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Prologue — The 2026 on-chain analytics landscape

As of May 2026, the crypto market has passed two major waves and entered a new chapter. The first wave was the 2022 collapses of Terra/Luna and FTX. The second was the approval of US spot Bitcoin ETFs in January 2024 and spot Ethereum ETFs in July 2024, followed by genuine institutional inflows through 2025.

Between those waves, on-chain analytics matured. The 2017–2020 era of "tracking wallet addresses in Excel" gave way to the 2021–2023 era of "Dune SQL plus Nansen labels for dashboards," and now the 2024–2026 era of "AI assistants write the SQL and Smart Alerts flag anomalous wallet activity for you."

Four ETF-era shifts. First, with institutional capital arriving, the market for KYC/AML and compliance tools (Chainalysis, TRM, Elliptic) exploded. Second, premium tools like Nansen, Arkham and Glassnode moved up-market to enterprise plans starting around USD 25,000 per year. Third, data warehouses like Dune and Flipside split into free, pro and enterprise tiers. Fourth, Koreas Xangle and Japans CoinPost firmly own their local-language analytics markets.

This guide walks through labeling, data warehouses, market data, AML, MEV, Korean and Japanese ecosystems, AI tooling and the privacy debate across 22–28 chapters.

1 · Four axes of on-chain analytics in 2026

I sort 2026 on-chain analytics tools into four functional axes.

- **Address labeling** — Nansen, Arkham, Chainalysis. Attach human-readable tags like "Binance Hot Wallet", "Alameda Research" or "Vitalik" to addresses.

- **Data warehouses** — Dune, Flipside, Allium. Anyone can SQL-query block data.

- **Market data and signals** — Glassnode, CryptoQuant, IntoTheBlock. Price, macro, and composite on-chain metrics.

- **Compliance** — Chainalysis Reactor, TRM Labs, Elliptic Navigator. AML and sanctions tooling for exchanges and governments.

A fifth axis has appeared. **The AI layer** — DuneGPT, Nansen Smart Alerts, Messari AI Pro, Spectral.finance. These sit on top of the four axes and provide natural-language interfaces and automated alerts.

[2026 on-chain analytics stack]

AI layer ─ DuneGPT, Nansen Smart Alerts, Messari AI Pro

↑

┌───────────────┬─────────────────┬────────────────┬─────────────┐

│ Labeling │ Data warehouse │ Market data │ Compliance │

│ Nansen │ Dune Analytics │ Glassnode │ Chainalysis │

│ Arkham │ Flipside │ CryptoQuant │ TRM Labs │

│ Chainalysis │ Allium │ IntoTheBlock │ Elliptic │

└───────────────┴─────────────────┴────────────────┴─────────────┘

↑

Raw blockchain data (Ethereum, Bitcoin, Solana, L2s, ...)

Each axis evolves independently, but real analysis usually combines four to five tools. The "one tool to rule them all" approach has been a failure pattern since 2024.

2 · Nansen — the smart-money tracking standard

**Nansen** (nansen.ai) was founded in 2019 in Singapore by Alex Svanevik. In 2022 it raised a Series B of USD 75 million led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), reaching a USD 750 million valuation.

- **Founder** — Alex Svanevik (CEO, Norwegian). Co-founder of Coinfi.

- **Key asset** — A wallet-labels database with tags applied to over 300 million Ethereum and L2 addresses.

- **Pricing** — Free (limited), Standard (USD 150/mo), VIP (USD 1,800/mo), Alpha (USD 25,000/yr).

The core of Nansen is label quality. "Smart Money" labels are assigned automatically by rules like these.

- **Smart Trader** — Top 10 % ROI over the last 90 days.

- **Smart NFT Trader** — Top profitability in NFT trading.

- **Heavy DEX Trader** — Average daily volume of USD 1 million or more.

- **Token God Mode** — Tracks the largest holders of a specific token.

In 2024 Nansen launched **AI Smart Alerts**, where you describe a pattern in natural language (e.g. "Smart Money wallet buys a new token for more than USD 1,000") and Nansen pushes alerts to Telegram, Discord or email.

Nansen 2.0 shipped in April 2025 with a full UI overhaul. The query builder now goes from natural language to charts. Ask "Daily chart of total BTC outflows from Binance over the past seven days" and Nansen produces the chart without you writing SQL.

Limits are obvious too. Nansen labels are produced by proprietary algorithms and heuristics, and are not 100 % accurate. During the 2023 Curve incident some "Smart Money" wallets turned out to be trading bots.

3 · Arkham Intelligence — adversarial labeling and the doxing debate

**Arkham** (arkhamintelligence.com) was founded in 2020 in the United States by Miguel Morel. In July 2023 it launched the ARKM token, which made headlines but also sparked controversy through its bounty-driven doxing feature.

- **Founder** — Miguel Morel, backed by Founders Fund (Peter Thiel).

- **Differentiator** — Aggressive, adversarial labeling that actively tries to deanonymize wallets.

- **Arkham Intel Exchange** — Users who submit identities for anonymous wallets receive bounties paid in ARKM tokens.

At launch in July 2023, the model drew widespread criticism for "tokenizing the doxing of individuals." Vitalik Buterin warned on Twitter that "incentivized doxing in this form is dangerous," and security firms like CertiK and BlockSec voiced concerns as well.

Arkham countered that its tools focus on cybercrime and hack tracking, but reports of regular users wallets being identified continued through 2024 and 2025.

