Why Make Ethereum Blockchain Data Available on Google Cloud? 6628

Ethereum and other cryptocurrencies have captured the imagination of technologists, financiers, and economists. Digital currencies are only one application of the underlying blockchain technology. Earlier this year, we made the Bitcoin dataset publicly available for analysis in Google BigQuery. Today we’re making the Ethereum dataset available.

Like its predecessor, Bitcoin, you might think of the Ethereum blockchain as an immutable distributed ledger. However, creator Vitalik Buterin extended its set of capabilities by including a virtual machine that can execute arbitrary code stored on the blockchain as smart contracts.

With regards to the system architecture, Ethereum resembles Bitcoin in that it primarily serves to record immutable transactions. Both are essentially OLTP databases, and provide little in the way of OLAP (analytics) functionality. However, the Ethereum dataset is notably distinct from the Bitcoin dataset:

  • The Ethereum blockchain’s primary crypto-economic unit of value is Ether, while the Bitcoin blockchain’s unit of value is Bitcoin. However, the majority of value transfer on the Ethereum blockchain is composed of so-called tokens. Tokens are created and managed by smart contracts.
  • Ether value transfers are precise and direct, resembling accounting ledger debits and credits. This is in contrast to the Bitcoin value transfer mechanism, for which it can be difficult to determine the balance of a given wallet address.
  • Addresses can be not only be wallets that hold balances, but can also contain smart contract bytecode that allows the programmatic creation of agreements and automatic triggering of their execution. An aggregate of coordinated smart contracts could be used to build a decentralized autonomous organization.

The Ethereum blockchain data are now available for exploration with BigQuery. All historical data are in the ethereum_blockchain dataset, which updates daily. The Ethereum ETL project on GitHub contains all source code used to extract data from the Ethereum blockchain and load it into BigQuery—we welcome more contributors and more blockchains!

Why make Ethereum blockchain data available on Google Cloud?

While the Ethereum blockchain peer-to-peer software has an API for a subset of commonly used random-access functions (for example: checking transaction status, looking up wallet-transaction associations, and checking wallet balances, for example), API endpoints don’t exist for easy access to all of the data stored on-chain.

Perhaps more importantly, API endpoints also don’t exist for viewing the blockchain data in aggregate.  Here’s an example chart that shows the total Ether transferred and average transaction cost, aggregated by day:

Ether aggregate transfers and transaction costs

A visualization like this (and the underpinning database query) is useful for making business decisions, such as prioritizing improvements to the Ethereum architecture itself (is the system running close to capacity and due for an upgrade?) to balance sheet adjustments (how quickly can a wallet be rebalanced?).

BigQuery has strong OLAP capabilities to support this type of analysis, ad-hoc and in general, without requiring additional API implementation.

Accordingly, we built a software system on Google Cloud that:

  1. Synchronizes the Ethereum blockchain to computers running Parity in Google Cloud.
  2. Performs a daily extraction of data from the Ethereum blockchain ledger, including the results of smart contract transactions, such as token transfers.
  3. De-normalizes and stores date-partitioned data to BigQuery for easy and cost-effective exploration.

The Ethereum blockchain dataset is also available on Kaggle here. You can query the live data in Kernels, Kaggle’s no charge in-browser coding environment, using the BigQuery Python client library. Fork this example kernel to experiment with your own copy of the Python code.

Interesting queries and analyses

Below, we show a number of interesting queries and visualizations based on the Ethereum dataset. Our analyses focus on three popular topics:

  • Smart contract function calls
  • On-chain transaction time-series and transaction networks
  • Smart contract function analytics

Analysis 1: Popular Smart Contracts Event Logs

The main use case for the Ethereum blockchain has so far been the exchange of digital tokens. Below we demonstrate querying the dataset’s transactions and contracts tables to find the most popular smart contracts, as measured by transaction count:

What are the 10 most popular Ethereum collectibles (ERC-721 contracts), by number of transactions? View my query here.

Contract addresses and transfer counts for the 10 most popular Ethereum collectibles 

The most popular ERC-721 smart contract by transaction count is 0x06012c8cf97bead5deae237070f9587f8e7a266d, the main smart contract for the CryptoKitties game. We’ll take a look at some attributes of the game later in this document.

