Covalent February Update: 90 Chains Integrated, Leading ZK/OR Indexer 🚀
TLDR;
Breadth: Covalent hits 90 blockchains integrated and becomes the leading indexer by the number of supported chains in Web3.
Depth: Covalent has now indexed the majority of ZK and Optimistic roll-ups, waiting for zkSync to go live.
Speed: Covalent upgraded the leading Transactions V3 endpoint so it’s now faster, more resilient, and consistent across addresses of any size.
Security: Covalent has begun internal testing on the the Refiner - the next phase of the Covalent Network. Transformations are now cryptographically secured.
Introduction
At this time of year, thousands upon thousands of devs and builders from across the globe all gather in one event; ETHDenver. This doubles as a launchpad for many existing projects to launch their new products and hails exciting announcements. With all of these new products arriving on the scene, there is an exponential increase in the need for on-chain data. Covalent reigns in data within the infrastructure layer of Web3, provided by the Unified API. As a critical component to many of the launches that will be occurring at ETHDenver, this month has been dedicated to working heads down to help our partners get their projects across the finish line.
Traction
Supply
February has been another incredible month for growth and we continue to be the leader in depth and breadth of on-chain data to date. We now support over 90 chains which is more than double any other vendor in the Web3 space.
Covalent, only one of two indexers supporting Base, integrated the new Ethereum L2 incubated by Coinbase and built on the open-source OP Stack and will provide in-depth on-chain data for Base’s testnet, playing an active role in monitoring its development phase. This also presents an exciting opportunity for Covalent to access a fresh data pool via Base from scaling solutions built upon Ethereum, extending its tremendous breadth spanning 90 supported chains including alternative sources (app chains, L2s, etc), and impressive depth by ensuring all data is captured from the genesis block.
Base, in addition to Boba and another OR, means we have indexed every optimistic rollup.
Demand
Covalent now provides NodeReal, a leading blockchain infra provider, and our first channel partner, our Premium Balances API, an upgraded offering that enables devs to access comprehensive blockchain data at faster speeds & lower costs for BSC and ETH.
This month also saw an extension in our suite of endpoints under the Premium API tier and saw a major uptick in signups. We closed additional enterprise deals and have great momentum heading into March. This week also marks our return to ETHDenver where we are offering $10K in bounties for those participants hacking with our Unified API. We can wait to see what gets built!
Product
Covalent’s flagship product, the Covalent Unified API, received major upgrades in February that are now live for our builders to fully access and utilize for any of their use-cases and applications:
Transactions V3 is now faster, more resilient, and consistent across addresses of any size.
Balances V3:
Our best-in-class and most popular endpoint now supports Bitcoin balances.
Our fastest balances_v3 engine upgrade is now available on Polygon and Binance.
All developers can now understand their current credit usage stats and upgrade to a Premium account with the Self-Serve Premium API and Credit Stats.
In one of the biggest product updates in Covalent to date, our new API Reference is now live! Visit the revamped interface for a seamless experience to find tutorials, guides, and references on the Covalent Unified API and other blockchain data products to support any use case being built on-chain.
In February, Covalent completed the first set of custom Class C endpoints covering 10 of the top protocols in the space. These are custom endpoints that are only possible with Covalent’s stack - not through any RPC or even other indexers.
Covalent Network
The next phase of the Covalent Network, the Refiner, continues to be developed and this month it entered the internal testing phase. The Refiner is a data processing framework that has the capability to perform arbitrary transformations over any binary block specimen file concurrently with other transformations. This enables simultaneous data indexing, with any consumer of the data slicing and dicing the data as they see fit. After this, every transformation step comes with an attached cryptographic proof which is what makes the Covalent Network unique.
Data-Backed Research
Covalent published an exclusive report on Nike’s NFT collections using billions of rows of on-chain data to understand how Nike dominated the NFT game with a staggering $200M in revenue. The report takes a deep dive into the strategies and mechanisms that Nike uses to keep the desirability of the NFTs high in a market where others have struggled.
Published at the end of the month was an exclusive analysis of Fantom, an EVM-compatible blockchain and our partners since 2021, on how they’re leading the future of open finance and DeFi. Read the report now live on our blog for insights as to why Fantom has become a favourite among DeFi users and developers.
Traction Thread Tuesdays (#TTT) is a brand new initiative kickstarted in February where every Tuesday we take a deep dive into some of the top projects in the space that double as our ecosystem partners and are all powered by the Covalent Unified API. #TTT highlights verifiable and cryptographically secure data extracted from the richest data in the ecosystem with a total of 90 blockchains indexed and used to unlock insights into each project featured and break it down for our community to show just how much these projects are making an impact in Web3.
Hot in the markets in February was talk of the EVM chain Canto, which Covalent indexed in early February. Using the Covalent Unified API, Covalent was able to access all of the deep, granular, on-chain data, right from its genesis and take an exclusive insight into its growth. Catch up on the quick report:
Events
Erik Ashdown, Head of Ecosystem Growth at Covalent attended blockchain’s FIRST-ever event for builders creating dapps in Web3: Axelar’s Interop Summit. Joining Erik in a panel to discuss “TVL Is Dead: Making Sense of Interchain Data” was Dave Balter from Flipside Crypto and Marianna Angelou from Metrika, moderated by Will Foxley from CoinDesk TV.
“The Future of Data-Powered Wallets” is here! Harish Raisinghani, Head of Developer Relations at Covalent, will be speaking on how wallets serve as gateways to Web3 at WalletCon, a one-day exploration of the theoretical questions and key innovations shaping tomorrow’s wallet experience.
ETHDenver is right around the corner! Come find our booth and say hi to our team in Devtopia, our booth is located near the VIP lounge and ETHDenver Merch area.
For all of those attending ETHDenver, we have a fun contest to enter to win a pair of Beats Headphones, all you’ll have to do is sign up for the Covalent Unified API. The first 100 sign-ups will also get a limited edition t-shirt!
Coverage
Earlier this month, Ganesh is quoted on using blockchain applications for businesses On The Globe and Mail, a major trade publication with a large viewership of approximately 10 million average users per month. The article is titled Why the blockchain still has a future, despite its past.
“In this past year alone, we have seen blockchain technology used to streamline historically tedious operations like data reporting, supply chain management, and beyond,” says Mr. Swami, CEO of Vancouver-based Covalent, which provides blockchain data API and infrastructure.
Honourable Mentions:
Microsoft’s Bet Forecast New Trend In Crypto? Covalent was listed among others as “Other AI Tokens to Watch in 2023”.
Today in Crypto February 22 Covalent’s NodeReal announcement expanding Premium Balances API included in Cryptonews
Understanding Covalent CQT and Its Features Covalent featured in a report analyzing Covalent’s features, network, and CQT.
Looking Forward:
NFT Cache Improvements: Coming next month, the Covalent Unified API will have new and improved NFT collection endpoints. Developers will be able to instantly fetch and access NFT metadata directly from the blockchain for even richer data models and a wider variety of use cases.
The Blockchain Data Refiner is targeted to be released in Q2 2023 and will be an engine that will serve as enriching and transforming Block Specimens, able to retrieve information directly from the Covalent Network.
