trace_transaction

Pass a transaction hash to trace_transaction and you get back the OpenEthereum/Nethermind-style call tree for that one mined transaction: every internal CALL, every CREATE, and every SELFDESTRUCT, flattened into an array where traceAddress encodes each entry's path through the tree. Unlike the replay methods, it doesn't re-execute anything against arbitrary state or hand you opcode-level detail; it reports the call structure as recorded for a transaction that already executed on Ethereum mainnet (chain ID 1). That makes it the lightest way to surface internal ETH transfers, the kind that never appear as ERC-20 logs. Send the hash to https://ethereum.therpc.io/YOUR_API_KEY, served by a trace-enabled archive node.

Use cases

List every internal ETH transfer a transaction made, including value moves between contracts that emitted no event and would otherwise be invisible to a log-based scan.
Follow funds across a multi-contract DeFi interaction, watching ETH hop from a router into a pool and out to the recipient through the nested call entries.
Find the sub-call that reverted a multi-hop transaction by walking the traceAddress path down to the failing branch.
Index internal transactions for a block explorer, the data that powers the "Internal Txns" tab you see on Etherscan.

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://ethereum.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 Ethereum 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 (Erigon or Nethermind with the trace API, or Geth built with --gcmode=archive and tracing on). A public light node won't answer.
Its output is not debug_traceTransaction. There's no opcode-level data here, only call, create, and suicide actions, so don't reach for it when you actually need a struct/opcode log.
A failed transaction returns a truncated tree that stops at the revert point. The trace shows how far execution got before unwinding, not the calls that never ran.

Supported networks

Mainnet — Chain ID: 1
Sepolia — Chain ID: 11155111