Blockchain Analytics Industry Landscape (May2020)
In partnership with Canaccord Genuity, we map out who is who in Blockchain Analytics.
The landscape can be read “Up the Stack” left to right, and follows usage of the tools and solutions as they move from infrastructure to specific customer-oriented outcomes.
Infrastructure
Bison Trails: Arguably the “leader” in Blockchain Node Infrastructure. Raised the most. Experienced, smart team.
Radar Relay (Deploy): Started as a DEX, now providing node services. CEO Alan Curtis has the energy of 100 energizer bunnies.
Bloq Cloud: A member of the BLOQ family (includes Metronome Token), led by Matthew Roszak and Jeff Garzik, crypto ballers through and through.
Infura: Infrastructure focused solely on ethereum and IPFS. Apparently best in class for this corner of the market.
Ankr: Based in Shanghai, they deliver a broad swath of node infrastructure under the guise of cloud computing.
Blockdaemon: Coolest name in the vertical. (cool tip: Daemon is a computer program that runs as a background process, rather than being under the direct control of an interactive user.)
Alchemy: There are rumors galore about these folks (can you keep a secret? Good, so can I). Their investor list would make for a great cocktail party.
Figment Networks: An organization led by experienced founders who understand how to build infrastructure businesses. CEO currently lives in Jackson WY which dings the jealousy bell hard.
QuikNode.io: Don’t know much about these guys except they keep texting me 2 for 1 offers. Shows a lot of startup muster to hustle and pitch your service. Definitely look at these guys if you’re looking at others.
Data
Block Explorers
Etherscan: The block explorer everyone visited to see any movement on ether back in 2017. Still humps great traffic.
Blockchain.com: Bitcoin explorer…but also wallets and exchanges. Hell, they own blockchain.com so they can be whatever they want.
Blockscout: Data for xDAI stablecoin only.
Pricing
Nomics: Straight up pricing APIs. Beware: CEO likes to have asynchronous telegram audio discussions. It’s like talking to your voicemail.
Kaiko: Super sweet data provider. Works with Messari among others.
Coin Metrics: Early early early entrant, built out of pure interest in bringing data to market and gave it away for free. Eventually became a real business and recently raised $7M from Highland Capital, Castle Island and others.
Trading Data
Crypto Watch: Your trading terminal. It does crypto. You get to watch it.
Tradeblock: The grandaddy of tracking real time price movements. In 2017 if you weren’t on it, you weren’t in the space.
Tradedash: Apparently, “designed with high-volume digital asset traders in mind.” Giddy-up.
ViewBase: Includes an exchange wallet tracker, if you’re into that sorta thing.
Streaming APIs
AlphaVantage: Super super super sweet API biz, offering primarily equities APIs, with a small but powerful crypto section (disclosure: Flipside’s FCAS ratings are available here)
Amberdata.io: API data for traders. Their email marketing is…consistent, and dripping with excitement.
Infura: See blockexplorers above.
Blocknative: A provider ofsuper specialized Mem-Pool Data. This is the fentanyl of the space: 100x more powerful than anything else — and not for casual use.
CryptoSheets: Data Add-In for Microsoft Excel. Simple for those who ride herd on their spreadsheets and rip macros.
Data Aggregation:
CoinMarketCap: The 800 lb gorilla. Or $400M Gorilla, post the acquisition by Binance earlier this year.
CryptoCompare: Based in the UK, they have super powers in tracking the health of exchanges. Also partnered with Nasdaq which is kinda neat-o.
CoinGecko: Asia-based, likely salivating now that CoinMarketCap has been acquired. Work on the street is Geiko is suing them for using a Gecko.
CoinCap: ShapeShift’s version of CoinMarketCap. Just without the “Market”. No, no, it’s not that confusing.
coinpaprika. No idea. But spicy.
News & Research
Ratings and Rankings
Flipside Crypto: Yep, that’s us. Distributor of FCAS, found on CoinMarketCap, Messari, CryptoCompare, TheStreet, MarketWatch, Stocktwits and dozens of other sites.
Weiss Ratings: Have been in the ratings industry for years, focused on insurance and banks, and now crypto.
TokenInsight: You can get almost anything here. APIs. Research. Reports. Quants. Indices. Ratings. Omaha Steaks. Wait, no no, that’s another site.
CryptoBriefing: Started out in news, and now leaning heavily on SIMETRI, which delivers ratings for traders.
CryptoMiso. Ratings based on github activities. Cool visuals. Comes with chopsticks.
News & Alerts
Coindar.org: News. With some Dar.
Coinwink: News. Wink Wink ;)
Crypto Panic: News. Scary News.
Omenics Team: Omens are one type of news — and may also be scary.
Berminal - The Crypto News Platform: Sweet mobile app for news.
Coindera. Coins in your derrière.
CoinMarketAlert. Like CoinMarketCap, but just drop the Cap and add Alert. See what they did there. URL 101.
In Depth Research
Digital Asset Research: DAR to the cool kids. Definitely knows how to rock the hip research pants.
