Messari, the Market Intelligence Platform for Crypto
In the ever-evolving world of crypto, staying ahead of the curve isn’t just a competitive advantage; it’s a necessity. Although our team is comprised of experienced crypto traders, analyzing market trends, deciphering complex on-chain data, and understanding regulatory landscapes can still feel like navigating a labyrinth in the dark.
Founded in 2018, Messari is another addition to the booming numbers of analytical platforms and markets itself as “the market intelligence platform for crypto.” The platform’s data ranges from detailed asset profiles and real-time market data to on-chain metrics and research reports. It claims that its data and suite of analytical tools empower investors to turbocharge their trading. It’s a bold claim and one that deserves a closer look.
In this review, we’ll delve into Messari’s features, assess its strengths and weaknesses, and see if it lives up to its hype. We’ll examine the user experience and what value it offers crypto veterans and newcomers, allowing you to decide if it’s the right platform for you.
How Does Messari Process Its Data?
As with any analytical tool, Messari is only as good as the data that underpins it. Reliability is key for any investor, and that’s particularly true for those in the crypto market. Rumors are rife on the internet about the next big thing or a token that’s likely to crash. No one wants to make decisions based on rumors, and the platform gathers data directly from exchange feeds, reputable third-party providers, and on-chain analysis.
Messari processes this raw data into four distinct datasets, each offering a unique perspective on market activity:
- Market level denominated in the quote asset: Provides insight into trading activity in the original trading pair.
- Market level denominated in USD: Normalizes trading activity to a common denominator for comparison across different assets.
- Weighted asset level denominated in USD: Aggregates market data weighted by trading volume, offering a view of overall market trends.
- Unweighted asset level denominated in USD: Presents an unweighted aggregation of market data, highlighting individual asset performance.
These datasets are updated in one-minute intervals and are also available in several aggregated timeframes, accessible through Messari’s API. This gives users a granular, diverse dataset for analyzing before making trading decisions.
Further data refinement methods are listed below:
Pair pricing
As new OHLCV (open, high, low, close, volume) data is computed, the platform constructs a graph to determine the optimal conversion path back to USD. Each edge of the graph represents the observed prices of one asset in terms of another, enabling you to calculate prices for any asset with a valid path.
Messari assigns a confidence score to each graph edge, influenced by two factors: the number of observed markets and the coefficient of variance of observed prices. For instance, if multiple exchanges are trading ETH/BTC, the confidence in that edge is higher. Similarly, a low variance in observed prices further enhances the confidence score.
This approach improves the reliability of the platform’s data, which is essential for traders seeking an edge.
Asset pricing
After updating the graph structure and estimating the USD value for each crypto asset, the platform computes the VWAP (volume-weighted average price) for each traded asset. This calculation incorporates all asset pairs in which the asset is traded, regardless of whether it serves as the base or quote currency.
For pairs where the asset acts as the quote currency, the associated OHLCV data is “flipped” to ensure consistency with OHLCV data where the asset is the base currency. This involves inverting the numerical values to align them with standard OHLCV conventions.
Maintaining Data Integrity
Real-time data collection in the dynamic crypto market can sometimes result in inaccuracies or gaps. To address this, the platform implements corrective measures, including:
Exclusions: Possibly erroneous data points like trades with outlier prices, wash trading, or other anomalies are flagged and excluded.
Backfills: The platform retroactively adds reliable historical data in cases where data is missing or incomplete.
What Are Messari’s Key Features and Tools?
Although the platform’s data gathering and processing are solid, that data is only helpful if the analytical tools are equally good. Messari has a wide range of tools and features, and below are those we found most helpful:
Research reports
Messari’s research reports cover various aspects of the crypto market, including asset overviews, industry trends, and regulatory developments. While some reports are free, Messari Pro subscribers have access to more. We thought the reports would be a valuable resource for investors, traders, and researchers.
AI-powered newsfeed
The platform’s AI-powered newsfeed curates relevant news articles, social media updates, and industry announcements on your dashboard. It’s customizable, and you can filter content to align with your interests.
While the free version of Messari offers basic access to news, it requires users to manually sift through articles for information. The paid tiers have the curated AI newsfeed.
Intel
Messari’s Intel feature aggregates major updates, proposals, and news from various sources. You can customize Intel with advanced filters and alerts, but Intel is only available to those with an Enterprise subscription.
Watchlists and AI digests
Powered by Messari AI, this feature allows you to create personalized watchlists to track assets. You can also receive summaries of market data, governance proposals, and news about assets in your portfolio.
What Is Messari’s Pricing?
The free version of Messari comes with features like real-time prices, a limited watchlist, and access to news and the Daily Unqualified Opinions newsletter. After the free tier, there are three priced versions:
Lite (USD 10/month or 120/year): Has the AI-powered newsfeed with summaries, unlimited watchlists, and limited access to AI-powered project recaps and asset screening.
Pro (USD 75/month or 899/year): Has everything in Lite, plus professional-grade research reports, a fundraising screener, unlocked enterprise research reports, full access to advanced asset screening, and a real-time governance tracker.
Enterprise (custom pricing): Includes all Pro features, plus Intel monitoring with real-time alerts, enterprise-grade asset diligence, first access to long-form enterprise research, CSV downloads, and API access for select datasets.
While the free version offers limited functionality, it’s a starting point for you to explore the platform.
Conclusion
We were impressed with Messari. Its multi-faceted approach to data collection, processing, and analysis gave us confidence in the platform, and we’d be happy to use it to inform our trading. The platform’s diverse datasets cater to a wide range of traders, and we liked the information available from the pair pricing graphs.
However, the more advanced features certainly come at a price. We’d like to see the AI newsfeed available on the free plan and perhaps more priced tiers so users could pick what they needed without signing up for an expensive plan. But that’s splitting hairs. Messari’s data and tools are possibly unique in the crypto world, and we believe they would be invaluable to most users. Quality always comes at a price.
