Q4 2023 Product Update

Dive into the blockchain API features Covalent added this year, as well as other product updates for Web3 developers.
2023-12-13

TL;DR

This quarter, Covalent has once again demonstrated its commitment to innovation and quality in the blockchain space by delivering a suite of powerful new features and collaborations:

  1. GoldRush - A customizable block explorer toolkit that empowers users to tailor their blockchain exploration experience.

  2. New NFT Endpoints - Comprehensive market data endpoints that provide historical insights into NFT collections' floor prices, volumes, and sales counts.

  3. Decoded Gnosis Safe Data - Enhanced transactions API that now includes detailed information on multi-signature wallet transactions and signatory data.

  4. NFT Approvals Endpoint - A new feature that lists NFTs accessible by contracts, enhancing transparency and control over NFT assets.

  5. Gas Price Endpoint - Real-time gas estimates for different transaction events across supported networks.

  6. Decentralized Infrastructure Network (DIN) Collaboration - A strategic initiative with industry giants to build a resilient, decentralized internet infrastructure for the blockchain community.

  7. Other Quality Updates - In the midst of the releases above, we’ve also stayed relentless, making many other improvements to our existing products, which you can read about below.

  8. 20+ New Chains - Our indexing momentum has stayed strong, bringing in over 20 new chains this quarter.

Introduction

As we reflect on the closing quarter of 2023, it's clear that Covalent's trajectory is not just about broadening our offerings but deepening the value they bring to our community. Our roadmap is a promise, a testament to our unwavering dedication to the completeness and correctness of data—a foundation upon which the trust and success of the blockchain ecosystem are built.

Please note - the “What’s Next” section is subject to change based on several factors, including consumer demand, user feedback and market conditions. We are actively working towards these goals, but priorities can shift based on what is best for the company and our overall vision.

GoldRush

What Shipped: We launched GoldRush, a dynamic and modular block explorer kit that empowers users to create personalized data experiences. The following UI components are available out of the box:

  • Token Balances: Visualize and manage token allocations across multiple wallets.

  • Transactions: Review detailed histories and context of blockchain transactions.

  • Address Activity: Monitor and analyze the activity associated with specific addresses.

  • NFTs: Explore the ownership and transaction history of non-fungible tokens.

  • Transfers: Track the movement of assets across the blockchain ecosystem.

Learn more about GoldRush.

Why This Matters: GoldRush revolutionizes the standard block explorer by offering unparalleled customization, meeting the diverse needs of our users.

What’s Next: We will continue to expand the GoldRush UI Kit, ensuring it remains the most versatile and user-friendly toolkit for blockchain exploration. We will also launch the GoldRush Decoder and hosted solution in the future. For now, fork and use the GoldRush UI on GitHub and give us feedback!

New NFT Endpoints for Floor Price, Volume, and Sales Count

What Shipped: New NFT market data endpoints were released, providing historical insights into floor prices, volumes, and sales counts for over 130,000 NFT collections across 9 chains and marketplaces. Check them out:

Why This Matters: These endpoints are crucial for users seeking to navigate the NFT market with data-driven strategies.

What’s Next: We plan to cover more collections and chains, improving our ever-growing suite of NFT endpoints and arming developers with unique tools to better understand the blockchain ecosystem.

Decoded Gnosis Safe Data

What Shipped: Integration of Gnosis Safe data into our transactions API, offering enhanced transparency into multi-signature wallet activities. The following endpoints support the safe_details enhancement using the query parameter with-safe=true:

Read more about Gnosis Safe details.

Why This Matters: This integration ensures that users have access to a more detailed and accurate transaction history when it comes to signatures and ownership.

What’s Next: With the growing shift towards account abstraction products, we are excited to shed light on more data points like these.

NFT Approvals Endpoint

What Shipped: The new NFT Approvals endpoint was introduced, providing a comprehensive list of NFT access permissions. Check it out here:

Why This Matters: This endpoint adds a layer of transparency and control over NFT assets and their interactions with various contracts.

What’s Next: Now we provide token approvals for both ERC-20 and ERC-721 assets. Going forward, new security features will be added based on feedback from our users and community.

Gas Price Endpoint

What Shipped:

We added a new endpoint, Get gas prices, to get real-time gas estimates for the following event types across all supported networks:

  • erc20 token transfers.

  • nativetokens transfers.

  • uniswapv3 swap events.

Why This Matters:

Using these gas estimates, developers can get insight into networks that perhaps don’t have a dedicated gas tracker, allowing them to optimize transaction costs and build their own gas features.

What’s Next:

We plan to expand the searchable event types to include a broader range of activities.

Decentralized Infrastructure Network (DIN) Collaboration

What Shipped: We joined forces with Infura alongside industry giants like Microsoft and Tencent to participate in the DIN initiative to build a more resilient and decentralized internet infrastructure. Learn more about our DIN collaboration.

Why This Matters: This collaboration signifies a major leap towards a more transparent, accessible, and decentralized web, aligning with the core values of the blockchain community.

What’s Next: Covalent will be working closely with these partners to ensure that DIN is successful and reliable for its stakeholders.

Other Quality Updates

What Shipped:

We heard your feedback throughout the year and made it a priority to improve some already-live features like the Get token holders as of any block height (v2) endpoint and NFT endpoints.

  • For token holders, queries would previously time out for exceptionally popular token contracts like stablecoins, for example, USDC. We optimized the backend so that all major token contracts should now resolve without timing out.

  • As for our NFT suite, we decided to begin crawling blockchains to cache all NFT assets and metadata for better performance. At the beginning of the year, we started with Ethereum, Polygon and BNB Smart Chain. Since then, we’ve added cached metadata for Arbitrum, Optimism, Base and Zora. You can monitor all our data coverage here.

Why This Matters:

Our overarching focus in 2024 will be correctness and completeness, and the steps we’ve made this year are just the beginning in polishing our products to meet the standards of excellence.

What’s Next: Another key way we will improve our existing offering next year is through Traces+, our custom EVM tracer. This will allow us to bolster our historical transactions API with internal transactions and native token transfers.

20+ New Chains

This quarter, we kept up our lightning-fast pace, indexing and bringing API access to the following chains:

  • Arbitrum Orbit: Xai Testnet

  • Arbitrum Sepolia Testnet

  • Base Sepolia Testnet

  • Ethereum Holesky Testnet

  • Optimism Sepolia Testnet

  • Scroll Mainnet

  • 3 Lumoz Rollups

  • 14 Avalanche Subnets

Conclusion

The relentless pursuit of excellence drives us at Covalent. As we soar into the next year, our focus sharpens on the integrity and utility of the data we provide. The features we've shipped this year lay the groundwork for what's to come—greater completeness, unmatched correctness, and a steadfast commitment to serve the community that relies on us. Thank you for your continued support!

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