Developers — Polkadex Mainnet Explorer API

Public read-only JSON API for the Polkadex Mainnet (a Polkadot-SDK / Substrate Layer-1). Used by this explorer and freely consumable by external apps, native mobile clients, servers, and AI assistants.

Start here — use the JSON API, not the HTML

This explorer is a client-rendered single-page app: HTML pages are a shell that JavaScript fills in inside the browser. A non-browser client that fetches an HTML page will not see the data. Don't scrape the HTML — call the JSON API below, which returns plain JSON. Every figure on the site comes from an /api/* endpoint. (This developer page is the exception: it is server-rendered on purpose.)

Behavior	What to do
HTML pages sit behind Cloudflare, which may challenge or block clients that look like abusive bots. A naive server-side fetch of an HTML page can come back empty or challenged.	Request the `/api/*` JSON endpoints instead — the supported path for automated clients. Send a descriptive `User-Agent` and respect the `Cache-Control` headers.
The API is open to non-browser clients at the origin. CORS is a browser-only mechanism, so a caller that sends no `Origin` header (native app, server, script, AI agent) is always allowed by the app.	Call the API directly from servers and native apps. Only browser callers from other web origins need to be added to `ALLOWED_ORIGINS`.

Chain data (read-only, public)

GET /api/blocks — most recent blocks
GET /api/block/:number — single block with extrinsics + events
GET /api/events — most recent on-chain events
GET /api/transactions — most recent transactions
GET /api/transactions/older?before=<n> — pagination further back
GET /api/extrinsic/:block/:txHash — single-extrinsic detail
GET /api/validators — full validator set with stake + commission
GET /api/validator/:address — per-validator era history
GET /api/holders — top-balance accounts
GET /api/account/:address — account-level summary
GET /api/network-info — network metrics (schema below)
GET /api/search/:query — block / extrinsic / account lookup
GET /api/staking-rewards/:address — per-address reward history
GET /api/staking-rewards-status — reward-backfill progress
GET /api/wallet/:address — wallet dashboard payload (balances, staking incl. activeStakedPlanck u128 string, unpaid rewards, recent activity)

Price feed, governance & email

GET /api/price-latest — current PDEX price, last-sync, and a bySource map (one entry per configured provider; coingecko live by default)
GET /api/price-history?days=N — daily price series (N capped at 4000); each row tagged with its source
GET /api/council — council members, motions, runners-up
GET /api/treasury — treasury balance + proposals (open + historical)
GET /api/democracy — referenda + public proposals
GET /api/governance/latest — most-recent OPEN referendum / proposal
GET /api/governance/calendar — unified governance timeline
GET /api/discussions, GET /api/discussions/:id — governance discussion threads
POST /api/email/subscribe, GET /api/email/confirm, GET /api/email/unsubscribe, GET|POST /api/email/preferences — email alerts

Price providers are pluggable via the PRICE_PROVIDERS env var (csv; default coingecko, a keyless public API).

Schema — GET /api/network-info

{
  "networkInfo": {
    "activeEra": number,              // current staking era index
    "avgValidatorCommission": number, // mean active-validator commission, %
    "avgApy": number,                 // headline AVG APY %, commission-adjusted
    "avg_apy": number,                // snake_case alias of avgApy
    "validators":  { "active": number, "total": number },
    "nominators":  { "active": number, "total": number },
    "maxActiveStake": number,         // largest active-validator total stake, PDEX
    "minStake": number,               // minimum active stake, PDEX
    "averageStake": number,           // mean active-validator stake, PDEX
    "avgStakePerAccount": number,     // total bonded / staking accounts, PDEX
    "totalIssuance": number,          // total PDEX issuance
    "totalBonding": number,           // total PDEX bonded for staking
    "totalBondingPercent": number,    // totalBonding / totalIssuance, %
    "totalUnbonding": number,         // total PDEX currently unbonding
    "totalStakeChange": number,       // net stake change vs previous era, PDEX
    "lastEraRewardsTotal": number     // total rewards paid last era, PDEX
  },
  "lastSync": number,                 // epoch ms when networkInfo was computed
  "status": "Synced" | "Stale" | "Initializing" | "Error",
  "chainHead": {
    "value": number,                  // best block number
    "lastAdvanceAt": number,          // epoch ms the head last advanced
    "staleSeconds": number,           // seconds since the head last advanced
    "isStale": boolean                // true if the head looks stuck
  }
}

AVG APY is returned directly (avgApy, and the avg_apy alias), derived as avgApy = 23.09 × (1 − avgValidatorCommission / 100), where 23.09% is the chain's nominal maximum APY at its target staking ratio.

Errors & addresses

Failures return a 4xx/5xx status with { "error": "<message>" }. Endpoints that depend on the chain RPC return 503 with { "error": "rpc not connected" } during RPC outages — treat 503 as "retry with backoff", not permanent. Paths that take an :address expect Polkadex SS58 (prefix 88, addresses start with e…); the server normalizes via toPolkadexAddress(), so prefix-42/0 forms usually resolve too.

Caching tiers

Hot endpoints carry Cache-Control in three tiers — don't poll faster than max-age: short (blocks/transactions/events: max-age=5), medium (wallet/validators/network-info/price-latest: max-age=30), long (price-history/staking-rewards/holders: max-age=300).

Quick examples

curl https://explorer.polkadex.ee/api/network-info
curl https://explorer.polkadex.ee/api/price-latest
curl 'https://explorer.polkadex.ee/api/price-history?days=30'