An Introduction to Querying Blockchain Data

Crypto protocols live in a different competitive environment compared to regular business. There’s no intellectual property because the software can be copied (though, real-world entities are subject to software license restrictions), and any incentives to capture users/liquidity are allowed. Every smart contract, and the historical interactions with them, is open for anyone to audit and view. 

The openness opens up interesting new possibilities for financial analysts. If in traditional equities, data revolves more around quarterly reporting, on blockchains every interaction can be seen in real-time. For crypto protocols, it’s possible to view the equivalent of every like and the evolution of the social graph of each Facebook user. Similar to how building blockchain applications is permissionless, so is analyzing the usage of them.