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One of the biggest issues facing many web3 users is the difficulty of getting up-to-date crypto-related data. Being able to analyze crypto sector trends at a macro level can be vital to a trader’s success, particularly if the market is about to switch from bull to bear or vice versa. Thankfully, a company called Dune Analytics has discovered a way to simplify that process.
Key Takeaways:
Dune Analytics offers crypto users free access to publicly available blockchain data, with two paid tiers available for more active investors and businesses.
The data platform employs SQL commands to create stunning visualizations, known as dashboards, that are entered into the community space and can be viewed freely without even needing an account.
Information about NFTs, market trends, smart contracts and many other aspects of web3 can easily be obtained through Dune Analytics’ service.
Dune Analytics is a web3 company that offers users information for many parts of the crypto sector, including DeFi exchanges, NFTs and much more. The program allows users to create visualizations, known as dashboards, which can then be sent to other people. They’re also displayed for free on the project's website, which allows users from around the world to benefit from the knowledge gleaned from the queries.
The team behind Dune includes co-founder and CEO Fredrik Haga, co-founder and CTO Mats Olsen, Chief of Staff Hannah Smith and Head of Finance Gurmaan Suri. Haga and Olsen were co-workers in Norway until they both decided to quit their jobs and focus on creating a crypto data analytics platform.
The program works by using SQL search commands to find publicly available blockchain data, which is then converted into charts and bar graphs. From there, the information can be converted into a visualization. These dashboards then allow users to display the information pertinent to their needs for projects, presentations, members of the community and others.
Other apps may require logins or subscription fees, but on Dune all information is free and open-source. It’s completely community-driven, to the point that nearly all dashboards are available for the public, except those that premium users have elected to make private (which we'll get into a little later).
Dune’s speed sets it apart from similar apps. For example, traditional companies release quarterly or annual reports that explain the company’s finances to shareholders. Since web3 moves significantly faster, however, data needs to be available more frequently than every three months or once per year. Dune’s parallel query system, which provides fast data analysis, works faster than manually searching the blockchain.
The program uses a special version of the SQL programming language, known as DuneSQL, to access the information. Luckily, only a basic knowledge of SQL is required for most searches, and with the advent of Bing AI, ChatGPT and other free available AI software, users with no programming language knowledge can quickly and freely generate the code needed.
Previously, Ethereum v1 and Spark SQL queries were permitted through the Dune engine. However, these were recently sunsetted at the end of July 2023. Using the Harmonizer, Ethereum V1 and SparkSQL queries can be migrated to DuneSQL, allowing them to be submitted into the system.
Dune's community-driven platform can help you identify market trends, for instance whether the crypto sector outlook is bullish or bearish. It can also provide valuable information about NFT marketplaces, such as OpenSea. Many popular existing dashboards have already been set up to monitor things like trade volumes, trade activity by the largest accounts and number of daily transactions, among others.
In short, Dune can help give you a better understanding of web3 activities and identify trends.
As an analogy, consider baseball: more casual fans might look in the newspaper to see whether their teams have won or lost that day. Basic statistics like batting average or ERA reveal which players are currently performing well, or have done so during the current season. However, advanced analytics like barrel rate or FIP can reveal whether or not that player's good statistics are sustainable and can be expected to continue. If a pitcher is lucky instead of accomplished, they could be outperforming their expected results and eventually perform quite poorly.
Similarly, crypto analytics like those provided by Dune can reveal trends that tell an investor or a company whether the market is due for a correction, or is expected to continue increasing in value in the near future. Of course, in both baseball and crypto, results aren’t guaranteed, and anything can happen. However, being armed with a correct analysis of the underlying metrics can make the job of predicting future outcomes both simpler and easier.
By customizing the Dune platform's dashboards, users can convey exactly the information that they want to highlight — and only that information — allowing them to create the perfect graphs or other visuals that won't clog up the screen at presentations with excess data.
Using the Discover Tab, users can view public dashboards that others have already set up without needing to create an account. With the wealth of knowledge already available, including many pre-made queries available on Dune's website, this can be a valuable time-saving tool for the crypto user in a hurry.
To create a new dashboard, a registered user simply clicks on New Query and enters an SQL code related to an NFT, crypto or DeFi project. Using a process known as the parallel query, the long and arduous task is split up by the compiler into multiple smaller queries, which means users receive their results much more quickly.
Once a query is submitted, the output will be in the form of a bar graph or chart. These can then be converted into dashboards, which allow the user to display the information in a way that’s both visually pleasing and informative.
It’s also a great way to discover new and upcoming projects, which benefits both users (who can use the knowledge already discovered) and the project (by helping out with additional research or queries). Examples of popular projects on Dune's website include BoringDAO, 0x and RSS3.
Dune Analytics offers three levels of service: Free, Pro and Premium. A Pro subscription is $399 per month, and the Premium tier currently sells for $999 per month. Users with paid subscriptions receive more credits, allowing them to create even more visualizations per month. They also receive other perks, such as more CSV exports per month.
Whether a premium subscription is worth it for an individual or group depends entirely upon their unique situation. However, in most cases, the answer will be yes.
To determine whether a premium subscription is worth it, user(s) only need to ask a single question: "Can I (we) use the information to increase my (our) crypto portfolio by more than $399 or $999 a month?" If the answer is yes, then the information will pay for itself while also providing great value.
For web3 businesses, particularly those that regularly trade high amounts of cryptocurrency and/or NFTs, the need for a Dune Premium subscription is much easier to understand, especially compared to the thousands of dollars per month that similar companies often charge.
Even a smaller organization, such as one that only handles roughly $1,000 in crypto per day, would benefit from the premium subscription. Amortized, $999 per month is a little more than $30 per day. The benefits of increased knowledge, personalized to a business's exact needs and financial situation, almost certainly render the cost of the service trivial.
The information generated by the database won’t change based on the subscription tier used. However, a paid plan will increase the volume of information that can be queried from the database every month. A greater number of queries will provide more information, and therefore generate more money, assuming the data is properly analyzed.
Dune has revolutionized the crypto sector by allowing free access to publicly available blockchain data, which can help web3 users maintain more successful crypto wallets and better understand trends in the crypto, NFT and DeFi sectors. A premium subscription will likely be helpful for power users, but existing dashboards can be viewed without any account at all.