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Blockchain.info has a couple pages about orphans, but the chart page does not agree with the list page.

My admittedly brief search for a page that shows orphans didn't turn up anything that was useful, so I'm hoping someone has one. It seems a valuable resource for anyone involved in a trade where one side claims that the payment was confirmed and the other disagrees.

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  • Just curious: Why do you think it would be valuable in payment disputes? A transaction’s presence (or not) in the longest accepted chain is ultimately what matters.
    – chytrik
    Commented May 26, 2018 at 1:03
  • @chytrik I think it would be valuable in any disputes that arise out of a reorg for the party sending the payment to provide the intended receiver with a link to it with an explanation It's educational. Also, waiting for a payment that never comes can cause stress that is often relieved when a good explanation is provided. I LOVE curiosity, so thanks!
    – Dave Scotese
    Commented Jun 11, 2018 at 0:27
  • When a block is orphaned the transactions are returned to the mempool unless they are already included in the longest chain.
    – Willtech
    Commented Jun 11, 2018 at 21:27

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If you're looking for an absolute authoritative source that will show you latest orphaned blocks, its impossible and anyone that claims otherwise is scamming you.

Why?

The Bitcoin network is a fully decentralized peer-to-peer network, therefore in the event of a temporal split (i.e. two blocks of the same height racing in the network), a block-tip that was accepted to extend the canonical chain will not relayed to adjacent peers (though it it is stored locally for record-keeping purposes). In that sense, it is only natural that no one can tell with absolute certainty of the existence/or the non-existence of the latest orphaned blocks.

You can increase your likelihood of capturing all orphaned blocks by sampling across more nodes that you personally run. But the only way for you to get the them with absolute certainty is for you to own the entire network -- which is impossible.

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  • Good info. I adjusted the question to attract helpful answers.
    – Dave Scotese
    Commented Jun 11, 2018 at 0:31

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