eth_getTransactionConfirmations

Introduction

This document proposes a new JSON-RPC method for Ethereum clients named "eth_getTransactionConfirmations". The purpose of this method is to return the number of transactions an account has broadcasted or sent.

Terminology

• JSON-RPC: A remote procedure call (RPC) protocol encoded in JSON.
• Ethereum: An open-source, blockchain-based platform featuring smart contract functionality.
• Transaction: A signed data package that stores a message to be sent from an externally owned account.

Specification

Method Name

eth_getTransactionConfirmations

Parameters

1. address: (20 Bytes) - Address of the account.
2. blockTag: (String) - The string "latest" OR "earliest" OR "pending". Describes the state of the blockchain to consider.
3. blockNumber: (QUANTITY) - Integer of a block number.

Returns

QUANTITY - The number of transactions sent from the given address.

Example

Request

{
  "id": 1,
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "method": "eth_getTransactionConfirmations",
  "params": ["0x742d35Cc6634C0532925a3b844Bc454e4438f44e", "latest", "0x1b4"]
}

Response

{
  "id": 1,
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "result": "0x41"
}

Rationale

The addition of the "eth_getTransactionConfirmations" method will allow DApps and other Ethereum-based applications to easily retrieve the number of transactions an account has sent. This can be useful for tracking and verifying the activity of an account over a specific period or up to the latest block.

Backwards Compatibility

This change is fully backward compatible as it introduces a new method and does not alter any existing methods or behaviors.

Implementation

Clients wishing to support this method will need to index transactions by sender address and be able to query this index to count the number of transactions sent by a given address.

Security Considerations

Implementers should be aware of potential large datasets when querying for accounts with a high number of transactions. Proper measures should be taken to handle such cases efficiently.