On capability, Arkham is powerful.

- **Ultra** (enterprise) — Full data API for governments and corporations.

- **Visualizer** — Money-flow graphs that follow funds from exchanges through mixers to destinations.

- **Profiles** — Estimated holdings of prominent individuals and institutions, e.g. Justin Sun, Three Arrows Capital, Alameda Research.

The SEC and US Congress have been watching the Arkham model since 2024, and there are reports that EU GDPR regulators opened an inquiry in 2025.

4 · Chainalysis — the leader in AML and sanctions compliance

**Chainalysis** (chainalysis.com) was founded in the US in 2014 by Michael Gronager (former Kraken CTO, originally from Denmark) and Jonathan Levin. In 2022 it raised a USD 170 million Series F at a USD 8.6 billion valuation.

- **Headquarters** — New York. Offices in Copenhagen, London and Tokyo.

- **Customers** — US IRS, FBI, DOJ, OFAC; UK HMRC; Koreas FSS; Japans National Police Agency.

- **Products** — Reactor (investigations), KYT (real-time transaction monitoring for exchanges), Crypto Investigations Solutions, Storyline.

Chainalysis is effectively the standard in crypto compliance. The 2024 OFAC sanctions list of blockchain addresses leans heavily on Chainalysis clustering. It supported the fund-tracing in Tornado Cash, Lazarus Group (North Korea) and Hydra Market cases.

**Reactor 2.0** (2023) improved the clustering algorithms with machine learning, automatically grouping wallets that appear to be operated by the same entity.

In May 2024 the Chainalysis Crypto Crime Report 2024 reported "illicit crypto volume in 2023 totaled USD 24.2 billion, or 0.34 % of all activity." That number is cited extensively in policy work.

Cost is the limitation. A KYT license starts north of USD 50,000 per year, which is steep for smaller exchanges, leaving room for TRM Labs and Elliptic to compete in the mid-market.

5 · TRM Labs — the sanctions-tracing challenger

**TRM Labs** (trmlabs.com) was founded in 2018 in San Francisco by Esteban Castaño and Rahul Raina. Its 2022 USD 60 million Series B made it the closest competitor to Chainalysis.

- **Founders** — Esteban Castaño (CEO), Rahul Raina (CTO).

- **Customers** — US SEC and FinCEN, UK FCA, Circle (USDC issuer), FTX creditor recovery.

- **Differentiator** — Coverage of 26 chains and multi-chain money-flow visualization.

TRMs strength is multi-chain reach. While Chainalysis was Bitcoin and Ethereum centric, TRM quickly extended to Solana, BSC, Tron, Polygon and Avalanche. Tron is critical because USDT flows there are central to laundering investigations.

After OFAC sanctioned Tornado Cash in 2023, TRM added a feature that automatically computes "degrees of separation" from a sanctioned address — e.g. a wallet at two hops from Tornado Cash.

In 2024 TRM was selected as the core provider for FTX creditor recovery, tracing Alameda Researchs flows across 17 chains.

6 · Elliptic — ML-based compliance from the UK

**Elliptic** (elliptic.co) was founded in London in 2013 by James Smith, Adam Joyce and Tom Robinson — one of the oldest blockchain analytics firms. Series C of USD 60 million in 2022.

- **Headquarters** — London, with offices in New York and Singapore.

- **Products** — Navigator (web), Lens (API), Investigator (forensics).

- **Customers** — Coinbase, Crypto.com, Revolut, UK NCA.

Elliptic differentiates on machine learning. Its 2024 **Bitfinex Hack Forensic Report** traced funds from the 2016 Bitfinex hack worth USD 3.6 billion and helped lead to government seizures.

**Holistic Screening** (2023) analyzes a wallets entire activity pattern rather than just a single transaction. Example output: "This address has five historical interactions with sanctioned exchanges."

Elliptic also leans academic. In 2024 it co-released the **Elliptic2** dataset with MIT and IBM Research — a free academic dataset of two million labeled Bitcoin transactions.

7 · Crystal Blockchain — Bitfurys analytics spin-out

**Crystal Blockchain** (crystalblockchain.com) was spun out of Bitfury Group, the Estonian-origin Bitcoin mining company, in 2018.

- **Headquarters** — Amsterdam, Netherlands.

- **Parent** — Bitfury Group (acquired by Wozeo Holdings in 2024).

- **Products** — Crystal Expert (investigations), Crystal Lite (mid-market exchanges).

Crystal focuses on the European market. It is the certified tool for German BaFin, Dutch DNB and Swiss FINMA. Since Europes MiCA (Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation, in force from 2024) it has become the default for European exchanges.

Bitfury rebranded to **Wozeo Holdings** in 2024 but Crystal Blockchain remains an independent brand.

8 · Bitquery — flexible blockchain GraphQL

**Bitquery** (bitquery.io) was founded in 2018 by Pavel Khramov (India/UAE). It exposes data for 35+ blockchains as a GraphQL API.

- **Founder** — Pavel Khramov.

- **Differentiator** — Free-form GraphQL queries instead of SQL.

- **Customers** — Exchanges, hedge funds, research labs.

Bitquery is developer-friendly and a regular at ETHCC, Devcon and other conferences for workshops.

query {

ethereum(network: ethereum) {

transfers(

currency: {is: "0xA0b86991c6218b36c1d19D4a2e9Eb0cE3606eB48"}

date: {since: "2026-05-01"}

) {

amount

sender { address }

receiver { address }

}

The query fetches USDC token transfers since May. Less expressive than SQL but very effective for querying multiple chains at once.

