The Ethereum network is a peer-to-peer network where nodes participate in order to maintain the blockchain and contribute to the consensus mechanism. Networks can be divided into three types, based on requirements and usage. These types are described in the following subsections.
The Ethereum network
Mainnet
Mainnet is the current live network of Ethereum. The current version of mainnet is Byzantium (Metropolis) and its chain ID is 1. Chain ID is used to identify the network. A block explorer which shows detailed information about blocks and other relevant metrics is available at https://etherscan.io. This can be used to explore the Ethereum blockchain.