The DeFi ecosystem evolves rapidly in such short periods of time making it difficult for speculators to do the research required to stay on top of it all. Thankfully, there are a number of tools available that can help investors do the appropriate research to help make informed investment decisions.
In this week’s edition of ‘The Cortex Connection’, we highlight some of our favorite research tools that make Doing Your Own Research a little bit easier.
Defi Llama
DeFi Llama was launched in 2020 and has quickly become one of the most popular DeFi analytics platforms. One of the unique features of DeFi Llama is its TVL dominance chart. This chart shows the percentage of total value locked in each DeFi protocol across over 200 chains. This can be helpful for investors who are looking to identify the most popular DeFi protocols on popular and emerging markets alike.
DeFi Llama has recently added dashboards to track DAO Treasuries, Protocol Expenses, Token Unlock Schedules, Governance Proposals, and the NFT marketplace.
Messari
Messari is a research firm that provides data and analysis on the cryptocurrency and blockchain industry. Messari was founded in 2018 by Ryan Selkis. The firm has a team of experienced researchers who provide data and analysis on a wide range of cryptocurrency and blockchain topics.
Messari's research reports include some of the most comprehensive and respected sources of information on the DeFi ecosystem.
Dune Analytics
Dune Analytics is an online tool for viewing and analyzing blockchain data. It lets users pull data from different blockchain sources, adjust their view, make simple searches, share their findings, get automatic updates, and connect with other tools.
Some of the features of Dune Analytics include:
Custom charts: Allows users to create custom charts using data from a variety of sources, including DeFi protocols so they can track the performance of specific DeFi projects or compare different DeFi projects side-by-side.
Dashboards: Allows users to create dashboards that display multiple charts and tables. This makes it easy to get a comprehensive overview of the DeFi ecosystem or of a specific DeFi project.
Collaboration: Users can share their charts and dashboards with others, and they can also collaborate on creating new charts and dashboards.
API: Users can programmatically access data from the platform. This can be helpful for developers who want to build custom DeFi applications.
Using the tools available may require some technical experience with database tools, but the robust documentation provides an easy-to-follow pathway to start visualizing data quickly.
Dex Screener
DexScreener is a decentralized finance (DeFi) analytics platform that provides users with a variety of tools to track DeFi projects and tokens, especially new tokens that have not yet aggregated to the larger portfolio trackers.
DexScreener allows users to set watchlists and alerts, compare multiple asset price charts in a single screen, discover new token pairs, and review trending tokens all across over 50 chains, some of which aren’t supported by other platforms. Overall a perfect tool to use for researching project tokens within minutes of their launch.
Glassnode
Glassnode is a blockchain data and intelligence provider that offers insights into the on-chain metrics of various cryptocurrencies, primarily Bitcoin and Ethereum. The platform provides comprehensive data analytics and visualization tools that allow users, investors, and analysts to delve deeper into the behaviors, trends, and activities occurring on these blockchains.
From metrics related to network health, liquidity, and growth to more nuanced indicators like "hodler" behavior, Glassnode presents its users with an array of data points that can be invaluable for making informed investment decisions or understanding the broader dynamics of cryptocurrency ecosystems.
Additionally, Glassnode Insights is their newsletter that regularly covers the latest Bitcoin and Ethereum-related events with great detail. Worth checking out!
Santiment
Santiment is a comprehensive crypto market intelligence platform that provides data, tools, and insights for investors, traders, and other stakeholders in the cryptocurrency industry. Their platform offers a range of metrics and analytical tools designed to shed light on the behavior of crypto-assets and their respective communities. Santiment covers various aspects of the market, including on-chain data, social sentiment analysis, developer activity, and more.
By aggregating this diverse data set, Santiment aims to give its users a holistic understanding of market dynamics and provide early indicators of potential market shifts. Their tools and dashboards are designed to help users make informed decisions by identifying trends, patterns, and anomalies in the vast landscape of the crypto market.
Fear and Greed Index
The Fear and Greed Index is a tool used to measure and represent the current sentiment of the cryptocurrency market, primarily focused on Bitcoin. The index provides a daily reading that ranges between 0 and 100, where a value close to 0 represents extreme fear, and a value close to 100 indicates extreme greed. This is an important tool for traders and investors because market sentiment can be a crucial factor in price movements. Typically, when the market is overly fearful, it may present buying opportunities, and when the market is overly greedy, it might indicate a potential local top.
The Fear and Greed Index takes into account various sources of data, including:
Volatility: Measuring the current volatility against the average.
Market Momentum/Volume: Checking the current volume and momentum against the average.
Social Media: Analyzing the current sentiment and trends from broader social media.
Surveys: Results of public sentiment polls.
Dominance: How much Bitcoin dominates the market, reflecting on whether investors are favoring Bitcoin over altcoins.
Trends: Search engine trends and data.
By combining all these factors, the Fear and Greed Index provides a holistic view of the market sentiment. It's worth noting that, like all indicators, the Fear and Greed Index should be used in conjunction with other tools and metrics for a more comprehensive analysis.
Artemis
Artemis provides intuitive crypto dashboards with context. They aggregate all the key metrics that matter in crypto in one place and provide dashboards and Excel and Google Sheets plugins to customers so they can compare and evaluate crypto assets without needing to code. When social media is full of overblown or misrepresented data about protocol activity, Artemis is able to filter out the noise and provide just the hard data. Verify for yourself, for instance, which chains have the most daily active users, transactions, and TVL.
Ape O’Clock
ApeOclock is a website that provides information on upcoming DeFi and GameFi launches. The website aggregates data from a variety of sources, including social media, blockchain explorers, and price aggregators.
Some of the features of ApeOclock include:
Upcoming launches: Lists upcoming DeFi launches, including the project name, launch date, and token sale information.
Social media: Aggregates social media data for DeFi projects, including Twitter followers, Telegram members, and Discord users.
Blockchain explorers: Aggregates data from blockchain explorers for DeFi projects, including token address, total supply, and transaction volume.
Price aggregators: Aggregates data from price aggregators for DeFi projects, including current price, market capitalization, and trading volume.
News: Aggregates news articles for DeFi projects.
Ratings: Provides ratings for DeFi projects based on a variety of factors, including social media engagement, blockchain activity, and tokenomics.
And Many More…
While the tools listed above were an aggregate of our favorites, there are many similar tools available that can get the job done just the same. The important part is to take advantage of the open nature of blockchain technology which allows us to track data in perpetuity.
That’s all for now! We’ll see you in the next one.