The evolution of technology presents a more complex challenge. Blockchain and Crypto move at a breakneck pace. All the transactions in blockchain finance are stored openly and are verifiable by anyone. It might be laborious to go through millions of transactions for information on a single one.
This problem gets worse when dealing with a very popular blockchain like Ethereum. If you are a coder or have previous coding experience, you can easily create code that gets your required data. But what about the rest of those who are not programmers? Who will assist users in this situation? There is a demand for such data sources that generate insights into current market trends.
Here, Dune Analytics comes into play. Let’s explore the secret behind their essential components.
Table of Contents
What is Dune Analytics?
Dune Analytics is an online data analytics tool or platform designed for developers, data analysts, and researchers to reconnoitre and analyse the data from various blockchain networks, like Binance Innovative Chain, Ethereum, and Polygon.
Dune Analytics is a 3-year-old startup with a user-friendly platform allowing users to create custom dashboards by utilising pre-made templates or building their visualisation on the Ethereum blockchain for free. It will enable you to query (in query computing, users can request, add, remove, and manipulate the data retrieved from the database) blockchain data for free.
The fantastic thing about Dune is that they have not used typical tactics like
- They have not resorted to airdrops.
- They haven’t used the “use to earn” model involving their token.
- They have not resorted to “Pay to follow” community growth.
Uncovering The Dune Analytics Features
Let’s take a closer look at the critical features of Dune Analytics. The two most powerful features of Dune Analytics are Queries and Dashboards.
Premade Dashboard
The most popular feature of Dune Analytics is its “pre-built analytical dashboard“. These dashboards save users time by allowing them to explore data without creating their own queries and visualisations.
These Dashboards usually center around the ETH blockchain. They provide comprehensive details or overviews of data using interactive visualisation and charts.
Some of the popular dashboards of Dune are listed below
- DeFi Analysis Dashboard: The DeFi Analysis Dashboard is a tool that tracks the matrices related to decentralised finance activities on the blockchain. Investors can make decisions about ‘how’ and ‘where’ to invest to gain maximum profit. DeFi has established significant and innovative techniques for investing in the market.
- DEX Analysis Dashboard: The DEX Analysis Dashboard is a tool that comes up with the total number of trades and trending volume across all supported DEXs. This tool comprehensively compares trending volume and liquidity among various DEX platforms.
- Uniswap Analysis Dashboard: This tool allows users or investors to swap ERC-20 tokens directly from Ethereum wallets. Uniswap dashboard lets everybody query, visualise, and share smart contract data for free. Anyone can create a liquidity pool on Uniswap for any token pair using the Uniswap dashboard.
Some other popular dashboards are Stablecoin, Bitcoin, ERC-20, Ethereum, LayerZero, etc.
These dashboards also provide details using charts.
Each dashboard is classified based on why it was designed. In Dune, dashboards are classified into three major types.
- Project dashboard
- Sector dashboard
- Ecosystem dashboard
Premade queries
A query is a request for information. The user may request the data and add, delete, and manipulate the data retrieved from databases. Users can quickly gather insights without starting from scratch with the help of these premade queries.
Users can find premade queries that fit their requests. Popular questions are categorised on the Dune Analytics page. Users can also favourite any query to edit or run it later.
Indeed, here are some examples of popular premade queries on Dune Analytics, along with their key features and benefits.
- Token Volume Analysis: This helps you analyse the trading volume of specific tokens over time. This feature allows us to understand the popularity of a token, which might be useful for investors.
- NFT Sales Metrics: This query helps investors and users analyse the average prices of NFT (non-fungible tokens) on different marketplaces. It identifies the popular collections and demand for NFTs and tracks the pricing trend.
- Yield Farming ROI Analysis: The basic feature of this query is to compare and calculate the ROI (Return on investment) for various yield farming pools. Users can make informed decisions and access the profitability of participating in various yield farming opportunities.
Custom Dashboard
Dune Analytics also allows you to create a custom dashboard if you are still looking for what you want in the premade dashboard and queries. This feature empowers you to visualise and curate the blockchain data to suit your specific analysis needs.
Creating your dashboard allows you to place all the metrics you desire in one place.
- Choose a specific area in which you want to analyse the blockchain data. It might be any feature of your interest, like network health, etc.
- Choose the most important points, metrics, and other relevant factors to your analysis.
- Write SQL queries in the query editor of Dune Analytics. This query will fetch the records for your required metrics.
- Many visualisation tools help you transform data into graphs, charts, and tables.
- Users can also customise their dashboards.
- Users can save and share their queries with others.
Pricing
Let us provide you with a brief pricing detail for Dune Analytics.
Regarding pricing for Dune Analytics, they offer a range of options for various needs. Here is a breakdown of their pricing structure.
Free Tier Plan
In the free tier plan, anyone can sign up and start building queries for free because it’s free to build a public dashboard. The free tier plan empowers users to sightsee and access the platform’s features.
It’s a fascinating option for those users who want to get a feel for Dune Analytics and its proficiencies before pledging. It comes up with 2500 credits and 5 CSV exports per month. This plan excludes CRUD queries and API access.
Additionally, the free plan gives you the facility of 1 private dashboard and also provides 40 API calls per minute. In short, a free plan would be the best option for exploring the platform’s functionality and utilising basic data analysis tools without the essential need for advanced features.
Plus Plan
Dune Analytics provides a plus plan that offers additional assistance for more advanced users and crypto data analysts. It costs you $399/month and allows you to make 250 API calls per minute. The plus plan may fluctuate based on the precise features and resources offered.
