How I Track SPL Tokens and NFTs on Solana — A Practical Guide with Solscan

Whoa! This is one of those topics that looks simple on the surface. Tracking SPL tokens and Solana NFTs is deceptively layered. My instinct said it’d be quick to explain, but then the deeper I dug the more edge cases popped up. Initially I thought tracing a token transfer was just “follow the signature,” but then I realized programs and inner instructions mess with that idea. Hmm… somethin’ about on-chain visibility feels like a magician’s sleight of hand sometimes.

Okay, so check this out—if you’re a developer or an active user on Solana, you care about two things: accuracy and speed. Seriously? Yes. You want the UI to be fast, and the data to be right. That tension drives a lot of design choices in explorers. On one hand explorers try to be comprehensive and give every detail, though actually that can overwhelm casual users. I’m biased toward clarity, so I often strip out less useful noise in my own workflows. Here’s what bugs me about a lot of explorer interfaces: they show raw logs without context, and that forces you to be a detective. I’ll show you how to avoid that detective work.

Why SOL vs SPL token traces are different

SOL transfers are straightforward. They touch a single account and you can see lamports moved. SPL tokens are different because they live in token accounts. The model uses mint addresses and associated token accounts—so transfers are between token accounts, not wallets. That matters. If you search by a wallet address you might miss token movements if the wallet interacted via PDAs or temporary accounts. Wow! That little detail has tripped up many devs I know.

Here’s the basic mental model I use. Every SPL token has a mint. Each user holding that token has a token account for that mint. Transfers update those token accounts. Complex programs sometimes create transient token accounts, swap pools use vaults, and NFT marketplaces often escrow tokens. So you have to look past a single line item in a transaction. Really.

When I started building tooling around this, my first approach was naive. Initially I thought “just parse the transaction instructions for Token Program transfers.” But then I ran into wrapped SOL, ATA creation instructions, and multi-instruction swaps that move tokens indirectly. Actually, wait—let me rephrase that: parsing only the Token Program rarely gives the full picture. You need to parse pre- and post-balances, inner instructions, and logs to fully reconstruct net token movement. It’s tedious, but doable.

Using solscan blockchain explorer to speed things up

Check this out—I’ve grown to rely on solscan blockchain explorer when I want a fast, trustworthy read of a token flow. It surfaces inner instructions and decodes common program interactions so you can see the real transfer events instead of hunting through raw logs. The tool tends to group token-related instructions and highlights changes to token accounts, which saves a lot of time. I link it into many of my bug reports and investigations when collaborating with teams.

My workflow typically goes like this: find the transaction signature, open it in the explorer, and then scan for decoded token transfers. If something looks off I check the pre/post balances and the inner instructions. If a swap or escrow is involved, I check which program owned the accounts. This sequence helps me separate intended transfers from temporary state changes. It’s not perfect, but it gets me to the truth quickly.

Sometimes the explorer UI surfaces decoded NFT metadata directly, which is a nice touch. When you inspect an NFT mint, you can often see creators, royalties, and metadata URIs in one place. That saves me from bouncing to multiple APIs. And yes, if a transaction uses a custom program, you may need deeper analysis, but solscan often gives you the starting point to dig further.

Common puzzles and how to solve them

One common trap: phantom transfers. You see a token decrease in one account and an increase elsewhere—but there’s no Token Program transfer shown. Why? Because a program moved tokens by invoking CPI (cross-program invocation). That still shows up in inner instructions if your explorer decodes them. So check inner instructions. Seriously, that usually solves the mystery.

Another frequent issue: missing NFTs when searching by wallet. Many users expect their wallet address to list every NFT they touched. But marketplaces can use escrow accounts or PDAs to hold tokens temporarily. So the owning account changes and you might need to search by mint address to find the full provenance. My rule: when in doubt, search by mint. That one trick fixes a lot of headaches.

Also watch out for automatic ATA creation. Some wallets create associated token accounts on demand during transfers. You’ll see a create-account instruction followed immediately by a transfer. That can make it look like the recipient wasn’t involved, but they are—it’s just an account lifecycle event bundled together. There are very very subtle UX differences across explorers in how they show these sequences, so I cross-check when precision matters.

Tips for developers building on Solana

If you’re logging events from a program, please: emit human-readable logs for critical events. That makes debugging so much easier. Hmm… I’m not 100% sure everyone follows that, but it’s a habit I push for in code reviews. Emit a simple “TRANSFER: mint X from A to B” log alongside the program state changes. That helps explorers and off-chain indexers make sense of program behavior.

When designing a marketplace or escrow, try to keep token custody predictable. Use deterministic PDAs for vaults when you can, and document the flow. On one hand PDAs are great for security and composability; on the other hand they make manual tracing harder unless your tooling knows the program’s PDA patterns. So document. Please. (oh, and by the way… include testnets examples so others can see the flows.)

On the analytics side, if you index transactions for historical analysis, store both high-level transfer events and raw instruction sets. Aggregations often need the decoded transfers, but rare forensic work relies on the raw instructions and logs. Initially I optimized for space and only kept decoded events. That was a mistake. I had to replay raw data later and it cost us time. Lesson learned.

Practical debugging checklist

Use this quick checklist when a token/NFT flow looks wrong:

• Grab the transaction signature. Open it in an explorer.
• Scan decoded instructions for Token Program events. Look at inner instructions.
• Check pre/post balances for affected accounts (lamports and token balances).
• Search by mint address if wallet queries miss the NFT.
• Look for ATA create instructions and PDAs used as vaults or escrow.
• If still unclear, review program logs for human-readable markers.

That checklist is simple, but it’s what I’ve used to resolve many production support tickets. It’s worked across swaps, NFT listings, and cross-program token moves. You can adapt it to automated tooling, too—start by scripting the signature lookup and inner-instruction extraction.

When explorers fall short — building your own lenses

Sometimes public explorers won’t decode a custom program. That’s when you build a small indexer. Pull confirmed blocks, parse each transaction, and record token-account deltas. Save the decoded token transfers and keep raw instruction data. This gives you a searchable historical view you control. It’s extra work, but if your app depends on accurate provenance it’s worth it.

For teams with limited resources, prioritize these bits: decode SPL Token instructions, track associated token account creation, and map PDAs you use. Those cover a large chunk of real-world cases. Also, consider contributing decoders back to open-source explorers—your program’s behavior helps the entire ecosystem. I’m biased, but open collaboration makes troubleshooting less awful for everyone.

Alright — wrapping up my tone shift here: I’m ending a bit more hopeful than when I started. Solana’s tooling has matured and explorers like solscan blockchain explorer are a huge part of that story. They don’t fix every puzzle, but they get you 80–90% of the way there quickly. For the rest, a disciplined checklist and occasional custom indexing will carry you over the finish line. I’m not 100% certain about future protocol changes, but I’ve got a good feeling about the tooling trajectory. Somethin’ tells me we’ll be even less surprised next year…