9 · Dune Analytics + DuneGPT — the community SQL standard

**Dune Analytics** (dune.com) was founded in Norway in 2018 by Fredrik Haga and Mats Olsen. Its 2022 Series B of USD 150 million at a USD 1 billion valuation made it a unicorn.

- **Founder** — Fredrik Haga (CEO).

- **Language** — PostgreSQL, migrated to DuneSQL (Trino-based) in 2023.

- **Coverage** — 30+ chains including Ethereum, Solana, Bitcoin, Polygon, Arbitrum, Optimism, Base, Avalanche, BSC, Gnosis.

Dune wins on community. Around 70,000 analysts (called "Wizards") publish public queries and dashboards for free. Cumulative queries crossed 10 million in 2024.

In June 2024 Dune launched **DuneGPT**, a natural-language-to-SQL tool. Its a RAG system on top of OpenAI GPT-4 with the Dune schema embedded.

[DuneGPT example]

User: "Show me the top 10 most-traded tokens on the Base chain over the last 30 days"

DuneGPT: auto-generates the following SQL →

SELECT

token_address, symbol, SUM(amount_usd) AS volume

FROM dex.trades

WHERE blockchain = 'base'

AND block_time > NOW() - INTERVAL '30' DAY

GROUP BY 1, 2 ORDER BY 3 DESC LIMIT 10;

In 2025 Dune settled on three tiers: Free, Plus (USD 99/mo) and Pro (USD 390/mo). DuneGPT is available from Plus and up.

The constraint is data freshness. Some chains lag five to ten minutes, which is fine for analysis and research but unfit for live trading.

10 · Flipside Crypto — the strong free tier

**Flipside Crypto** (flipsidecrypto.xyz) was founded in Boston in 2017 by Dave Balter, Eric Stone and Jim Myers. It has many Korean employees and is popular in the Korean community.

- **Headquarters** — Boston.

- **Differentiator** — Generous free tier with up to 5,000 daily queries.

- **Language** — Snowflake SQL.

Flipside differentiates with its incentive program. On **Earn** (earn.flipsidecrypto.xyz), completing specific analytical challenges pays out token rewards. In 2023–2024 a number of Korean analysts reportedly earned USD 1,000–5,000 per month from these challenges.

Coverage is roughly comparable to Dune, with Flipside often quicker on Bitcoin Mempool, Aptos, Sui and Flow.

Series A of USD 50 million in 2024 at a USD 250 million valuation.

11 · Allium — modern data infrastructure

**Allium** (allium.so) was founded in 2022 in Singapore by Ling Zhang and Will Mok. It started later than Dune and Flipside but quickly took share in enterprise.

- **Founders** — Ling Zhang (CEO), Will Mok (CTO).

- **Differentiator** — Direct integration with cloud data warehouses (Snowflake, BigQuery, Databricks).

- **Customers** — Visa, Stripe, Circle, Phantom Wallet.

Alliums model starts around USD 1,000 per month and aims at enterprise. There is no free tier, but companies like Visa and Stripe integrate it into their internal data pipelines.

In 2024 Visa built "Visa Onchain Analytics," an internal tool on top of Allium for analyzing stablecoin payment activity.

12 · The Graph — decentralized indexing

**The Graph** (thegraph.com) was founded in 2018 by Yaniv Tal, Jannis Pohlmann and Brandon Ramirez in the US. It is a decentralized indexing protocol powered by the GRT token.

- **Founder** — Yaniv Tal (CEO).

- **Differentiator** — Decentralized indexing with GraphQL. Anyone can deploy and run a Subgraph.

- **2024 milestone** — The Hosted Service shut down in July 2024 and everyone migrated to the decentralized network.

A Subgraph is a GraphQL API that indexes events from specific smart contracts. Almost every major DeFi protocol — Uniswap, Aave, Compound — runs a Subgraph.

subgraph.yaml example

specVersion: 1.3.0

dataSources:

- kind: ethereum/contract

name: UniswapV3Factory

network: mainnet

source:

address: '0x1F98431c8aD98523631AE4a59f267346ea31F984'

abi: Factory

mapping:

eventHandlers:

- event: 'PoolCreated(...)'

handler: handlePoolCreated

The July 2024 Hosted Service sunset was a major event. About 30,000 free Subgraphs either had to migrate to the Decentralized Network or disappear. The Graph compensates indexers, curators and delegators in GRT.

13 · Glassnode — the Bitcoin macro standard

**Glassnode** (glassnode.com) was founded in Switzerland in 2017 by Jan Happel and Yann Allemann. It is the de facto standard for Bitcoin on-chain analysis.

- **Headquarters** — Zug, Switzerland.

- **Founders** — Jan Happel (CEO), Yann Allemann.

- **Pricing** — Free, Advanced (USD 39/mo), Professional (USD 799/mo), Enterprise (custom).

Glassnodes strengths are its **cycle indicators**.

- **MVRV Z-Score** — Market Value vs Realized Value. Identifies cycle tops and bottoms.

- **SOPR** — Spent Output Profit Ratio. Profit-taking pressure.

- **HODL Waves** — Distribution of coins by holding period.