It comes with an innovative visualisation option and priority custom support. It provides 25,000 credits and 250 CSV exports per month. There is no facility for CRUD queries and API access. The Plus plan also provides ten private dashboards and 15 GB of data storage.
Users might pick the plus plan when they require more advanced functionality, expanded data limits, and tools for more complex data analysis of blockchain.
Premium Plan
This plan comprises custom crypto data integration, dedicated support, and other features intended to meet the enterprise level. It costs you $999/month and allows you to execute up to 1,000 API calls per minute. It provides the facility for 100,000 credits and 1,000 CSV exports per month.
Enabling users to perform CRUD query operations is the best feature of the premium plan. Premium users can access 100 private dashboards with 50 GB of data storage.
If larger teams and industries seek more data limits and top-tier features, they may pick Dune’s premium plan, which provides solutions that meet the requirements.
Getting Started with Dune Analytics: How Does Dune Analytics Work?
Dune Analytics platform is simple to use. It simply involves queries and blockchain data analysis to gain maximum profit.
Writing Queries on Dune
Dune Analytics has a Query Editor that is the core part of the platform. It uses SQL so that you can query the Ethereum data. Thanks to Dune, which makes it easy to write queries from scratch even if you are not a coder.
Steps are listed below to write a query from scratch.
- Access Dune Analytics: If you are a new user, go to the Dune Analytics Platform. Create an account by providing credentials, or just log in if you already have one.
- Navigate the interface: After logging in to your account, you’ll find the Dune Analytics user interface. You’ll find various Dune sections, including the query editor.
- Write Queries: Use the query editor to write an SQL query, or select “CREATE” and then “Query”.
A list of existing specialised SQL tables will pop up. Search for the one closest to your query.
- Visualise Data: You can use the Visualisation tool to create graphs, charts, and tables that denote the information visually.
- Save Query: Click on the selected table to show all available columns. Click the double arrow to paste the selected column into the query section. Then Press “execute” to run it. Save your work by pressing “Ctrl + S.” You have created a new query! This lets you easily access them later and share them with others if needed.
- Share and collaborate: Users can share their visualisation queries and dashboards with others because Dune Analytics is community-driven.”
This platform offers you the tools to navigate blockchain data and explore meaningful insights.
Example
Let’s understand to make it clear. I want to find out about the five transactions on the Ethereum network, so I’ll follow these steps:
- I’ll open the query editor on the Dune Analytics platform.
- I’ll select ‘CREATE’ and then ‘Query’.
A list of SQL tables will be displayed. The tables will be like
- Ethereum. transactions
- Ethereum. logs
- erc20.Erc20_evt_transfer
- prices.layer1_usd, etc.
- I’ll click on the one which is closest to my query.
- I’ll click on the table, which shows all index like gas prices and columns.
- I’ll select my particular column according to my query and click on the double arrow to paste it into the query section.
- Then I’ll press ‘execute’.
- That’s all. In this way, I created a new query.
Uncovering The Dune Analytics Alternatives
Here is a general comparison between Dune Analytics and its competitors in the blockchain data analytics realm.
Dune Analytics vs. Etherscan
- Dune Analytics: It has the potential to query and analyse the Ethereum data using SQL-like queries and interactive visualisation. It offers a more in-depth critical approach.
- Etherscan: This platform quickly checks the blockchain data without requiring complex queries. This tool serves as an Ethereum blockchain explorer. It analyses all the data stored on Ethereum.
Dune Analytics vs. Nansen
- Dune Analytics: It allows users to create custom queries and visualisations while emphasising community-driven data analysis. It provides a more hands-on approach to data exploration. This platform has access to API. Dune costs $390 per user per month.
- Nansen Analytics: Nansen emphasises blockchain data for traders and stockholders. It can expose patterns and trends within the data. The point is that it does not offer API access. Nansen costs $149 per month.
Dune Analytics vs. Amberdata
- Dune Analytics: Focuses on generating custom analysis with a user-friendly interface. The main focus of Dune is on query blockchain. Anyone looking for a free analytics solution may use Dune Analytics.
- Amberdata: It focuses on real-time monitoring of API integration. Provide alerts for both traders and enterprises. Anyone looking for a financial institution, fintech, and Crypto native may use the Amberdata Analytics platform.
Some other competitors are DYOR.net, Dappquery, Glassnode, Messari, and Coin 360
Dune Analytics Review
Analytics is composed of figuring out how we examine, understand, and contribute to the transformative world of blockchain technology.
Pros and Cons of Dune Analytics
Pros
Here is the list of pros of the Dune Analytics platform.
- This platform transforms the raw data into interactive visualisations for more clarity.
- Dune has premade dashboards to save users time.
- It allows users to see more data without writing their queries.
- Dune is an open-source shared development and codebase access platform.
- It has access to all ETH blockchains and databases.
- Dune has strong partners like Dragonfly Capital and Coinbase Ventures.
- Dune’s visualisation tools make complex blockchain concepts more readable.
Cons
- The platform has limited data sources.
- There is room for improvement in the graphical user interface.
- Evaluating the Price for Pro and Premium plans
Summing up Dune Analytics Review
Dune’s success can be attributed to its high-quality product that caters to various groups and its strategy of offering free usage, which encourages free PR. The platform stands out in blockchain analytics due to its commitment to user-driven analysis, visualisation tools, and open collaboration.
Despite issues like difficulty in use for non-SQL users, lack of chart modifications, and poor UI design, Dune’s customisability and collaborative community make it appealing to new and experienced blockchain analysts.
Dune is expected to play a key role as it evolves in promoting informed decision-making, innovation, and a deeper understanding of blockchain’s potential.
