How to Check the Bitcoin Price, Hashrate, Data – The 21 Best Monitoring Sites

As bitcoin grows in popularity and recognition worldwide, resources dedicated to providing in-depth and diverse stats on all things crypto have exploded onto the scene and continue to proliferate rapidly. This post lays out 17 of the best sites, and divides them into basic categories such as checking price, viewing network visualizations, and more.

Also Read: How to Mine Bitcoin in 2020

Digging Into Bitcoin Data

The proliferation of data available to those looking to geek out on all things bitcoin, or simply check the prices with their morning coffee, can be overwhelming for sheer volume. In the interest of helping readers navigate this fun and a useful deluge of stats, facts, and knowledge, news.Bitcoin.com has sifted through some of the most beneficial sites, and organized them for your perusal. It should be noted that many of the sites listed provide multiple types of data, and there is often significant overlap between the categories.

Info-Rich Price Checking

Perhaps first and foremost on every bitcoiner’s mind is the price. As much as ‘number go up’ may be a silly meme mocking fair-weather crypto fans, when the number does go up, it nonetheless makes most everyone happy. The following are sites for checking crypto prices that also provide rich stores of data and a wide array of information for deeper analysis.

bitcoinwisdom.io – For a truly old school way to check prices across popular exchanges, and view corresponding charts, bitcoinwisdom.io is a solid choice. The classic site affords users the opportunity to check prices in terms of their preferred trading pairs.

bitinfocharts.com – Covering price, volume, transaction value, fees, block time, block size, difficulty, hash rate, mining profitability, and even wealth distribution — not to mention a plethora of other metrics like social media stats — bitinfocharts.com presents a wealth of information and charts all at a glance.

coinmarketcap.com – Many cryptocurrency users find Coinmarketcap especially useful for its comprehensive historical data section, allowing analysis back into the “ancient days” of crypto more than five years ago, and highlighting milestones such as highs and lows in the lives of various assets. Of course, the site and its mobile app are very popular for simply checking crypto prices as well.

markets.bitcoin.com – For a quick, clean check of prices with some interesting special features, the Bitcoin.com markets page is a handy resource. The Gainers & Losers tab shows at a glance which crypto assets are doing the best in the last 24 hours as far as increasing value, and which are not doing so hot. Further, featured SLP token performance can be monitored via the Featured Tokens tab.

messari.io – Much more than just a place to check prices, Messari specializes in research, news, and analysis, and like bitinfocharts.com, provides a wealth of metrics as well as advanced options for downloadable info, customizations, and access to professional research. Some of the features require a paid subscription, but the free information alone is fairly extensive.

Cool Network and Price Visualizations

Checking prices is nice and all, but what about bitcoin transaction and network data coming alive in the form of animated pictures and sounds? For the right-brained analyst out there, the following cool visualization resources are a nice aid in understanding Bitcoin network activity.

bitcoinal.com – Segueing nicely from the last section on price, bitcoinal.com provides a simple-but-fun, customizable price chart which depicts the current bitcoin price in terms of weather. When the price falls, a snowy scene is shown. Conversely, when things are looking green, a springtime scene appears. For those feeling down in bearish markets, just switch the time frame to a longer overview, and the sun will likely come out.

bitcoincity.info – Bitcoincity.info shows transactions as cities occurring “on the road to the blockchain.” Each city has different characteristics depending on the transaction data. Depending on the various values, colors, building size, and shape vary, and users can customize the display.

bitcoinmonitor.com – Probably the oldest such transaction and block visualizer out there, this site has been ticking since 2011, and shows transactions (higher values are higher on the chart) and the creation of new blocks.

bitlisten.com – Probably the most relaxing way to dig into transaction data, Bitlisten turns bitcoin transactions into wind-chimes, with larger transactions being lower in pitch. Users can even choose one of three instruments.

dailyblockchain.github.io – Another cool real-time transaction visualizer, reminiscent of peering into an electron microscope and watching tiny lifeforms (bitcoin transactions) proliferate in zoomable, massive space. Nodes and color-coded inputs and outputs are shown. — BTC transaction data at its trippiest.

fiatleak.com – Fiat Leak shows live conversion of various fiat currencies to crypto, based on the countries where the transactions originate. Tiny bitcoin orbs shoot out from fiat currencies at the bottom of the visual, and land in their respective nations, giving users a bird’s-eye view of the current global situation where fiat-to-crypto conversion is concerned.

Social Markers

Nowadays many in the space practically live on crypto Twitter and Telegram. They also consume mainstream media which increasingly covers bitcoin and cryptocurrency markets. As such, more and more sites have begun to offer data and metrics derived from social media activity and social perceptions.

coingecko.com – Coingecko has a handy feature for checking a coin’s social media status by analyzing stats from Reddit, Telegram, Facebook, and Twitter. The info is seated right next to coin price, making for convenient and quick reference.