- **Net Unrealized Profit/Loss (NUPL)** — Market-wide unrealized profit and loss.

Bitcoin analysts like Willy Woo and Plan B lean heavily on Glassnode data. Through the 2024–2025 ETF era, Glassnode strengthened its **Cohort Analysis** — behavior tracked by holder cohort.

In 2023 there were reports of a possible merger between Glassnode and Coin Metrics, but it was ultimately called off.

14 · CryptoQuant — Korea-origin exchange flow analytics

**CryptoQuant** (cryptoquant.com) was founded in Korea in 2018 by Ki Young Ju. It is the most successful Korea-born tool to go global.

- **Founder** — Ki Young Ju (CEO).

- **Headquarters** — Gangnam, Seoul.

- **Pricing** — Free, Advanced (USD 29/mo), Professional (USD 99/mo), Premium (USD 799/mo).

The hallmark of CryptoQuant is **exchange wallet flow analysis**. It has labeled hot and cold wallets for all major exchanges: Binance, Coinbase, Bitfinex, Kraken, Upbit, Bithumb, OKX, Bybit.

- **Exchange Reserve** — Total coins held by exchanges. Falling reserves imply buying pressure.

- **Exchange Netflow** — Net flow in and out of exchanges.

- **Stablecoins Ratio** — USDT and USDC ratio as a proxy for sidelined buying power.

- **Miner Reserve** — Miner wallet balances, useful for inferring miner selling pressure.

Ki Young Ju (@ki_young_ju on Twitter) is an active commentator. Since the 2024 ETF approval he has consistently framed inflows as net new demand.

CryptoQuant Korea (cryptoquant.com/ko) provides a separate Korean-language interface.

15 · IntoTheBlock — ML-driven signals

**IntoTheBlock** (intotheblock.com) was founded in 2018 in the United States by Jesus Rodriguez. ML-based signals are the differentiator.

- **Founder** — Jesus Rodriguez (CEO).

- **Headquarters** — Miami.

- **Products** — Token Insights, DeFi Insights, NFT Insights, Capital Markets.

IntoTheBlocks specialty is "holder analytics."

- **In/Out of the Money** — Share of holders profitable or underwater at current price.

- **Holders Composition** — Distribution of short, medium and long-term holders.

- **Whale Activity** — Trading patterns of holders with USD 1 million or more.

In 2023 Rodriguez separately founded **Sentora**, an IntoTheBlock subsidiary that operates DeFi asset management.

16 · Coin Metrics — institutional-grade data

**Coin Metrics** (coinmetrics.io) was founded in 2017 in the US by Nic Carter and Tim Rice. Its focus is institutional market data.

- **Co-founder** — Nic Carter (now at Castle Island Ventures), Tim Rice (CEO).

- **Headquarters** — Boston.

- **Customers** — Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Fidelity, BlackRock, Grayscale.

Coin Metrics differentiates on data quality. Its **Reference Rates** indices are used to calculate the NAV of institutional ETFs and ETPs. CME Bitcoin futures settlement prices also reference Coin Metrics data.

- **Network Data Pro** — Network-activity metrics.

- **Market Data Feed** — Prices from 50+ exchanges.

- **State of the Network** — Free weekly newsletter (about 70,000 subscribers).

Nic Carter is also active in Bitcoin policy circles. He was openly critical of the 2022 Tornado Cash sanctions.

17 · Kaiko & Skew (Coinbase) — market data and derivatives

**Kaiko** (kaiko.com) was founded in Paris in 2014 by Ambre Soubiran. It is a European-origin market data firm focused on institutions.

- **Founder** — Ambre Soubiran (CEO).

- **Headquarters** — Paris.

- **Differentiator** — Tick-level data covering 110+ exchanges and 30,000+ pairs.

Kaiko is used by BNP Paribas, Deutsche Börse and Standard Chartered. Its European institutional share grew rapidly after MiCA came into force.

**Skew** was founded in the UK in 2018 by Emmanuel Goh and was acquired by Coinbase for USD 55 million in 2021. It now sits inside Coinbase Institutional.

- **CME Bitcoin futures and options** — Open Interest, Funding Rate, Put/Call Ratio.

- **Deribit options data** — Volatility smile, the Greeks.

18 · Token Terminal — fundamental valuation

**Token Terminal** (tokenterminal.com) was founded in 2019 by Aleksis Tapper from Finland. The pitch: "value crypto on fundamentals like a PE multiple on equities."

- **Founder** — Aleksis Tapper (CEO).

- **Headquarters** — Helsinki.

- **Metrics** — Revenue, Earnings, Fees, P/E, P/S.

Token Terminals philosophy is "protocols are businesses." It presents protocol fees from Uniswap, Aave and Lido in traditional accounting terms.

- **Total Revenue** — All fees paid to a protocol by users.

- **Supply-side Revenue** — Portion distributed to LPs and stakers.

- **Protocol Revenue** — Portion that flows to the treasury or token holders.

- **P/F Ratio** — Price over Fees, analogous to PE on equities.

In the 2024 ETF era Token Terminal was adopted quickly by institutional analysts. Research notes from ARK Invest and VanEck routinely cite its data.

19 · DefiLlama — the free TVL standard

**DefiLlama** (defillama.com) was created in 2020 by the pseudonymous developer 0xngmi as an open-source TVL tracker.

- **Creator** — 0xngmi (pseudonymous).

- **Operator** — Llama Corp (incorporated in 2022).

