Overview
Cardanoscan Block Size is a free online chart that shows, hour by hour, the average amount of data packed into each block, the batches in which a blockchain records transactions1. It covers Cardano over a rolling seven-day window, so stakers, developers, and curious holders can see at a glance whether the network has been busy or quiet. Read it like a traffic graph: higher stretches mean blocks carried more data, lower stretches mean lighter use.
The chart is one page in the analytics section of Cardanoscan, a Cardano block explorer (a search site for looking up transactions, addresses, and blocks). Strica, the development company behind Cardanoscan, also builds Typhon Wallet2. Strica added the chart through a Project Catalyst grant (Project Catalyst is Cardano's community funding program). One of the grant's milestones was a graph tracking increases and decreases in block size3.
Key Features
- A week of activity in one line. The Cardanoscan Block Size chart plots one point per hour across a rolling seven-day window, so busy and quiet stretches show up as clear peaks and dips1.
- Exact figures on hover. Hovering over any point on the line shows the average block size for that hour, given in kilobytes, along with the date and time1.
- A plain-language explanation on the page. A short description beside the chart explains that block size helps track network capacity and usage by showing how much data each block processes over time1.
What to Expect
Visitors land on a simple page: the chart title, a single filled line labelled Block Size, and the short description underneath. Above it sits Cardanoscan's site-wide header strip, with the ADA price, the epoch in progress (a fixed period of network time), and a live block counter1. The chart covers a fixed seven-day window, and readers explore it by hovering over the line rather than through filters.
For everyday readers, the useful habit is to look at the shape of the line rather than at single points. Each point is an average of the blocks produced in that hour, so one unusually full block gets blended with lighter ones. Sustained rises therefore stand out more than brief bursts, and a long stretch of high values means blocks carried more data for many hours in a row.
For stake pool operators, developers, and analysts, the Cardanoscan Block Size chart works as a quick check on network load before digging into individual blocks elsewhere on Cardanoscan. Strica's grant proposal framed the chart as a way to understand the health and activity of the Cardano network3. Cardano caps how much data one block can hold through a network setting called the maximum block body size, which Cardanoscan's protocol parameters page lists as 90,112 bytes, roughly 90 kilobytes4. Setting the chart's hourly averages against that figure gives a rough sense of how full blocks run on average, not how full any single block is.
