What does it mean to "poll the blockchain"?

Ran across this term but can’t find a clear definition. Does it just mean to query the blockchain for data, like for example to find the balance of a wallet?

Chris

That is the essential idea, yes, but considering the consensus layer, you are not asking a central server, but rather the agreed upon chain by all nodes in the network.

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Polling means requesting the latest data (from a full node). Each full node contains a copy of the (Ethereum) blockchain and you can query data from it via a JSON RPC API. Nodes themselves have to sync with each other and keep up to date as well

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