Guides

Getting Started with thirdweb Insight: Query Blockchain Data with Simple API Calls

Sean Watase

Nov 12, 2024 • 4 min read

Blockchain data is essential for every web3 app and game, but accessing it quickly and reliably can be challenging. thirdweb Insight provides developers with a simple way to index, transform, and query onchain data through easy-to-use REST APIs - no complex infrastructure or subgraph framework required.

What is Insight?

thirdweb Insight is a powerful tool that lets you retrieve blockchain data from any EVM chain, enrich it with metadata, and transform it using custom logic. Whether you're building a gaming inventory system, tracking DeFi metrics, or analyzing NFT collections, Insight makes it easy to get the data you need with simple API calls.

Getting Started

Watch a quick video tutorial or follow the steps below to see how to start using Insight to index onchain data for your web3 application

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Creating Your API Key

Before getting started with thirdweb Insight, you'll need an API key to authenticate your requests. Insight offers a generous free tier and simple pricing structure:

Free Tier: 300,000 queries per month
Pay as you go: $25 per 1 million queries
Growth tier: 10,000,000 queries per month with higher rate limits

Head to your thirdweb dashboard and connect your wallet
Next, go to the "Projects" tab. Hover over the "Add New" button and select "Project"
Fill out the parameter for your project then click "Next"
You now have a client ID (API key) that you can use

Exploring the API Reference

Visit https://insight-api.thirdweb.com/reference to explore all available endpoints. The API offers comprehensive querying capabilities that give you precise control over your blockchain data queries.

When making requests, you can customize your queries using various parameters. Need to filter specific transactions? The filter parameter lets you narrow down results based on your criteria. For data analysis, use group_by to aggregate results and aggregate to apply computational functions to your data.

Managing large datasets is simplified with pagination controls - use page to navigate through results and limit to control how many items you receive per request. You can also organize your data using sort_by and sort_order parameters, making it easy to arrange results by block number, timestamp, or other fields.

Each response provides comprehensive blockchain data including detailed block information (hash, number, and timestamp), complete transaction details, chain identification, and specific event data. The response also includes helpful metadata about pagination and total items, making it simple to handle large datasets effectively.

Example: Tracking USDC Transfers with Insight

Let's start with a practical example: fetching the latest USDC transfers on Ethereum. Here's how to get the 10 most recent transfers:

https://1.insight.thirdweb.com/v1/${CLIENT_ID}/events/${USDC_CONTRACT}/Transfer(address,address,uint256)?sort_by=block_number&sort_order=desc&limit=10

https://1.insight.thirdweb.com
The base URL where 1 represents Ethereum mainnet's chain ID

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See what chains are supported and currently indexed here

/v1/${CLIENT_ID}
Your thirdweb API key for authentication

/events
Specifies that we're querying event data

/${USDC_CONTRACT}
The contract address we're getting data from (in this case, USDC)

/Transfer(address,address,uint256)
The event signature we're filtering for

Query parameters:

sort_by=block_number: Sort results by block number
sort_order=desc: Show newest transfers first
limit=10: Return only 10 results

This simple query gives you real-time access to USDC transfer data, perfect for building transaction history displays or analyzing token movements.

What Can You Build with thirdweb Insight?

Gaming Applications

Track player-owned assets by monitoring NFT transfers
Display earned tokens and rewards
Build real-time inventory systems

DeFi Analytics

Calculate token metrics like 24-hour trading volume
Analyze protocol gas efficiency
Track token ownership distribution

NFT Platforms

Get complete transfer history for collections
Display wallet-owned NFTs across chains
Track collection trading activity

Wallet Features

View cross-chain transaction history
List all ERC-20 token holdings
Monitor staking positions

Open Source

Like all thirdweb products, Insight is fully open-source. Check out our GitHub repository at https://github.com/thirdweb-dev/insight if you're interested in deploying your own instance.

thirdweb Insight: the best blockchain indexer yet

Whether you're building a game, DeFi dashboard, or NFT marketplace, Insight provides the blockchain data infrastructure you need with the simplicity of REST APIs. Try it out at https://insight-api.thirdweb.com/reference and join the thousands of developers already building with thirdweb.

If you have any questions or need further assistance, thirdweb’s support team is always available to help. Until next time, happy building!