- **Hallmarks** — Ad-free, free of charge, open source.

DefiLlamas strength is **chain and protocol coverage**. As of 2026 it tracks about 250 chains and 3,500 protocols.

- **Total Value Locked (TVL)** — Aggregate value locked across all DeFi protocols.

- **Stablecoins** — Issuance and per-chain distribution.

- **Yields** — APY comparison across all pools.

- **Liquidations** — Aave, Compound and Maker liquidations.

- **Hacks** — Hack incident database.

DefiLlama also ships sister tools like LlamaSwap, LlamaPay and LlamaFolio for free. Running without ads or a token grew community trust.

20 · L2Beat — L2 rollup tracking

**L2Beat** (l2beat.com) was founded in 2020 by Bartek Kiepuszewski from Poland. It is dedicated to L2 rollup analytics.

- **Founder** — Bartek Kiepuszewski.

- **Headquarters** — Warsaw, Poland.

- **Differentiator** — Security assessments. Not just TVL, but a structured rating of "how decentralized and verified is this L2."

L2Beats scoring framework includes:

- **Stage 0/1/2** — Maturity stages proposed by Vitalik Buterin.

- **Risk Rosette** — Visualization across six risk areas (State Validation, Data Availability, Exit Window, Sequencer Failure, Proposer Failure, Upgradability).

- **TVL on Bridges** — Value parked in each L2 bridge.

Through the 2024–2025 L2 explosion (Arbitrum, Optimism, Base, Linea, Scroll, zkSync, Starknet, Mantle, Blast, etc.) L2Beat became the de facto evaluation standard.

21 · Block explorers — Etherscan, BscScan, Tronscan

**Etherscan** (etherscan.io) was founded in 2015 by Matthew Tan from Malaysia. It is the oldest Ethereum block explorer.

- **Founder** — Matthew Tan.

- **Headquarters** — Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

- **Sister sites** — BscScan (BNB Chain), PolygonScan, FtmScan, ArbiScan, OptimisticScan, BaseScan.

Etherscans free API underlies nearly every crypto tool — 100,000 calls per day on the free tier, unlimited on the Pro plan at USD 199 per month.

**Tronscan** (tronscan.org) is operated directly by the Tron Foundation. Tron carries heavy USDT volume, making it central to laundering and remittance tracing.

**Blockchain.com** (blockchain.com/explorer) has been running since 2011 — the oldest Bitcoin block explorer.

22 · GeckoTerminal & DexScreener — real-time DEX trackers

**GeckoTerminal** (geckoterminal.com) is a CoinGecko subsidiary launched in 2022 (CoinGecko itself was founded in Singapore in 2014). It specializes in real-time DEX pool charts.

- **Parent** — CoinGecko (founded by TM Lee and Bobby Ong).

- **Differentiator** — Tracks 100+ DEXes across 100+ chains simultaneously.

**DexScreener** (dexscreener.com) was launched in 2021 by an anonymous Ukrainian team. It is optimized for DEX trading.

- **Differentiator** — Real-time display of newly listed pairs. The site most heavily used by bot traders.

- **Trending** — Trending tokens ranked by 24-hour volume, price change and social signals.

During the 2024–2025 Solana memecoin boom, DexScreener became the default tool. Trading bots like **Photon**, **GMGN** and **BullX** use the DexScreener API.

23 · Zerion · DeBank · Zapper — wallet portfolios

**Zerion** (zerion.io) was founded in 2016 in Moscow by Evgeny Yurtaev, Vadim Koleoshkin and Alexey Bashlykov. Web3 wallet plus portfolio in one.

- **Headquarters** — Lisbon (moved from Moscow in 2022).

- **Differentiator** — Own wallet plus consolidated view across all EVM chains.

- **AI integration** — Natural-language search and summaries added in 2024.

**DeBank** (debank.com) was founded in 2018 by Hongbo Tang from China. It is the de facto standard for cross-EVM portfolios.

- **Headquarters** — Singapore.

- **DeBank Hub** — Tracks positions by DeFi protocol, NFTs, and governance voting history.

- **Web3 Social** — Wallet-address based social network with follows and messaging.

**Zapper** (zapper.xyz) was founded in 2020 in Canada by Seb Audet and others. Regularly considered the cleanest UI/UX.

**CoinTracker** (cointracker.io) specializes in taxes — covered in our sister category (iter107), so it is omitted here.

**Rotki** (rotki.com) was founded in 2018 by Lefteris Karapetsas from Greece. It is an open-source portfolio tool that runs locally and never ships data to external servers — strongly privacy-oriented.

24 · Messari + AI Pro — research benchmark

**Messari** (messari.io) was founded in 2018 in the US by Ryan Selkis. The ambition: "the Bloomberg of crypto."

- **Founder** — Ryan Selkis (CEO).

- **Headquarters** — New York.

- **Pricing** — Free, Pro (USD 25/mo), Enterprise.

Messaris core is its **research reports** — 20 to 30 protocol-level reports per week. Quarterly reports like State of Ethereum, State of Solana and State of Bitcoin are widely cited industry references.

In 2024 Messari shipped **Messari AI Pro**, its own LLM-based assistant.

- **Copilot** — Natural-language Q&A ("What was Aave V3s revenue last quarter?") with cited reports and charts.

- **Mosaic** — RAG on top of 150,000+ Messari reports.

- **News Summarization** — Real-time news summary plus impact analysis.

