Dune Analytics — Tool Review & How-to-Use

Lets you query decoded blockchain data using SQL. Every transaction on Ethereum, Polygon, Arbitrum, Optimism, Base, Solana, and more is pre-indexed. The community has built 100,000+ public dashboards.

For beginners (don't write SQL)

Just browse community dashboards:

@hildobby — best NFT data analyst
@rchen8 — Ethereum L1 metrics
@Crypto_Oracle — stablecoin flows
@0xBoxer — MEV analytics

Search dashboards by protocol name; there's always someone tracking it.

For people willing to SQL

The schema is massive but follows patterns:

ethereum.transactions — every tx
ethereum.traces — every internal call
erc20_ethereum.evt_Transfer — decoded ERC20 transfers
uniswap_v3_ethereum.Factory_evt_PoolCreated — new pool creations

Start with a community dashboard, fork it, modify the query. You'll learn faster than from scratch.

Use cases

Track a whale's portfolio history
Measure protocol usage (not just TVL)
Identify insider token accumulation pre-news
Validate project claims with on-chain evidence

Pros

Unique capability — no substitute
Free tier generous for learning
Community dashboards cover 90% of use cases
Best-in-class UX for queries

Cons

SQL learning curve (worth it)
Paid tiers expensive for teams
Query performance can be slow on complex joins