<p>Adding to Nick's answer, it's worth clarifying that even though the entire history of transactions are available, there's no information directly stating which collection of addresses belong to a particular wallet. You might get some idea of that by looking at the inputs and outputs of transactions, but there's no "wallet id" (or similar) value in the blockchain.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-12-03T13:54:53.527Z
It has become clear(er) to me since asking the original question that there is a difference between a wallet and a bitcoin address. I was interested in determining what transactions have occurred for a particular address. I'm only now realizing/suspecting that a wallet may contain many addresses.
BlueMonkMN
CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-12-03T18:03:40.757Z
Yes, that's correct. New addresses are added to a wallet as created by the user. It's easier to achieve anonymity if a new address is created for each incoming transaction, if anonymity is a goal of the user.
Highly Irregular
CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-12-01T20:34:34.680Z
2012-12-01T20:34:34.680Z
Highly Irregular
<p>I have written a program in Python3 that allows you to search for any address on bitcoin core whether it belongs to your wallet or not.</p>
<p>Here is the github link:</p>
<p><a href="https://github.com/ORP967/Bitcoin_Core_RPC_par_address" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://github.com/ORP967/Bitcoin_Core_RPC_par_address</a></p>
<p>Let me know what you think or if you have any improvements you might have.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-01-23T23:16:57.823Z
2022-01-23T23:16:57.823Z
ORP967
<blockquote>
  <p>Is it possible to view others' transactions</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Yes.</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>in bitcoin client?</p>
</blockquote>

<p>No.</p>

<ol>
<li>It's not terribly useful to look up the balance of somebody else's address, except maybe so they can prove they have a certain amount of funds.  </li>
<li>These lookups would be <em>slow,</em> because it needs to work through millions of transactions. Creating the indexes that would allow you to do fast lookups on any bitcoin address would take a sizable amount of disk space.</li>
<li>All of them are there - it's a central part of the bitcoin protocol. What if somebody moves all of their money out of their account within a transaction you don't know about? Therefore, you have to know about all transactions, unless you want to be surprised when their payment "bounces."</li>
<li>There's already a website called <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Bitcoin Block Explorer</a> that pretty clearly establishes that transactions are public. Even if there wasn't, you could still <a href="https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/5518/how-do-i-access-information-on-blockexplorer-com-or-blockchain-info-without-issu/5519#5519">build your own</a>.</li>
</ol>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-12-01T08:21:46.853Z
Concerning #2, it sounds like you're talking about calculating a balance, but I'm not talking about looking up their balance, just looking up a transaction. For example, wouldn't it be useful to be able to use the system as a means of proving a receipt to a third party? A judge could award a case based on proof that funds were transferred from one account to another, neither of which the judge controls. Concerning #3, I'm referring to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin#Confirmations which talks about implementations where not all transactions are stored. #4 is a good answer.
BlueMonkMN
CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-12-01T18:13:08.273Z
2. It's actually quite easy to look up a transaction given its transaction ID. Use the [bitcoind rpc call `getrawtransaction`](https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Original_Bitcoin_client/API_Calls_list#Full_list) 3. Electrum clients only store their own transactions and rely on Electrum server to not lie to them.
Nick ODell
CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-12-01T06:55:36.367Z
2015-04-01T19:29:28.890Z
2017-04-13T12:47:33.583Z
Nick ODell
<p>This seems like a really basic question, but I'm having trouble searching for answers on it. My understanding is that my bitcoin client (Bitcoin v0.7.1-beta) has basically theoretically downloaded the entire transaction history of every bitcoin transaction that has ever occurred. I can see my own transactions in the Transactions screen. Is there a way to see transaction with wallets that I haven't imported or created on this client? I'm just trying to get a full understanding of bitcoin technology here. Is the reason the client doesn't show transactions from other wallets due to:</p>

<ol>
<li>User friendliness - it would be overwhelming to have to search through all wallet addresses when most people only care about their own (is there a way to override that?);</li>
<li>Technical limitations - it's impractical to consider every transaction in the huge database when you want to list or look up some particular piece of information;</li>
<li>Design limitations - Not every transaction is actually there with all the information necessary;</li>
<li>Privacy concerns - By making it too easy to view others' transactions people would yell out about privacy more vocally;</li>
<li>Something I missed?</li>
</ol>