Ryan Selkis stepped back from CEO briefly in 2024 and returned in 2025. He has also drawn controversy with political statements.

25 · Delphi Digital · a16z research — premium research

**Delphi Digital** (delphidigital.io) was founded in 2018 in the US by Tom Shaughnessy and others. It targets institutional investors with premium research.

- **Co-founders** — Tom Shaughnessy (now at Pronto AI), Anil Lulla, Yan Liberman, Kevin Kelly.

- **Pricing** — Delphi Pro (USD 499/mo), Institutional (custom).

- **Affiliates** — Delphi Ventures (investments), Delphi Labs (development).

Delphi is known for depth in gaming, infrastructure and DeFi. It built its reputation with reports on STEPN and Axie Infinity in 2021.

**a16z crypto** (a16zcrypto.com) is the crypto arm of Andreessen Horowitz. It publishes research for free and ships an annual **State of Crypto** report, led by Chris Dixon. a16z has backed Coinbase, OpenSea, Aptos and Sui, and raised USD 7.1 billion for its fourth crypto fund in January 2024.

26 · The Block · CoinDesk — media plus AI

**The Block** (theblock.co) was founded in 2018 in the US by Mike Dudas (now owned by an investor group with Larry Cermak and BlockFi-era leadership). It combines data and news for differentiation.

- **The Block Pro** — Pro data dashboards at USD 1,295 per year.

- **The Block Research** — Market reports.

In 2024 The Block added its own AI search interface, running RAG over five years of articles and data.

**CoinDesk** (coindesk.com) was founded in 2013 in the UK by Shakil Khan, acquired by DCG in 2016 and then by Bullish Group in 2023.

- **Annual conference** — Consensus (May, Texas).

- **CoinDesk Indices** — The Bitcoin Reference Rate and other indices.

- **CoinDesk Japan** — Operated separately for the Japanese market.

CoinDesk also rolled out AI search and auto-summaries in 2024.

27 · Spectral.finance · Webacy · AnChain — AI-native tools

**Spectral.finance** (spectral.finance) was founded in 2021 in the US by Sishir Varghese and others. It produces AI-based on-chain credit scores.

- **MACRO Score** — A 0 to 1000 wallet creditworthiness score.

- **Adoption** — Used by Lendable and Frax for undercollateralized lending decisions.

**Webacy** (webacy.com) was founded in the US in 2022 by Maika Isogawa. It uses AI to assess wallet security risk.

- **Risk Score** — How exposed a wallet is to scams, fraud and drainers.

- **Approval Scanning** — Automated review of token spending allowances.

**AnChain.AI** (anchain.ai) was founded in 2018 in the US by Victor Fang. AML and AI focused.

- **CISO** — Compliance tooling for exchanges and governments.

- **AnChain Vibe** — Launched in 2024 for NFT and digital-asset authenticity verification.

- **Customers** — US IRS, FBI.

28 · vest.ai · Numerai — AI-native trading

**vest.ai** (vest.exchange) launched in 2023. It is a perp DEX in which AI plays a central role in risk management.

- **Differentiator** — AI dynamically tunes liquidation and margin models.

- **Chain** — Built on an Arbitrum Orbit stack.

**Numerai** (numer.ai) was founded in 2015 in the US by Richard Craib. It is a hedge fund powered by crowdsourced models.

- **Mechanic** — Data scientists submit models and stake NMR tokens to back them.

- **Crypto extension** — NumerCrypto launched in 2024 for crypto-price prediction tournaments.

3Commas and Hummingbot were covered in our sister category (iter82) and are omitted here.

29 · Flashbots · Eigenphi — the light and shadow of MEV

**Flashbots** (flashbots.net) is a research collective founded in 2020 by pseudonymous and semi-anonymous researchers. Its mission is to make MEV — Maximal Extractable Value, the value miners or validators extract by reordering transactions — transparent.

- **Founding members** — Phil Daian, Stephane Gosselin, Robert Miller, Tina Zhen and others.

- **MEV-Boost** — Proposer-Builder Separation (PBS) middleware that became standard after Ethereums PoS transition. Used by 90 % or more of validators.

- **MEV-Share** — A mechanism for returning a portion of MEV revenue to the originating user.

**Eigenphi** (eigenphi.io) is a specialized MEV analytics tool launched in 2022. It surfaces sandwich attacks, arbitrage and liquidations in real time.

- **MEV Dashboard** — Daily MEV extracted (currently 300–1,000 ETH per day on Ethereum).

- **Searcher Leaderboard** — Ranking of the top MEV-extracting bots.

Eigenphi is unrelated to EigenLayer (EigenDA and the EIGEN token) despite the similar name, which causes confusion in 2024.

30 · Xangle · DataLight — Korean on-chain analytics

**Xangle** (xangle.io) was founded in Korea in 2018 by Lee Hyun-woo (current CEO) and Park Chan-hyung (originally as Crosscar, rebranded to Xangle in 2019). It is the leader in Korean crypto disclosure and transparency.

- **Headquarters** — Gangnam, Seoul.

- **Products** — Xangle Disclosure (disclosure platform), Xangle Crypto Wiki, Xangle Research.

- **Customers/partners** — Bithumb, Korbit, Coinone, partial Upbit work, the Korea Blockchain Association.

