This is the first in a series of discussions with thought leader devs who are creating the technical architecture for the scaling up of the next era of blockchain.

For those who have not yet had the pleasure, Block Monitor is an app I use daily to track positions and and ensure that my wallet has not been compromised. They're routinely adding more dynamic features so I scheduled an asynchronously did an AMA to discuss some of the more compelling features associated Block Monitor. Enjoy!

Go to Block-monitor.com or the IOS/Google Play stores to add it to your phone.

Q: What is Block Monitor, and what prompted you to build it?

A: Block Monitor is a crypto balance alert app that I built because, frankly, I was tired of checking my crypto balances all the time. I wanted active address monitoring and to receive an alert upon any account activity. To my surprise, this was not being offered at the time by any of the major wallets.

Q: Can I see my centralized Coinbase wallet address holdings with block monitor?

A: We do support Coinbase, so users can watch their Coinbase address balances alongside their privately-held addresses, and receive the benefit of active monitoring. That said, Coinbase also supports push notifications, so if you use the Coinbase mobile app, I would suggest enabling that feature.

Q: What should I do if I see that there are unauthorized transactions with my wallet?

A: If you are notified about a transaction that you did not initiate, the first thing you should do is check your account. Confirm what happened, and then take action immediately. If the money went outgoing to an exchange, contact the exchange. Most exchanges have a fair number of confirmations before deposits can be traded, providing a buffer where stolen funds could potentially be intercepted, frozen and returned to their rightful owner. Also, if you believe someone has committed a crime, contact the appropriate law enforcement agencies.

Q: Can I see if the activity is airdrops and crypto received from dApp divs versus crypto actually being sent from the wallet?

A: It depends. Some blockchains have limited support, only sending minimal balance change notifications, including the balance change amount, the new balance, and the currency. Other blockchains may include additional information such as sender and recipient.

Q: I heard that you can track my wallet holdings on layer 2 blockchains like xDAI, BSC, and other Ethereum Virtual Machine chains. How does this work?

A: Since each L2 protocol and sovereign chain may be different, these are often custom integrations. We try to reuse code where possible, and we try to work with partners who may abstract away these differences for us.

Q: If I put in a .zil/.crypto, PayString, or FIO address does it know my altcoin holdings utilizing this forwarding crypto name?

A: Block Monitor uses your Unstoppable Domains/PayString/FIO address to lookup addresses for import. If the blockchain is supported by us, we will import the address and start monitoring it.

Q: Can I also put notifications on notable wallets to see what crypto hedge funds or whales are doing with their holdings?

A: Absolutely! Since we are watching public blockchains, any public address can be monitored. As you mentioned, this can be used strategically to watch addresses that belong to others just as easily.