<transactions><blockchain><bitcoin-core><privacy>
Is it possible to view others' transactions in bitcoin client?
BlueMonkMN
# Is it possible to view others' transactions in bitcoin client?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2012-11-30)

This seems like a really basic question, but I'm having trouble searching for answers on it. My understanding is that my bitcoin client (Bitcoin v0.7.1-beta) has basically theoretically downloaded the entire transaction history of every bitcoin transaction that has ever occurred. I can see my own transactions in the Transactions screen. Is there a way to see transaction with wallets that I haven't imported or created on this client? I'm just trying to get a full understanding of bitcoin technology here. Is the reason the client doesn't show transactions from other wallets due to:

1. User friendliness - it would be overwhelming to have to search through all wallet addresses when most people only care about their own (is there a way to override that?);
2. Technical limitations - it's impractical to consider every transaction in the huge database when you want to list or look up some particular piece of information;
3. Design limitations - Not every transaction is actually there with all the information necessary;
4. Privacy concerns - By making it too easy to view others' transactions people would yell out about privacy more vocally;
5. Something I missed?

**Tags:** transactions, blockchain, bitcoin-core, privacy


---

## 3 answers

### Answer by username_3 on 2012-12-01. Score: 4 | Accepted answer

> Is it possible to view others' transactions

Yes.

> in bitcoin client?

No.

1. It's not terribly useful to look up the balance of somebody else's address, except maybe so they can prove they have a certain amount of funds.
2. These lookups would be *slow,* because it needs to work through millions of transactions. Creating the indexes that would allow you to do fast lookups on any bitcoin address would take a sizable amount of disk space.
3. All of them are there - it's a central part of the bitcoin protocol. What if somebody moves all of their money out of their account within a transaction you don't know about? Therefore, you have to know about all transactions, unless you want to be surprised when their payment "bounces."
4. There's already a website called [Bitcoin Block Explorer](http://blockexplorer.com/) that pretty clearly establishes that transactions are public. Even if there wasn't, you could still [build your own](https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/5518/how-do-i-access-information-on-blockexplorer-com-or-blockchain-info-without-issu/5519#5519).

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: Concerning #2, it sounds like you're talking about calculating a balance, but I'm not talking about looking up their balance, just looking up a transaction. For example, wouldn't it be useful to be able to use the system as a means of proving a receipt to a third party? A judge could award a case based on proof that funds were transferred from one account to another, neither of which the judge controls. Concerning #3, I'm referring to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin#Confirmations which talks about implementations where not all transactions are stored. #4 is a good answer.  
> **username_3**: 2. It's actually quite easy to look up a transaction given its transaction ID. Use the [bitcoind rpc call `getrawtransaction`](https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Original_Bitcoin_client/API_Calls_list#Full_list) 3. Electrum clients only store their own transactions and rely on Electrum server to not lie to them.  

---

### Answer by username_1 on 2012-12-01. Score: 0

Adding to username_3's answer, it's worth clarifying that even though the entire history of transactions are available, there's no information directly stating which collection of addresses belong to a particular wallet. You might get some idea of that by looking at the inputs and outputs of transactions, but there's no "wallet id" (or similar) value in the blockchain.

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: It has become clear(er) to me since asking the original question that there is a difference between a wallet and a bitcoin address. I was interested in determining what transactions have occurred for a particular address. I'm only now realizing/suspecting that a wallet may contain many addresses.  
> **username_1**: Yes, that's correct. New addresses are added to a wallet as created by the user. It's easier to achieve anonymity if a new address is created for each incoming transaction, if anonymity is a goal of the user.  

---

### Answer by username_2 on 2022-01-23. Score: 0

I have written a program in Python3 that allows you to search for any address on bitcoin core whether it belongs to your wallet or not.

Here is the github link:

<https://github.com/username_2/Bitcoin_Core_RPC_par_address>

Let me know what you think or if you have any improvements you might have.


---

