The crypto markets can be a wild ride, especially for the uninitiated. Prices swing like Tarzan through the latest investment forest, new coins pop up like daisies, and working out what it all means can feel like trying to crack the Enigma code. Even experienced investors like us yearn for something to help us turn masses of data into clear, actionable insights before making decisions. As the crypto market has gained popularity and credence, platforms like Coin Metrics that promise to provide those insights have increased in number.
Like other platforms of its ilk, Coin Metrics is a crypto financial intelligence provider. It comes with tools that it states can process raw data efficiently and help you understand what’s going on in the market, track trends, and assess crypto projects. But does the platform live up to its hype?
In this article, we’ll take a deep dive into Coin Metrics. We’ll explore its features, analyze its data, and scrutinize its strengths and weaknesses. We’ll consider who might benefit most from the platform and whether it’s worth subscribing. By the end, you’ll have a clearer understanding of Coin Metrics and whether it’s right for your trading journey.
What Are Coin Metrics Features?
Coin Metrics prides itself on providing transparent data on the crypto markets to all. When first logging on, we were impressed by the website’s unified interface, which gave us the ability to explore around 150 tokens. Delving deeper, we found the process of analyzing those tokens simple, and below are the tools that stood out to us:
ATLAS
The platform’s ATLAS tool is a blockchain search engine that enables you to access information on transactions, addresses, and blocks through a high-performance API. We found the ATLAS interface intuitive to use and the data easy to understand, and we thought traders would gather valuable insights on price fluctuations and market trends.
However, its data coverage, while extensive, may not cover every token or blockchain. Additionally, data depth seemed to vary depending on the asset examined, and accessing more advanced features requires a subscription. Also, we wondered how suitable ATLAS would be for newer traders, as we had to call on our experience in data science and crypto analysis to get the most out of the tool.
Network Data Pro
Coin Metrics’ Network Data Pro was developed to be a comprehensive tool for investment research and strategy. It allows you to access a wide array of on-chain metrics, including tracking macro trends and identifying key indicators. We felt the tool was excellent for tracking market cycles, and the data would be helpful for most traders refining their investment strategies.
Market Data Feed
The Market Data Feed allows you to analyze crypto market data from a network of over 45 exchanges. We believe that the data provided would be useful for a range of crypto professionals, including traders, researchers, engineers, and data scientists.
By aggregating data from multiple exchanges, the Market Data Feed provides you with what you need to make trading decisions. Other use cases for this feature include building high-frequency trading systems, data for researchers, and developing applications.
Prices
The platform’s Prices feature is a transparent, independent pricing function within the crypto landscape and offers two distinct price types for over 720 assets: CM Reference Rates and CM Principal Market Prices. The platform harvests data from reputable constituent markets, enhancing reliability and minimizing the risk of price manipulation.
However, despite its broad coverage, the Prices feature may not include every niche or emerging asset. Additionally, the pricing methodology, while transparent, might not perfectly align with all market participants’ preferences.
Indexes
Indexes, specifically the Coin Metrics Bletchley Indexes, provide institutional-grade benchmarks for the crypto market. The feature encompasses single-asset, multi-asset, and specialized indices, catering to most investors, including institutional.
With this feature, Coin Metrics extends calculation agent services to institutions seeking to design and administer custom indexes. This flexibility allows for tailored solutions that align with specific investment strategies or risk profiles.
Datonomy
The Datonomy feature is a collaboration between Coin Metrics, Goldman Sachs, and MSCI and is a standardized framework for analyzing the digital asset ecosystem. With MSCI serving as an administrator, Datonomy benefits from robust governance that helps ensure integrity and asset classification accuracy.
Designed to reflect market perception and industry norms, Datonomy’s structure includes mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive nodes, ensuring flexibility and adaptability to industry evolution.
The feature integrates with Coin Metrics’ datasets via a unified API and ticker system, allowing you to create sector analytics, investment strategies, and indices.
Conclusion
We believe Coin Metrics’ suite of tools and data were excellent additions to analytics in the crypto space. We found that the features we’ve listed above provided excellent insights into market trends, asset performance, and on-chain activity.
However, we found the pricing structure to be quite opaque, with some features needing a monthly subscription and others not. Also, as with most data providers, how helpful it is will depend on your skills and experience. The more knowledge you bring to the table, the more useful the platform will be, and we thought that, overall, it was more suited to experienced investors.
