Cant get address balance using web3js

Question

I am trying to write a function to get the ethereum balance of a wallet address via web3js. Problem is I am unable to make it work for some reason. Here is my code running in VSCode:

const testnet = 'https://ropsten.etherscan.io/';
const walletAddress = '0x8690F1feff62008A396B31c2C3f380bD0Ca6d8b8';

const web3 = new Web3(new Web3.providers.HttpProvider(testnet));
var balance = web3.eth.getBalance(walletAddress);

The wallet contains 0.98 ether on ropsten but for some reason its not returning when I call it from my code. What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

The issue with your testnet url, https://ropsten.etherscan.io/ is not running eth client.

Find below code to connect ropsten node.

const testnet = 'https://ropsten.infura.io/';
const walletAddress = '0x8690F1feff62008A396B31c2C3f380bD0Ca6d8b8';

const web3 = new Web3(new Web3.providers.HttpProvider(testnet));
var balance = web3.eth.getBalance(walletAddress); //Will give value in.
balance = web3.toDecimal(balance);

I am getting value. Now balance will give as wei. Check web3 api method's for the same.

https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/wiki/JavaScript-API#web3towei

Answer 2

balance = await web3.eth.getBalance(wallet_address);

Answer 3

You need to connect to an Ethereum node running on the Ropsten network. https://ropsten.etherscan.io is not such a node.

You can try Infura instead. They provide public Ethereum nodes. You should get an API key, but it works (perhaps with lower rate-limiting?) even without that:

const testnet = 'https://ropsten.infura.io';

Answer 4

You may go by latest form:

var Web3 = require("web3");
var url = 'https://ropsten.infura.io';
var web3 = new Web3(url);
var address = '0x8690F1feff62008A396B31c2C3f380bD0Ca6d8b8';
var balance = web3.eth.getBalance(address);
var wallet = web3.eth.toWei(balance, 'ether');

Here, I tried to show two changes, i.e,

1. no use of 'new Web3.providers.HttpProviders(url)'
2. conversion of balance into wallet through mapping it to ether.

Answer 5

Also to show the balance in Ether format use like this. I see a lot of the answers are actually outdated.

const getBalance = await web3.eth.getBalance(walletAddress)
const ethBalance = web3.utils.fromWei(getBalance, 'ether')
console.log(ethBalance)
// 0.98

Answer 6

web3.toDecimal(web3.fromWei(await web3.eth.getBalance('wallet-address'))) OR web3.toDecimal(web3.fromWei(await web3.eth.getBalance('wallet-address'),'ether'))