I open the internal transactions and trace Ether movements to spot deployed proxies or fund flows.
Sometimes tokens are swapped via decentralized exchange contracts or routed through mixers; internal tx traces reveal that chain of custody.
Tracing funds this way helped me once spot a laundering pattern that started as an innocuous liquidity add, and I flagged the token before most folks noticed.

Really, approvals are underrated.
Open the “Token Approvals” or check the Transfer and Approval events in the logs.
If a contract or address has “infinite approval” to move your tokens, revoke it unless you trust it absolutely.
Wallets make it easy to approve once and forget, and that lazy behavior leads to hackers sweeping balances when an exploit hits a contract.

Check out the verified source and comments.
A verified contract is not automatically safe, though it helps me audit the logic faster.
Read the constructor and owner-only functions.
If ownership can be renounced or timelocked, that’s better; if not, keep that in mind—control centralized in one account is a systemic risk.

Oh, NFTs are a different flavor.
ERC‑721 and ERC‑1155 transfers are shown as token events, but metadata often lives off‑chain which makes attribution messy.
Look at mint patterns, who minted what, and whether the metadata URI resolves consistently.
Some mints point to random IPFS content, others to mutable URLs that can change art or metadata after sale—if mutable, the project can alter what holders bought.

Here’s what bugs me about floor-price assumptions.
A high floor doesn’t mean a healthy market; it can be artificially propped by wash trades or a small number of buyers repeatedly bidding.
Look at unique buyers over time, not just volume spikes.
If you see the same addresses trading back and forth, that’s a red flag for synthetic liquidity.

Hmm—gas and mempool matter too.
During big mints or drops, transactions get front‑run or sandwich attacked.
Watch pending txs and the maxPriorityFee; if bots are dominating, the user experience and cost can be brutal.
Being prepared with a gas strategy and knowing when to back out is a practical skill that saves money and frustration.

Check the “Read Contract” tab for balanceOf and totalSupply calls.
When possible, simulate reads locally or via the explorer to confirm numbers.
Be skeptical of off-chain dashboards that may aggregate stale or erroneous data.
Direct on-chain reads are canonical—though sometimes you need to parse raw logs to reconstruct tokenomics if the UI lies.

Okay—small practical workflow.
1) Copy contract address into the explorer search.
2) Verify source code and constructor.
3) Open Transfers and Approvals.
4) Inspect holders and concentration.
5) Trace internal txs and check for odd fund flows.
Follow that quick loop and you’ll catch most basic scams before they affect you.

Tools and tricks I actually use

I use a combination of on-chain reads, browser extensions, and dedicated explorer features like those in etherscan blockchain explorer to verify everything from token creation to holder distribution.
For developers I also toggle between raw logs and decoded events, because sometimes the ABI is wrong and you need to manually decode topics to see approvals or custom events.
And yeah—manual checks are boring, but automation fails fast when token contracts change slightly or implement nonstandard extensions.