Looking more closely at this contract’s source code, it logs a CryptoKitty birth event to the blockchain. You can query the logs table for instances of this event here.

We can visualize the CryptoKitty pedigree, as shown here for accounts that own at least 10 CryptoKitties. Color indicates owner, while size indicates the PageRank (reproductive fitness) of each CryptoKitty:

CryptoKitty PageRank based on game's contract's source code

Analysis 2: Transaction Volumes and Transaction Networks

There are many types of tokens being distributed on the Ethereum blockchain, and their patterns of distribution vary by type and also by time. By looking at each token’s transaction activity, we can measure which are more popular in aggregate or within a given time frame.

Here’s a query to measure an aggregate token statistic: which are the 10 most popular Ethereum tokens (ERC20 contracts), by number of transactions? Find the answer here.

At position #5, one of the most popular tokens is OmiseGO ($OMG) at address 0xd26114cd6ee289accf82350c8d8487fedb8a0c07.

As a follow-up, here’s a query for measuring a token statistic (transaction count) by time window, specifically the daily count of $OMG tokens transfers, and a Data Studio visualization of these data as a time series from inception through August 2, 2018 from this Google Sheet:

OmiseGO exchange daily transfers

Note that on September 13, 2017, there was a large increase in the number of $OMG receivers but no increase in the number of senders. This corresponds to the beginning of the OmiseGO Token Airdrop.

Because the data, at a highly granular level, consists of a set of transfers between wallet addresses, we can also reason about the data using a directed graph data structure.

Here’s a visualization of a subset of the same data: it’s the first 50,000 transactions that had at least two trading partners. In this graphic, nodes (points) represent wallet addresses on the Ethereum blockchain, and edges (lines) represent aggregate transfer of tokens between a pair of addresses. Edge length is approximately proportional to the number of tokens transferred, meaning wallets that transfer more aggregate tokens between them are closer together in the chart. Further groups of addresses that transfer often with one another—to the exclusion of members of other groups—will cluster together, and we’ve color coded these groups for clarity. This graphic was made with Gephi and nodes are color-labeled by groups calculated using the Modularity algorithm.

Transfer graph visualization of Ethereum transactions

Analysis 3: Analysis of Smart Contract Functionality

We mentioned previously that many of the smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain are ERC-20 contracts. What does this mean? ERC-20 simply defines a software interface that smart contracts can implement. Specifically, it’s composed of a few functions related to token transfer, fully described in the ERC20 Token Standard specification document.

There are many other functions that can be implemented by a smart contract. Fortunately, many smart contracts’ source code is freely available to use (open source). We can use this to gain some knowledge about what other contracts do from the name of the function, even for those of which we don’t have the source code, because common function names will share a common signature.

Coming back to the CryptoKitties, discussed in Analysis 3 above, the major element of gameplay is animal husbandry, and the mixing of genes in a breeding event is implemented in the CryptoKitties GeneScience smart contract, 0xf97e0a5b616dffc913e72455fde9ea8bbe946a2b. Suppose we wanted to find other games also implementing similar gameplay mechanics to the CryptoKitties GeneScience contract? We can measure this using a JavaScript UDF implementation of the Jaccard similarity coefficient in this query.

These results reveal that several earlier versions of the GeneScience contract are most similar to the current version of the smart contract at address 0xf97e0a5b616dffc913e72455fde9ea8bbe946a2b. But there are also some others (e.g. CryptoPuppies at 0xb64e6bef349a0d3e8571ac80b5ec522b417faeb6), that appear to be highly similar contracts, as measured by method signatures.

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Wizarre Announces Its Beta Game Release 2627

beta-cover

Wizarre is pleased to reveal the officiall release of the Wizarre Beta game on November 18, 2022 and will close the access on November 25, 2022. With this Beta release, Wizarre’s introducing more playable features to the users at these early stages, staying on track to deliver the early access version by December 17, 2022.

