Guide
How to Decode a Solana Transaction on Solscan (Before You Panic)
Read a Solscan signature page, tell swaps from drains, and when a $5 single-signature Tracefunds report beats manual tab-hopping.
Solana uses signatures, not 0x hashes
Solana transaction IDs are base58 strings (often 87–88 characters). They appear in Phantom, Solflare, and Solscan — do not paste them into Etherscan.
- Wallet address: base58 (32–44 characters), not 0x…
- Network: mainnet-beta unless you explicitly use devnet
- One signature can bundle many program actions (swap + fee + token transfer)
Swap vs drain on the same signature
- DEX swaps (Jupiter, Raydium, PUMP) move SPL tokens both in and out — not always theft
- Drains often show bulk outbound SPL/NFT with no inbound leg in the same window
- Magic Eden / Tensor listings are marketplace actions — not necessarily unauthorized transfers
- Failed signatures still appear in history but did not move funds
What Solscan shows vs a Tracefunds report
- Solscan is the source of truth for verification — use it to confirm our checklist
- Tracefunds adds a scoped fund-flow graph, labeled counterparties, and plain-English narrative ($5 single_tx)
- No wallet connect — paste the signature and pick Solana on tracefunds.app