Covalent CEO: There’s an ‘unresolved backlog’ of unfilled Web3 data roles

Ganesh Swami, CEO of blockchain data aggregator Covalent says there continues to be an “intense demand” for on-chain data analysts, that is yet to be satisfied. 

Speaking to Cointelegraph, Swami said that analysts are in “intense demand” as there’s a “real need” for data experts to “make sense” of on-chain data, explaining:

“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.”

Swami explained that while the demand for on-chain data analysts has yet to eclipse their Web2 counterpart, the growth of stablecoin usage, lending, and decentralized finance (DeFi) products over the last 18 months has led to increasing demand for the job title.

Swami said similar to data analysts in traditional industries, on-chain data analysts can expect to analyze a company's “reach, retention and revenue” metrics, except, in this case, the intelligence would be found on-chain data across multiple blockchains.

For example, in the case of an NFT project, Swami explained that "reach" would look into “how many people mint your tokens” and "retention" would relate to “what is the average holding period for these tokens" which is important to know whether investors are using these for “quick flips” or “holding on to them” long term.

"Revenue" is about sales — with blockchain analysts able to determine whether the sales are “concentrated through a handful of sales or distributed across multiple collections," he explained. 

But the role doesn't e there. Swami said that “to make better protocols and better serve users,” on-chain analysts can “cross-target users for marketing purposes or for user acquisition purposes” by reviewing what’s happened on competitor protocols, as the blockchain leaves what Swami likes to call “historical breadcrumbs.”

Swami also predicted that “Web3 data will exceed Web2 data” at some point in the next 20-30 years, and that Web3 data analysis “will be much, much bigger than the current business intelligence market, which is currently worth hundreds of billions of dollars.”

Addressing the current deficit of on-chain analysts, Covalent is set to launch a four-week “Data Alchemist Boot-Camp” on Oct. 19, which aims to train over 1,000 individuals in on-chain analytics.

“The only prerequisite to joining our Data Alchemist Boot-Camp is a desire to learn about Web3; come with that, and we’ll pay you to learn,” said Swami.

Related: Six helpful tips for Web3 companies searching for top data analysts

Over the near term, however, Swami said on-chain analysts will likely find more job opportunities in Web2 companies which are entering Web3, rather than Web3 native projects themselves:

“It will be faster and better for a Web2 company with their hundreds of millions of players or users to add over Web3 experiences, and what we can see, immediately what we have a line of sight to is Web2 businesses, adding a Web3 experience.”

“Companies such as Adidas and Samsung also now have departments of metaverse data scientists and analysts to serve the dashboards and metrics management,” he added.