Wizarre is an NFT blockchain-based video game that takes place within a 2D magical fantasy world. All in-game characters and elements are rare and represented through NFTs (BEP-721 tokens) to provide proof of ownership, which are Wizards, Lands, and equipment.

The game is free-to-play and leverages a play-to-earn model, both merged into one ecosystem to allow anyone to immediately not only instantly dive into the gameplay but also simultaneously earn rewards – the intent of this model was to reduce the barrier to entry for all users.

SCRL is the platform’s native utility token. It’s a BEP-20 token that runs on Binance Smart Chain (BSC) to leverage its speed, scalability, and low transaction fees. Through the burn mechanism, the total circulating supply of 10 billion tokens decreases over time and will therefore never rise in quantity.

The main objective of the game is to create new Wizards through breeding, level up your characters, and ultimately win battles against opponents. The more elements that are combined, the stronger the character spells and statistics become to help advance players to the top of their respective leaderboards.

The platform has also developed an NFT marketplace where users can trade different Wizards, Lands, and other assests with one another to further increase and better represent their value.

The team at Wizarre has built an application for both computer web browsers and mobile phones, so users can play on-the-go while still earning.

Download the Beta game here.

The launch of the Wizarre Beta version will not only lay the groundwork for what’s next but also give the team an opportunity to collect user feedback from testing.

Million Dollar – The First Real Estate Metaverse Company 2553

NFTs, meaning Non-Fungible Tokens, is a concept that gets people together. From arts to music to exclusive content and to VIP events, the NFT ecosystem brings so much to users. Metaverse allows users to engage in real-life activities in virtual reality (VR). You can own clothes, buy shoes, and even own land. And this has enabled projects to transform from NFTs into the Metaverse. One such project that has transformed is the Million Dollar Metaverse – the first real estate company in the Metaverse.

About Million Dollar

Million Dollar is the first Real Estate Company in the Metaverse with a concept of NFT Collection, such as male brokers, female brokers, plotlands, and other properties. The platform is built on the Ethereum blockchain. The community keeps expanding, and users can become property owners – buying and selling lands to generate income.

Mission Statement

The Million Dollar platform is an ample opportunity for people who can’t invest in physical properties due to their lack of knowledge to become Real Estate brokers. We will create a space that allows you to connect with prospective customers. Buyers and sellers (project participants) will coexist, and transactions will happen faster and easier. “We believe real estate can be more fun without compromising the project participants” potential income. Thus, socialization and technology can co-exist in real estate – this is the target future of the Million Dollar Metaverse.” ( Sebastian F. Baciu – CEO)

How It Works

The NFT collections on Million Dollar include – Brokers, Properties, and Lands. The Broker is a male character with over 350 unique traits. Each attribute is categorized as either Smart-Casual, Formal, or Elegant. These categories determine the exclusive packages the Broker can access.

What makes the Million Dollar project stand out?

  • A broker gives holders more opportunities to earn passive and active incomes.
  • The community base has no monopoly in terms of decision-making.
  • The platform’s security level is high and end-encrypted.
  • Every user can access the platform and stake their property.
  • The community comprises crypto experts who contribute to the project’s development.

The Project Team

The Million Dollar is an outstanding project, mainly due to the impact of experienced developers and enthusiasts, including – Web3, real estate, IT, marketing, and blockchain design. As a result, users are well-assured of continuous community growth and establishment.

https://socials.milliondollar.io/

Web3 Content Distribution Protocol SHARE Launches on Ethereum and Polygon 3814

Today, Formless, Inc. announced the availability of the Beta version of SHARE, a protocol that provides digital content creators a way to distribute their music, video, podcast, and other experiences peer-to-peer using smart contracts. With SHARE, creators gain control of the streaming terms, including price, while maintaining compatibility across multiple applications. Registration for Beta access is now available for all creators, builders, and companies interested in using the technology.

Formless Founder Brandon Tory commented, “This is the first time in history that we can distribute content at scale as a program. We can now imagine a future where digital content is available across multiple platforms––even those like Spotify and Instagram, and creators have full control over the access terms, such as pricing, royalty splits from streaming, and ownership sharing with their community.”

