On November 30, SnowTrace, a popular blockchain explorer for Avalanche, will close down its website, powered by Etherscan’s Explorer-as-a-Service (EaaS) toolkit, as the platform fees reportedly grow to $2 million per year
Snowtrace users must save their backup information, including private name badges and contact verification details, by November 30.
Some have pointed to Etherscan’s service fees for its EaaS toolset as the reason for the team’s decision to shut down the explorer, although the team has not stated the reason for the closure.
Co-founder of Trading Strategy Mikko Ohtama estimates that an annual subscription to EaaS can cost between $1 million and $2 million. Ohtama penned:
“EtherScan is a very good product, but smart contract verification is something that needs to be decentralised. Regulators and other are not going to be kosher with ‘how do you check this?’ ‘the source code is hosted by a private company in Malaysia.’”
Phillip Liu Jr., head of strategy and operations at Ava Labs, added that the protocol is “moving onto something better” and will “absolutely not” cease operations. The EaaS service of Etherscan offers blockchains a block explorer and application programming interface (API) solution for a fee.
A block explorer may be discontinued due to the expiration of an EaaS service agreement, insufficient bandwidth, or low traffic volume. Before closing down, users are advised to save their data, such as private name tags, transaction notes, contract verification information, etc.
