ArcBlock transactions: envelope and operation

ArcBlock's published transaction format separates an outer transaction from a typed inner transaction. The outer record carries fields such as sender, chain ID and signatures. The inner operation describes what is requested, for example declaring an account or transferring assets.

Read what was authorized

In the documentation, itx carries the inner operation and its type. A readable explorer view can decode that operation, while the network receives the encoded and signed transaction. The display is an explanation of the record, not an additional authorization.

This gives an application a concrete question to ask: which operation did this signer authorize on which chain? Reading only a transaction hash misses the operation's meaning.

Compare the execution boundary

Ethereum's EVM executes contract code. ArcBlock's transaction documentation exposes named operation types. Do not assume that a Solidity contract can be submitted as an ArcBlock transaction simply because both systems have signed transactions.

The linked documentation is the reference for the described structure. For integration, use the target chain's supported transaction version and SDK; historical examples do not establish today's fee policy or endpoint configuration.

From a request to a result

The published first-transaction tutorial uses account declaration as its example. It sends the declaration, receives a transaction hash, then calls getTx with that hash to retrieve transaction information. These are separate steps: the identifier is a lookup key, not a substitute for inspecting the result.

Read the query response and the transaction information separately. The historical example contains an outer response code and fields within info, including an operation code, chain ID, transaction details and block height. Compare the decoded operation with the intended account declaration and check the resulting account record. If the query is unavailable, treat the outcome as unknown rather than repeating the business action immediately.

That tutorial’s sample has height zero. It is useful for explaining the response structure, but is not evidence of a finalized block. A production confirmation decision additionally needs the target network’s committed-block and consensus evidence. Neither a hash nor a query-level “OK” establishes all of that.

Sources and further reading

A concrete operation: Multi IO

TransferV3Tx groups multiple inputs and outputs in one transfer. ArcBlock Multi IO explains the records and their relationship to Bitcoin UTXOs, which inspired this design.