What Is Covalent (CQT)?
Also known as: Covalent Network, CQT
In short
Covalent is a blockchain data infrastructure project that indexes transaction, balance, token and NFT data across many blockchain networks and serves it to developers through a single API; it is used by wallets, portfolio trackers and analytics tools.
Raw blockchain data can be read by querying a node one call at a time with JSON-RPC calls; however, extracting the full transaction history of an address or its balances across different networks is laborious with this method. Covalent preprocesses and organizes this data and serves it through REST API (application programming interface) endpoints. This way, a developer can, for example, get the token balances of a wallet address across multiple chains with a single request, without building their own indexing infrastructure.
The project has set up a decentralized network model in which node operators take part, so that the collection and processing of data is not left to a single company. The network's native token, which was first released under the name CQT, is used for node operators' staking and for governance.
Covalent's alternatives include The Graph, which indexes through subgraphs, and SQL-based analytics platforms. Applications that rely on such data providers become dependent on the provider's availability and the accuracy of the data; verifying data directly on-chain for critical operations reduces this dependency.
Last updated: · This content is for information purposes only and is not investment advice.