Xangle plays the role of a Korean "DART" (electronic disclosure system) — projects listed on Korean exchanges file their token distribution, financials and roadmaps in disclosure format. After the 2022 Terra/Luna collapse, Korean exchanges and the FSS began leaning on Xangle disclosures.

In 2024 Xangle teamed up with **CryptoQuant Korea** to publish combined on-chain plus disclosure reports, and has also exchanged data with Japans CoinPost.

**DataLight** (datalight.me) is a Korea-foreign analytics joint venture used by some Korean analysts. It has lower visibility in the global market.

**Dunamu Insight** (upbit.com/research) is the in-house research arm of Dunamu, the operator of Upbit. It publishes weekly reports.

31 · CoinPost · CoinDesk Japan · bitFlyer Lightning — the Japanese ecosystem

**CoinPost** (coinpost.jp) was founded in 2017 in Japan by Kakumu Takahito. It is the leading Japanese crypto media outlet.

- **Founder** — Kakumu Takahito (CEO).

- **Headquarters** — Tokyo.

- **Differentiator** — Detailed coverage of JFSA-registered exchanges and Japanese-language market analysis.

CoinPost has deep relationships with Japanese exchanges like bitFlyer, Coincheck, GMO Coin and DMM Bitcoin. It has been particularly strong on Japanese NFT and gaming stories in 2024–2025.

**CoinDesk Japan** (coindesk.com/ja) is CoinDesks Japanese arm, operated by N.Avenue Inc. It offers Japanese-original content plus translations from the English edition.

**bitFlyer Lightning** (lightning.bitflyer.com) is the professional trading platform of bitFlyer, the largest Japanese exchange. Its built-in charts and analytics, and a strong API, make it popular with bot traders.

**CoinFolio.jp** (coinfolio.jp) is a Japanese-language portfolio tracker. **LayerX Inc.** (layerx.co.jp) provides KYC/AML solutions and blockchain infrastructure, and in 2024 formed a digital-asset consortium with Mitsubishi UFJ and Mizuho.

32 · AI + foundation models for crypto — practical patterns

In crypto, LLMs and foundation models are used in roughly five ways.

1. **Anthropic Claude + Etherscan API** — Wire Claude to the Etherscan API and pass tool definitions, and questions like "Analyze the last 10 trades from this wallet" can be answered in natural language. Standardized with Claudes Tool Use feature in 2024–2025.

2. **OpenAI + Dune SQL** — Beyond DuneGPT, many teams wire OpenAI function calling to Dunes API to run SQL and consume the results.

3. **Custom embeddings on smart contracts** — Embeddings of bytecode and source enable similar-contract search. Used by **Phalcon** and **DethCode**.

4. **Trader copilots** — In-product AI assistants inside exchanges like Binance and Coinbase, and trading bots like 3Commas and Trality.

5. **Automated on-chain event triage** — Compliance vendors like TRM and Chainalysis auto-generate threat intelligence briefings with LLMs.

Claude + Etherscan API pseudo-code

client = anthropic.Anthropic()

tools = [{

"name": "get_wallet_transactions",

"description": "Fetch wallet transactions via the Etherscan API",

"input_schema": {

"type": "object",

"properties": {

"address": {"type": "string"},

"count": {"type": "integer", "default": 10}

}

}]

response = client.messages.create(

model="claude-opus-4-7",

tools=tools,

messages=[{

"role": "user",

"content": "Analyze the last 10 transactions from 0x... with a risk assessment"

}]

)

The pattern is used across exchanges, hedge funds and governments and has become a standard piece of SOC (Security Operations Center) workflows.

33 · The privacy debate — Arkham, Tornado Cash, Roman Storm

On-chain analytics is fundamentally in tension with privacy. Three major events from 2023–2025.

**The Arkham doxing controversy (2023+)** — Right after the July ARKM token launch, an email-leak incident occurred. Arkham described it as "a bug where emails were exposed via URL sharing." More fundamentally, the bounty-driven "wallet dox" model itself raised legality and ethics questions.

**Tornado Cash sanctions (2022)** — In August 2022 the US OFAC added Ethereum mixer Tornado Cash and its smart-contract addresses to the SDN (Specially Designated Nationals) list. Sanctioning code itself was unprecedented.

**The Roman Storm trial (2024–2025)** — Tornado Cash co-developer Roman Storm was indicted in the US in August 2023 on money-laundering and sanctions charges. The first trial began in December 2024, with mixed verdicts (some not-guilty, some guilty) running into 2025. Civil society groups like the EFF and Coin Center have argued that criminal punishment for writing open-source code is a dangerous precedent.

**The Alexey Pertsev case (2024)** — Another Tornado Cash developer, Pertsev, received a five-year four-month prison sentence in the Netherlands in May 2024. The 2025 appeal is ongoing.

The arc is producing polarization: as on-chain analytics becomes more accurate, demand for privacy tools (zk-rollups, Aztec, Railgun) also rises.

34 · Open-source libraries — ethers.js, viem, Etherspot

Developers who want to query blockchains directly typically rely on the following libraries.

- **ethers.js** (ethers.org) — JavaScript Ethereum library created by Richard Moore in 2016. Available in v5 and v6 and the most widely deployed.

- **viem** (viem.sh) — A modern TypeScript library created in 2023 by the Wagmi authors including Tom Meagher. Strong type safety and tree-shaking; the standard for new projects in 2024–2025.

- **Etherspot** (etherspot.io) — SDK specialized in Account Abstraction (ERC-4337).

