Briefly about using Blockchain explorers, analytical and rating websites, historical data and other resources for getting better vision on cryptocurrency world
As Technical Blockchain analyst in ICORating I often get tasks to analyse blockchains, ico projects, visualise lot of data and more other tasks connected with Blockchain and cryptocurrencies. For better understanding of the cryptocurrency market we need to learn it in-depth. There are many popular tools like CoinMarketCap, rating agencies (ICORating, ICODrops, CoinGecko, etc.), social media (Cointelegraph, Coindesk, etc.). But let’s see how they get this data and what they use for analysing market and Blockchain.
Blockchain explorers
All blockchains have their own explorers and sometimes there are few different types, which can be used by everyone. Most popular one for Bitcoin is Blockchain.com(also you can create there your own wallet) and Etherscan for Ethereum. They all have their own APIs so you can fetch all data you need to analyse. Onwards let’s focus only on Ethereum. In my workflow sometimes there is situations when I need to use other explorers which can give me data that etherscan cannot. And also there were few situations, where two explorers give different data, so you need to check in more resources for being sure that data is correct. Bloxy has more functionality than Etherscan, there are charts on each address, like holders dynamic, transaction growth and address interaction, also you can get info about token usage, most used functions on each token, etc. Ethplorer, in my opinion, has fewer opportunities than previous ones, but it also very helpful when you need to fetch some data, when there is no clarity in the accuracy of it. There are more other explorers, but this ones most popular and my favourite.
Explorers could be used for analysing tokens (in case of Ethereum), address activity, for analysing strange transactions, for analysing exchanges and their activity, etc. This reports were done by using Ethereum explorers: Clusterization of Ethereum-based tokens, The World’s Top Token Holders and Their Portfolios, Monopoly Token Holders.
Historical data resources
This part is my favourite because someone did your work and you can use ready data for your work. Sometimes you can get this data from explorers, but if someone did it, better to use his data and save your time for other tasks. Coinmetrics has data-downloads section in their website where you can find historical data for lot of cryptocurrencies. Also there are other helpful resources in their website, like charts with different indexes, correlations charts, articles about their analysing tools. Another tool is CoinMarketCap, where you also can fetch historical data of projects, exchanges, market in total, and there is one secret place for getting historical exchange volume data in their website (just left some comment with your telegram and i’ll send you info).
Historical data can be used for different purposes, like price prediction, price comparison, for on-chain and off-chain volume analysing, etc. Here is the reports based on historical data: A comparison of over-the-counter and exchange transactions for the top coins and tokens by volume, ICO Market Research Q2 2018 where lot of parts were done using historical data.
Social media and project from the inside
Of course, this part is not so interesting as previous ones for analysts, but it is also very valuable. Changes in social media, in technical side, news related with this project, partnerships and other events can give you useful info about future of the project. For example news about listing on exchanges means that price will growth, increasing of social media users also positive moment, etc.
Summary
Keep calm and analyse Blockchain
Blockchain continues growing and for better understanding we need more analyse it and learn it in-depth. It’s not place for making money, it’s a new part of our life, that will change the world in future, when people will understand all the solutions that it has. For now it’s adaptation time and battle with part of market which just wanna make money and leave Blockchain. Truth common sense will win, they always win, we just need to continue working on improving Blockchain and making world better!