The Block: Has a history of attacking folks like Binance (not for the faint of heart). Just swapped Mike Dudas for a new CEO. Highly likely candidate for major industry news player as the space evolves.
Binance Research: Of course, everyone trades on Binance, so research is a table stake.
BitMEX Research: See above. They aren’t binance, but they are in mexico.
Delphi Digital: recently merged with 51 percent research. Now more than 51% research.
Long Hash: Media outlet with substantive reach into Asia.
CoinDesk: The real deal. Manages the Consensus conference. Owned by Digital Currency Group.
Investor Tools
Sentiment Tracking
The Tie: Still not sure what Ties have to do with sentiment.
CryptoMood: The MBTI of sentiment tracking (or Eneagram if you’re a bit more hippy dippy)
Santiment: It’s not sentiment, it’s santiment. May I have a vowel?
Dataminr: These guys provide sentiment tracking to government and major institutions across all sorts of verticals (backers are some massive orgs like Fidelity, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs).
Portfolio Tracking
Delta: Not the airline.
Blockfolio: Fantastic mobile app. Lotsa users. CEO used to play professional poker, so keep your hand close.
Gem: white label service for providing developers access to your crypto.
Coin Stats: Hits it hard with 5000+ coins. 4400 are probably not worth tracking, but you COULD track them.
Cryptohopper: Trading BOT, if you want a portfolio, but don’t want to deal at all.
coin.fyi: Just wanted you to know. FYI and all that.
CoinTracking.info: Tracking with the added benefit of tax reporting.
Blox Official: Shout out for the accountants out there.
Investor Insights
Messari: Led by Ryan Selkis, industry veteran and social marketing mastermind. He tweets. He emails. He conferences. He is smart as a whip, holds absolutely zero bars and is has a whole boatload of data to share.
Crypto Briefing: Not long. Brief. Sometimes short. Occasionally minimal. Rarely lengthy.
Xangle: Could be Zangle. But nope, it’s Xangle (better than Dangle).
Digital Assets Data: Aims to be the bloomberg terminal of digital assets; leadership knows a thing or two about the finance industry. Backed by Pomp, which is a match made in heaven.
Regulatory
Compliance
Chainalysis: Leader in compliance by far — focused on aiding governments in tracking wallet addresses (think Silk Road). Gets some heat for not letting crypto be all anonymous and whatnot. Probably a good idea to ensure criminals aren’t immune to prosecution, ya know?
Solidus Labs: Focused more on ensuring healthy behaviors for investors vs. sheriffs.
Neutrino: Coinbase acquired these guys for $13.5M. Then it got all high school drama like. Mea culpas galore and a note that in diligence Coinbase may have let its guard down. Either way, this science is now helping Coinbase grow.
CipherTrace: Protecting Banks and FIs from virtual asset laundering risks, illicit money service businesses, and crypto-related threats. Sorta like Solidus, less like Chainalysis.
TRM: cool kids from Y-Combinator. Relatively unknown in the industry, but apparently pretty solid at what they do.
Whitestream: This on their LinkedIn: “A few comments on the Chainalysis Inc. “THE 2020 STATE OF CRYPTO CRIME” report, which seems to indirectly imply whitestream acted irresponsibly when initiating the publication of an ISIS crypto financing effort.” I’d say they aren’t friends.
Elliptic. Like Solidus and CipherTrace, not like Chainalysis. That part is important — what customer you service matters.
Elementus: What is a Universal Blockchain Query Engine? What you don’t know what a UBQE is? Get with it.
PARSIQ: Monitor, detect and prevent fraud, people.
Coinfirm. I like my coins firm. I tend to be a side sleeper.
Blockchain Analytics
Intelligence
Flipside Crypto: Yep, that’s us. We provide business intelligence for blockchains. We’ve parsed and track token movements for more than 40 blockchains, and provide a saas offering to aid in ecosystem health and growth.
Coin Metrics: Great people, founded by Nic Carter, one of the brightest minds in all of crypto (and he rocks a good suit). Very sophisticated insights and financial information offering targeting investors.
Dune Analytics: Dune is a great book. The movie with David Bowie was a bit weird. These guys focus on intelligence for Ethereum. Smart peeps. Probably don’t do Melange (spice).
TokenAnalyst: Recently aqui-hired by Coinbase. Data was quality, not sure their execution was effective enough to be a standalone business.
Into The Block: Targets investors with business intelligence to make effective investment decisions.
glassnode: Pretty darn snazzy visualizations. Again, seems tailored to the investor set.
Splunk: Long time player in the analytics space, has a dashboard tailored to IBM’s Hyperledger Enterprise offering.
Digital Assets Data: Brothers in arms (led by Mike and Ryan Alfred), they have a wealth of industry expertise with investors. They’ve raised a pile of money and provide enterprise-grade software and API feeds.
Token Economics
Prysm Group: Economic consulting firm for blockchain implementations. They audit chains and provide guidance on how to construct effective token economies. Neat.
Block Science: Quantitative consulting— yep, deep on blockchain, but also AI and Operations Research.
Gauntlet: Simulation platform designed to scenario test blockchain implemenations — to ensure effective economies and limit thread of bad actors.