Since publishing the SHARE Whitepaper earlier this year, Founder and former Apple and Google Engineer, Brandon Tory, and the team at Formless have received grant awards from the Polygon DAO, Alchemy, Google Cloud, and Stripe. Achievements include a full set of audited SHARE smart contracts with support on the Ethereum and Polygon blockchains and a decentralized application that leverages the power of SHARE.

“Releasing our SHARE Beta is a monumental milestone. We’re now looking forward to working with creators, developers, and distribution partners to leverage blockchain technology and make an even bigger impact,” added Tory.

About FORMLESS, Inc.

Formless is a Boston, Massachusetts headquartered music technology company with the mission of creating virtual and physical experiences that enable people to live more fulfilling lives. Formless was founded in 2018 by Brandon Tory, a signed artist, former Staff Engineer at Google AI, and former Senior Engineer at Apple. Tory’s story of pursuing his dreams as a musician and engineer in parallel was featured in national media that include: Forbes, CNN Great Big Story, CNBC, and Yahoo Finance.

Geo Sets Out to Create a Global Decentralized Knowledge Graph 3786

Yaniv Tal, Co-Founder of The Graph and former CEO of Edge & Node, today unveiled details around his new company, Geo, a web3 browser and knowledge graph app aiming to harness crypto tools to organize the world’s public knowledge and information into a global decentralized knowledge graph. The company will collate blockchain data and develop a browsable user interface accessible to anyone. While Geo will leverage The Graph for data indexing, it will operate as a separate business entity.

Founder of Geo, Yaniv Tal, commented on today’s news: “From my earliest days building The Graph, I envisioned a global decentralized knowledge graph. Today we have the infrastructure to efficiently access blockchain data for thousands of developers, but we need to go a step further to organize real world data that everyone can use on a daily basis. That is the role Geo will play, and I’m thrilled to be working alongside a great team of engineers and developers to embark on our journey of building Geo into its full form.”

Information on Geo is interconnected and verifiable. The collection of data will be decided upon by flexible reputation and governance systems; each community can decide how they want to come to consensus on their facet of the knowledge graph. The interface will display the process used to vote on and accept information. Geo Genesis, a stripped down version of Geo for web will be available in the coming weeks.

Geo intends to become a new tool for organizing information, becoming the system of record for multiple sectors, including but not limited to politics, health, and science. Each industry can manage its own data, processes for allocating power through reputation, and user interfaces. Leveraging Geo as a coordination tool across verticals, will allow participants to structure arbitrary knowledge and come to consensus on information ranging from simple facts to complex policy decisions.

Tal continued: “We want to leverage Geo to help experts capture their knowledge and get to consensus on difficult questions. Developers will be able to build amazing applications and end users will be able to interact directly with an intuitive interface to create, customize, and mix and match data and UI blocks without needing to code.”

The company’s plan is to launch with a series of in person events in San Francisco, where it will test its ideas in one of the world’s premier technology and web3 hubs. Once successful, the plan will be to expand Geo’s footprint to other cities and scale around the globe.

For more information on Geo, please visit: geobrowser.io.

About Geo

Geo is a web3 browser and knowledge graph app aiming to organize the world’s public knowledge and information into a global decentralized database. Founded by Yaniv Tal, Geo will collate and distribute blockchain data into an easy-to-use browsable interface. Industries including politics, health, science, and more can manage their own data, processes for allocating power through reputation, and user interfaces. For more information on Geo, please visit: geobrowser.io.

Ascend launches ReDefyne™ recycled materials; partners with ITW on blockchain traceability 4325

Ascend Performance Materials has launched ReDefyne™, a portfolio of sustainable polyamides created with up to 100% pre- and post-consumer recycled polyamide 66 or 6 to provide a low carbon footprint and reliable performance, even in demanding applications.

“We are focused on helping our customers meet their long-term sustainability goals with innovative, reliable products,” said Steve Manning, Ascend’s senior director for engineered materials. “ReDefyne combines our expertise from Poliblend with our integrated operations and our global application development expertise to produce a recycled polyamide that performs in areas recycled materials have typically been ruled out of.”

