There is still a strong demand for on-chain data analysts, according to Ganesh Swami, CEO of blockchain data aggregator Covalent.
“There is an unresolved backlog of unfilled data-driven roles. This demand is a testament to how eager blockchain and non-blockchain companies alike are to make sense of their own and competitors’ on-chain data,” said Swami.
He explained that there is a strong demand for analysts since there is a “real need” for the on-chain data to be made sense by data experts.
While demand for on-chain data analysts has not yet surpassed that of their Web2 equivalent, Swami said that — over a year and a half — the growth in lending, decentralized finance (DeFi) solutions, and stablecoin utilization have resulted in the rising need for the job role.
Swami added that on-chain data analysts can expect to assess a firm’s “reach, retention, and revenue” statistics akin to data analysts in traditional sectors. However, in this instance, the insight would be discovered across many blockchains.
The CEO cited an example of an NFT project, saying that “reach” would evaluate “how many people mint your tokens”, and that “retention” is connected to “what is the average holding period for these tokens” — which is crucial information for determining whether investors are using the tokens for holding or for quick flips over the long term.
Sales are referred to as “revenue,” and blockchain experts can determine whether the sales are dispersed among several collections or concentrated in a few key sales.
As the blockchain leaves what Swami likes to refer to as “historical breadcrumbs”, on-chain researchers can “cross-target users for marketing objectives or for user acquisition goals” in order to establish better protocols and improve user service.
Swami also estimated that in the next 2 to 3 decades, Web2 data will eventually be exceeded by Web3 data. Moreover, Web3 data analysis would tower over the existing business intelligence market that is valued hundreds of billions of dollars.
On October 19, Covalent will hold a four-week “Data Alchemist Boot-Camp” with a goal to educate more than 1,000 people about on-chain analytics — resolving the existing shortage of data analysts.
On-chain analysts will most likely find employment prospects in Web2 businesses that are transitioning to Web3 in the future, said Swami, instead of Web3 native projects.
