trace_transaction

Give trace_transaction one BSC transaction hash and it returns the OpenEthereum/Nethermind-style call tree for that single historical transaction: every internal call, contract creation, and self-destruct it set off. The chain runs on BNB gas and carries most of the BEP-20 economy, so a single swap or router call can fan out into dozens of nested sub-calls. The traceAddress on each entry encodes its position in that tree, which lets you rebuild the nesting exactly. Send the request to chain ID 56 at https://bsc.therpc.io/YOUR_API_KEY. It reads far more easily than the opcode-level debug tracers when you are following money rather than instructions, but it still leans on a trace-enabled archive node to reach historical state.

Use cases

List every internal BNB transfer inside a transaction, including the ones that never surfaced as events.
Follow fund flow across several contracts in a layered DeFi interaction like a multi-hop swap.
Walk the call tree to pin down which sub-call triggered a revert inside a multi-hop transaction.
Index internal transactions to power a block explorer's internal-transfer view.

Parameters

#	Name	Type	Required	Description
1	`transactionHash`	string	Yes	Hash of the transaction to retrieve traces for.

Response

Type	Description
array	Flat array of trace objects, each with `{action, result, subtraces, traceAddress, transactionHash, transactionPosition, blockHash, blockNumber, type}`. `traceAddress` encodes the path through the call tree.

Example request

1curl https://bsc.therpc.io/YOUR_API_KEY \
2  -X POST \
3  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
4  -d '{
5    "jsonrpc": "2.0",
6    "method": "trace_transaction",
7    "params": ["0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000"],
8    "id": 1
9  }'

Try it live in the BNB Smart Chain playground.

Errors & troubleshooting

Code	Message	Cause
`-32601`	`Method not found`	trace namespace not enabled; node requires --gcmode=archive and trace API enabled (Geth), or equivalent flag on Nethermind/Erigon.
`-32602`	`Invalid params`	Transaction hash is missing or malformed.
`-32000`	`transaction not found`	Transaction does not exist or archive trace data is unavailable for that block.

Common pitfalls

It needs a trace-enabled archive node (Geth with --gcmode=archive plus trace, or Erigon/Nethermind running their trace API), so most public light nodes and lower tiers will not serve it.
Its output is not debug_traceTransaction output. There is no opcode-level detail here, only call, create, and self-destruct actions.
A failed transaction comes back truncated at the revert point instead of as a full execution path.

Supported networks

Mainnet — Chain ID: 56
Testnet — Chain ID: 97