ReDefyne products are third-party certified and Ascend is partnering with ITW Global Fasteners to pilot blockchain traceability according to the UNI EN 15343 through Plastic Finder’s Certified Circular Plastic® program.

“With ReDefyne, ITW is producing fasteners with a considerably lower carbon footprint,” said Christelle Staller, Ascend’s sales director for EMEAI. “ITW and Ascend both believe that sustainability requires accountability and are excited to pilot Certified Circular Plastic’s blockchain traceability program.”

Ascend, a fully integrated producer of durable materials, is focused on reducing its products’ carbon footprint having announced a commitment to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2030 and two new milestones announced earlier this month.

Ascend will be showcasing its sustainability efforts and new products, including ReDefyne, HiDura MED and its new e-mobility solutions, under its Advancing Together theme at K 2022 from 19-26 October in Hall 6 Stand A07.

About Ascend Performance Materials

Ascend Performance Materials makes high-performance materials for everyday essentials and new technologies. Our focus is on improving quality of life and inspiring a better tomorrow through innovation. Based in Houston, Texas, and with regional offices in Shanghai, Brussels and Detroit, we are a fully integrated material solutions provider with global manufacturing facilities in North America, Europe and Asia. Our global workforce makes the materials used to make safer vehicles, cleaner energy, better medical devices, smarter appliances and longer-lasting apparel and consumer goods. We are committed to safety, sustainability and the success of our customers and our communities.

Learn more about Ascend at www.ascendmaterials.com.

ZOIDS WILD NFT ARENA Will Go Live on BNB Chain, Also Launches an Airdrop Event 4124

Z SPOT, the publisher of ZOIDS WILD NFT ARENA, developed by ACT Games, revealed today that its flagship title is expected to go live on BNB Chain.

BNB Chain is a global, decentralized network that is essential to the Binance Smart Chain (BSC) ecosystem, one that is home to projects such as Axie Infinity, making it a powerful, efficient home for blockchain projects to go live on.

Z SPOT’s ZOIDS WILD NFT ARENA is aiming for release at the end of 2022, and with the announcement of going live on BNB Chain, the company expects to attract general interest from the blockchain game community and in turn, bring in more users to the game in anticipation of the grand launch.

Z SPOT is also planning an NFT airdrop event of a limited-edition NFT card that is not only available for use in the game, but will include a hologram design only available for this particular airdrop. The details of the airdrop will be announced at a later date via the official social media channels of ZOIDS WILD NFT ARENA.

For more details regarding ZOIDS WILD NFT ARENA, visit the game’s official website and its various social media channels.

About ZOIDS

The “ZOIDS” series encompasses substantial content that TOMY Company, Ltd. has been developing as original intellectual property since 1983. ZOIDS are a biomechanical lifeform themed on dinosaurs and animals, named by combining the two words “zoic” (pertaining to animals or living beings) and “android” (a robot with a human appearance). ZOIDS are Real Moving Kit toys (assembly-type motorized toys) that are equipped with electric motors or wind-up mechanisms and move similarly to a real lifeform once assembled. For the first time in 12 years, efforts to develop “ZOIDS WILD,” the latest ZOIDS series, were initiated in 2018.

Official website: www.takaratomy.co.jp/products/zoidswild

About ZOIDS WILD NFT ARENA

ZOIDS WILD NFT ARENA is a blockchain trading card game (TCG) that incorporates units from the ZOIDS WILD franchise as NFT cards. ZOIDS WILD NFT ARENA allows players to purchase the NFT cards and store it on the blockchain, using them to battle against other players, like a real-life trading card game. ZOIDS WILD NFT ARENA is developed by ACT Games and will be published by Z SPOT. ZOIDS WILD NFT ARENA is set to be released in December of 2022, and it will be serviced globally except for the following regions: Japan, China, and Korea.

About Z SPOT

Z SPOT PTE. LTD. is a blockchain game publisher founded in 2022 in Singapore, specializing in publishing WEB 3.0 games. In addition, the company is a developer of platform for popular Web 3.0 projects, with many more titles on the way.

Related Links
Official Website: https://zoidswild.io/
Official Twitter: https://twitter.com/ZoidsWild
Official Discord: https://discord.gg/zoidswild