Fear and Greed Index – Alternative.me has a handy crypto dashboard with a fear and greed index designed to “save you from your own emotional overreactions.” Viewing fear and greed over time can give bitcoiners an idea when the market is likely overreacting one way or another. Whether that means people panic-selling when they should hodl, or buying up everything at an unreasonably high price just before a correction. The index is formed via data from five areas: volatility, market momentum/volume, social media, surveys, and dominance.

lunarcrush.com – Lunarcrush.com is focused on “social listening for crypto,” with its own scoring system. The site lists some metrics viewable only with the creation of a free account, but the “Galaxyscore,” and a feed which ranks crypto posts across the web as bullish, bearish, or neutral, are available to view without an account. Lunarcrush also provides data on influencers in the space.

Hashrate and Hash Distribution

Seeing which mining pools wield the most hash power, and the respective hashrates for various coins, is another critical metric for keeping a finger on the pulse of crypto. Luckily there are some great resources available.

blockchain.com – Blockchain.com shows popular mining pools’ respective market shares (estimated hashrate distribution) in pie graph form, over intervals of 24 hours, 48 hours, and four days.

coin.dance – For bitcoiners interested in comparing multiple data points and seeing the respective hashrates of BTC, BCH, and BSV side by side, Coin Dance is an indispensable tool. The site provides data on daily average block sizes, transactions, transactions per block, daily average fees in USD and satoshis, daily bitcoin fee/block reward ratio, and total hashrate by mining pool, among others.

data.bitcoinity.org – A wealth of information and clean, data-rich charts can be found at data.bitcoinity.org detailing the various bitcoin mining pools and their hashrates. Price info such as bid/ask spread data across multiple exchanges is also viewable.

Specialized/Technical Resources

Heading to the deeper end of the data and analytics pool, the following sites probably aren’t for the average bitcoin fan who just wants to check the price and some other basic metrics, but they nonetheless provide important info relating to the bitcoin network.

bitnodes.io – For users wanting to check up on the status of bitcoin nodes around the globe, this site provides detailed info on active nodes as well as clean and beautiful visualizations of the bitcoin network. To check up on Bitcoin Cash nodes, bchnodes.online provides a similar resource.

luke.dashjr.org – This resource is a handy pie chart overview, listing bitcoin node branches.

statoshi.info – Not only is the name clever, statoshi.info is an open source node monitoring site featuring dashboards on bandwidth usage, blocks, fee estimates, function timings, mempool, and more. Statoshi.info is also notable for its clean layout and clear, easy-to-read charts.

txstats.com – Txstats.com (formerly p2sh.info) features over 20 dashboards for metrics such as BIP 11 output stats, BIP 69 stats, batching information, and bech32 statistics. The home dashboard shows the amount of BTC held in pay to script hash (P2SH) addresses and the number of P2SH outputs. The site boasts many other metrics, including info relative to the bitcoin block size debate.

Sites Dedicated to Bitcoin Cash

While many of the sites and resources above focus on bitcoin cash as well as bitcoin core, there are also plenty of resources especially tailored for analysis of the BCH network and price. Bitcoin.com’s Block Explorer allows users to check on the latest blocks, transactions, and wallet addresses on either the mainnet or testnet. Simple Ledger Protocol (SLP) tokens built on the BCH network can be explored via the SLP Explorer at simpleledger.info. For an extremely info-rich resource (which is also now available on Tor for privacy-minded users), the Blockchair Bitcoin Cash Explorer lists price, a reward halving countdown, node count, fee info, and a plethora of other metrics and data represented in a variety of lists and charts.

For fans of the aforementioned visualizers like Bitlisten, there are also sites like bitlisten.cash, for BCH. A fun way to watch network capacity and activity is by way of little people boarding buses at txstreet.com, which is useful for comparing the BCH and BTC networks in terms of fees, activity, and congestion. There is an abundance of detailed info to supplement the various elements of the fun, animated resource.

Monitor Away, Bitcoiners

As this post hopefully demonstrates, there is a veritable deluge of information, resources, tools, statistics, and services available for keeping abreast of all things bitcoin. There are of course many more resources than listed here, and finding cool new sites delivering unique metrics in a compelling fashion is part of the fun. So, whether one wants to check up on active nodes in the network, or simply see how many Big Macs their stash of ‘toshis can afford, the internet has got us covered.

What sites do you like to use for checking up on bitcoin price and network data? Let us know in the comments section below.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. It is not an offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell, or a recommendation, endorsement, or sponsorship of any products, services, or companies. Neither the company nor the author is responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in this article.

Images courtesy of Shutterstock, fair use.

Did you know you can verify any unconfirmed Bitcoin transaction with our Bitcoin Block Explorer tool? Simply complete a Bitcoin address search to view it on the blockchain. Plus, visit our Bitcoin Charts to see what’s happening in the industry.

Graham Smith

Graham Smith is an American expat living in Japan, and the founder of Voluntary Japan—an initiative dedicated to spreading the philosophies of unschooling, individual self-ownership, and economic freedom in the land of the rising sun.