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Ganesh Swami
Co-founder

200 Chains and Beyond: One Small Step for Covalent, One Giant Leap for Web3

TLDR;

  • Covalent indexes 200+ chains in less than 6 months after indexing 100 chains earlier this year, the first data indexer ever to do so.

  • Covalent is the first data indexer to index App Chains, Optimistic rollups, and zkRollups, supporting the growth of the OP-Stack, Polygon's CDK and Avalanche's subnet technologies.

  • Covalent utilizes the unique Block Specimen technology to ensure data extracted from the blockchain is cryptographically and verifiably secure.

The Journey from Ethereum to 200 Chains

Our story began in 2018, where the idea for Covalent was conceived at a hackathon. After a relentless build during the 2018-2019 bear market, our first product, the Unified API was introduced to the market supporting the Ethereum blockchain. Soon after, the Polygon POS chain support was added. The Unified API was a simple, no-code API solution for bringing visibility to millions (as of 2020, billions now) of fragmented on-chain data.

Understanding the importance of bringing the Unified API to the developer community, we continued to invest in indexing more chains. With more data, more use-cases are unlocked, and with more queries, inevitably generate more data. Thus, the cycle begins again and the adoption flywheel spins faster and faster. We crossed the milestone of indexing 100 chains in April of this year, just 6 months ago!

We've never wavered from our singular mission: make all blockchain data accessible.

Ethereum Scaling and Data Availability

With this new milestone of 200 chains indexed, we are going back to square one and addressing fundamental overlooked gaps on Ethereum's roadmap. With the rise of Data Availability middleware like Eigenlayer and Celestia, Dank sharding, state pruning, and other scaling technologies on the horizon, there's now an acute problem of accessing historical data without relying on centralized rent-seeking intermediaries.

Earlier this month, we released the Ethereum Wayback Machine whitepaper, outlining and addressing these challenges using Covalent Network's ddecentralized technologies like Block Specimens and Block Results. Stay tuned for the EWM testnet announcement!

As developers and their expectations increase over time, it's inevitable that they will want a cryptographically secure, proof-backed data indexer. That's why we show up to work everyday to build a better internet.

The Covalent Database

At the core of Covalent is the Covalent Database, a normalized replica of all onchain data, perfectly matched up to a canonical schema. The Covalent Database powers all of our products: the Unified API, Increment, GoldRush along with 1000s of others in the ecosystem, offering a wide range of solutions, from crypto wallets and NFT galleries to investor dashboarding tools.

A Heartfelt Thank You

To our community, partners, and team: your support, feedback, and contributions have been the driving force behind every milestone we've collectively achieved. We are excited to continue this journey with you, breaking new ground and reaching new heights.

About Covalent:

Covalent provides the industry-leading Unified API bringing visibility to billions of Web3 data points. Developers and analysts use Covalent to build exciting multi-chain applications like crypto wallets, NFT galleries, and investor dashboard tools utilizing data from 215 + blockchains. Covalent is trusted by a community of 40,000+ developers and powers data for 5,000+ applications, including 0x, Zerion, Rainbow Wallet, Rotki, Bitski, and many others.

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