- **web3.js** (web3js.org) — The oldest library, created by the Ethereum Foundation in 2014 and now maintained by ChainSafe. v4 is the current release.

- **The Graph subgraph CLI** — Subgraph definition and deployment.

The Graphs Hosted Service shut down for good on 31 July 2024. The 30,000+ Subgraphs hosted there had to migrate to the Decentralized Network or to alternative indexers such as Subsquid or Goldsky.

Alternative indexers.

- **Subsquid** (subsquid.io) — Supports Substrate and EVM.

- **Goldsky** (goldsky.com) — US Series A company, modern infrastructure.

- **Envio** (envio.dev) — Reason/ReScript-based, fast indexer.

- **Ponder** (ponder.sh) — TypeScript indexer, on the rise in 2024–2025.

35 · The ETF era and market-structure changes

In January 2024 the US approved 11 spot BTC ETFs, followed by 9 spot ETH ETFs in July 2024. In 2025 SOL and XRP ETF applications were filed at the SEC, and a partial SOL ETF approval landed late 2025. The shift introduced several new signals into on-chain analysis.

- **ETF net flows** — Daily creates and redemptions across each ETF (BlackRock IBIT, Fidelity FBTC, etc.).

- **Coinbase Custody flows** — Most BTC ETFs including IBIT use Coinbase Custody, so Coinbases hot and cold wallet analytics is effectively ETF-flow analytics.

- **BlackRock wallet labeling** — Both Nansen and Arkham label BlackRock hot wallets.

- **CME futures basis** — Basis trades among spot, ETFs and CME futures are now structurally important.

In 2025 the **tokenized RWA (Real World Assets)** market boomed. BlackRock BUIDL (a tokenized money-market fund on Ethereum) and Ondo OUSG crossed USD 5 billion in AUM. On-chain analytics today watches four axes together: stablecoins, BTC, ETH and RWAs.

36 · Tool selection guide — recommendations by use case

| --- | --- | --- | --- |

The rule is "do not try to do everything in one tool." The best 2026 practice is two or three free tools plus one or two paid ones.

Epilogue — beyond 2027

Looking ahead from May 2026, expect the following.

1. **AI assistants become standard** — Every major tool will ship a natural-language interface. The ability to write SQL gradually stops being a moat.

2. **Compliance market consolidates** — One or two of Chainalysis, TRM and Elliptic likely go public or merge. Possible window: H2 2026 through 2027.

3. **Privacy tools come back** — zk-based privacy solutions like Aztec, Railgun and Penumbra are likely to come back into focus for RWA and institutional demand.

4. **L2 analytics fragments** — As L3s and appchains roll out across Optimism Superchain, Arbitrum Orbit and zkSync Hyperchains, analytics will also fragment.

5. **AI models go on-chain** — Decentralized ML networks like Bittensor and Numerai tokenize on-chain analytics models.

6. **Korean and Japanese tools globalize** — Xangle, CryptoQuant and CoinPost continue pushing into English-speaking markets.

Tools change every year, but the foundation does not. **All transactions on-chain are public.** On top of that fact, analysts separate signal from noise, compliance separates legal from illegal, and AI is making both jobs faster and more precise.

References

1. Nansen — Onchain Analytics — https://www.nansen.ai/

2. Arkham Intelligence — https://www.arkhamintelligence.com/

3. Chainalysis — Blockchain Data Platform — https://www.chainalysis.com/

4. TRM Labs — https://www.trmlabs.com/

5. Elliptic — https://www.elliptic.co/

6. Crystal Blockchain — https://crystalblockchain.com/

7. Bitquery — https://bitquery.io/

8. Dune Analytics — https://dune.com/

9. Flipside Crypto — https://flipsidecrypto.xyz/

10. Allium — https://www.allium.so/

11. The Graph Protocol — https://thegraph.com/

12. The Graph Hosted Service Sunset (2024) — https://thegraph.com/blog/sunsetting-hosted-service/

13. Glassnode — https://glassnode.com/

14. CryptoQuant — https://cryptoquant.com/

15. IntoTheBlock — https://www.intotheblock.com/

16. Coin Metrics — https://coinmetrics.io/

17. Kaiko — https://www.kaiko.com/

18. Token Terminal — https://tokenterminal.com/

19. DefiLlama — https://defillama.com/

20. L2Beat — https://l2beat.com/

21. Etherscan — https://etherscan.io/

22. DexScreener — https://dexscreener.com/

23. GeckoTerminal — https://www.geckoterminal.com/

24. Zerion — https://zerion.io/

25. DeBank — https://debank.com/

26. Zapper — https://zapper.xyz/

27. Rotki — https://rotki.com/

28. Messari — https://messari.io/

29. Delphi Digital — https://www.delphidigital.io/

30. a16z crypto — https://a16zcrypto.com/

31. The Block — https://www.theblock.co/

32. CoinDesk — https://www.coindesk.com/

33. Spectral Finance — https://www.spectral.finance/

34. Webacy — https://www.webacy.com/

35. AnChain.AI — https://www.anchain.ai/

36. Flashbots — https://www.flashbots.net/

37. Eigenphi — https://eigenphi.io/

38. Xangle — https://xangle.io/

39. CoinPost — https://coinpost.jp/

40. ethers.js — https://docs.ethers.org/

41. viem — https://viem.sh/

42. Numerai — https://numer.ai/