Covalent leverages big-data technology to create meaning from hundreds of billions of data points, delivering actionable insights to investors and allowing developers to allocate resources to higher-utility goals within their organization.

Today we have Erik Ashdown as Head of Ecosystem Growth of Covalent joining us to answer our questions for the next hour.

I am Erik Ashdown.
I am the Head of Ecosystem Growth of Covalent
I am a serial entrepreneur with one exit.
Built a token crowdfunding platform during the 2017/ 2018 crypto boom.
Exited to run partnerships at Bidali a company that specializes in integrations with wallets and exchanges to allow people to spend their crypto via payments and on gift cards.
Before this Erik worked in both product at larger companies such as IGG & Best Buy as well as in partnerships with financial & tax products dealing exclusively with C-Suite tech entrepreneurs.

Question from the CryptoRank team

#1. Can you tell us about Covalent? What problems do you solve, both in the space and for the community?

Erik: – All of them… Kidding.

Data is the lifeblood of the digital economy, and a simple way to access large swaths of onchain data is not currently accessible and a massive hurdle preventing Web 2 crossing over into Web 3.

Covalent is the data infrastructure that is powering that transition by taking something traditional (SQL database) and turning it into something new (Distributed SQL database for crypto data)

#2. Could you shortly describe the milestones Covalent have achieved, and about your upcoming plans?

Erik: – So many plans!

– The company grew from 5 – 30
– We went from indexing 1 blockchain – 8
– Growth went from 7 customers to 100+
– Gone from bootstrapped to doing a Coinlist sale in the next 7 days

There is so much traction it’s hard to keep track of what is going on sometimes.

Questions from Twitter

#1. What features does Covalent have and what are these features compared to other project?

Erik: – One unified API. One billion possibilities This is clearly stated on our website. By making all blockchain data available through a single API we believe we can be the hub for on-chain data

Other projects require more tooling, but we are really looking to be a one stop shop for all on chain data.

#2. How easy is it to use Covalent?
How does Covalent plan to dominate the blockchain market?

Erik: – Every piece of blockchain data at your fingertips!

Covalent is a very friendly and easy to use developer tool. Most of the basic functionality can be done from the cloud in a matter of seconds.

That being said you do not need to be a developer to use Covalent at a research level as much as you need to understand Excel, and pivot tables just to access the data.

If you want to add the API to your app then it might take some work, but not as much work as other solutions.

#3. Many projects have problems with UI / UX and this one turns off new users. How do you plan to improve the interaction with new users and with users outside the crypto space?

Erik: – For those in need of data we provide most functionality in the cloud, and you just download to a CSV.

Aside from that we do not have much of a UX (but we’ve been told we have great branding). We provide data that lets other people build exceptional products and visualize all sorts of data.

Be this dashboards, wallet interfaces, or anything else we really provide the source material and let the UX people and designers do their thing

Questions from Telegram

#1. The fact that Ethereum data is erratic and problematic as we see, as well as being expensive, stands out as an important problem for the industry?

Erik: – Very thoughtful question.

It’s not erradtc or a problem. We cast a wide net, and just record everything that is happening on chain, and make sure it’s organized in the DB. We’ve got this part working very well. It will be a different challenge when we start to distribute the database.

#2. Obviously, DeFi will not replace traditional financial institutions, so what kind of ecosystem does Covalent need to create to allow both of them to interact together?

Erik: – LOVE this question.

DeFi and fintech will merge at some point especially with CBDC’s. It seems like an inevitability at this point more than a debate. We just need laws, and more infrastructure to make this happen. Although you can also see it happening on a smaller scale.

We are going to capture both sides of the market as long as there is a need for onchain data we as an organization are agnostic to who uses it, but are VERY curious to see what they use it for.

#3. Many Project talks only about their Strenghts, Can You talk about the weak point that You project is Currently Dealing? With #COVALENT_CRYPTORANK_AMA

Erik: – We need to hire more people, and get better at this. We have a stellar product, an excellent team and culture but need get better at recruiting.

If you know Rust or Solidity DM me? 😎