EVM Multi-Chain Tracing Essentials

Core idea

The EVM ecosystem is a family of compatible chains sharing the same transaction, address, and tooling formats. A single wallet address exists on every EVM chain simultaneously, and attackers rarely stay on one, so an investigator must be fluent across all of them and check activity everywhere.

Components

Chains to check activity on (at least):

• Ethereum, BNB Smart Chain, Polygon PoS, Arbitrum One, Optimism, Base, Avalanche C-Chain, zkSync Era, Linea, Polygon zkEVM, Scroll, Blast.

Multi-chain aggregators (query an address across all chains in one view):

• Arkham, DeBank, Zapper, Zerion.

Tool stack:

• Explorers: Etherscan, BscScan, Arbiscan, Optimistic Etherscan, Basescan, Polygonscan.
• Multi-chain: Blockscout (open source), Arkham, DeBank, Zerion, Zapper.
• Tx replay: Phalcon by BlockSec, Tenderly (visualise every internal call).
• Decoders: openchain.xyz signature db, 4byte.directory, abi-decoder tools.
• Approvals: Revoke.cash (enumerate and revoke token approvals).
• Contract intel: Sourcify, Etherscan verified source, DethCode (vscode.blockscan.com).

When to use

At the start of any EVM investigation, and specifically when a wallet looks quiet on Ethereum, check every other EVM chain before concluding it is inactive.

Example

A wallet with almost no Ethereum activity shows the real fund flow on Base and Arbitrum; a DeBank/Arkham multi-chain view surfaces it in a single query.

Related

Reading an EVM Transaction, EVM Event Logs & Decoding Calldata, Filter-by-Size + Scrape + LLM Summarise