Last updated 5 months ago
Cardano lacks an open, unified DEX analytics solution, forcing developers to rely on closed or fragmented tools instead of transparent data to track liquidity, trading patterns, and claims.
We will deliver an open-source, unified DEX analytics tool for Cardano, enabling developers to track liquidity, detect trading patterns, and fact-check data with transparent insights.
This is the total amount allocated to Unified Open Analytics for Cardano DeFi.
Please provide your proposal title
Unified Open Analytics for Cardano DeFi
Enter the amount of funding you are requesting in ADA
100000
Please specify how many months you expect your project to last
5
Please indicate if your proposal has been auto-translated
No
Original Language
en
What is the problem you want to solve?
Cardano lacks an open, unified DEX analytics solution, forcing developers to rely on closed or fragmented tools instead of transparent data to track liquidity, trading patterns, and claims.
Supporting links
Does your project have any dependencies on other organizations, technical or otherwise?
No
Describe any dependencies or write 'No dependencies'
No dependencies
Will your project's outputs be fully open source?
Yes
License and Additional Information
Our project will be fully open-source throughout its lifecycle. We will use the MIT License, ensuring broad use and contribution from the community. All code, including DEX analytics tools, transaction analysis, and data models, will be hosted publicly on GitHub.
Please choose the most relevant theme and tag related to the outcomes of your proposal
Analytics
Mention your open source license and describe your open source license rationale.
We will release the project under the MIT License. This permissive license ensures the tool is freely available, reusable, and extensible by the Cardano community. We chose MIT to maximize transparency and collaboration, enabling developers to adapt, improve, and integrate the code without restrictions while ensuring attribution. This fosters trust, adoption, and long-term ecosystem value.
How do you make sure your source code is accessible to the public from project start, and people are informed?
We will host the code publicly on GitHub from the project start, ensuring open access. Development will be transparent with frequent commits, clear documentation, and open issues for feedback. Catalyst reports and social channels will be used to announce major milestones, keeping the community informed while fostering accountability and collaboration.
How will you provide high quality documentation?
We will provide high-quality documentation by maintaining a clear README and API references, all hosted publicly on GitHub. The documentation will be continuously updated in line with code changes, ensuring accuracy and long-term reliability. Additionally it will ensure developers and users have a solid starting point and reference for implementation. By following open-source best practices and actively considering community feedback, we will ensure the documentation remains accessible, useful, and developer-friendly.
Please describe your proposed solution and how it addresses the problem
The Cardano ecosystem lacks an open, unified DEX analytics tool. Current solutions are either fragmented or closed-source, leaving developers without transparent access to reliable data on trading, liquidity, and wallet behavior.
We will address this gap by creating an open-source analytics platform that unifies Cardano DEX data into a single, accessible resource. The system will parse DEX smart contracts, aggregate the results in a local database, and expose the data through a REST API with a documented schema.
Core features include:
By combining these elements, our solution provides developers with a single, transparent toolkit for analyzing Cardano DEX activity. This directly addresses the problem of fragmentation and opacity, giving the ecosystem a dependable foundation for DeFi research, monitoring, and development.
Please define the positive impact your project will have on the wider Cardano community
Our project delivers an open-source, unified DEX analytics tool that directly benefits the entire Cardano community by making DeFi activity more transparent, accessible, and verifiable.
For developers, it removes the need to build custom data parsers for each DEX, saving time and reducing complexity. With reliable APIs and schemas, developers can quickly integrate analytics into their own applications, dashboards, or research projects.
For researchers and analysts, the tool provides a transparent, fact-based foundation for studying Cardano DeFi. Advanced features such as liquidity tracking, whale spotting, and detection of trading techniques (arbitrage, sandwiching) enable deeper insights into market behavior.
For the community at large, the tool strengthens trust and accountability. By providing transparent access to DEX performance metrics (TVL, trading volumes, liquidity flows, user activity), the community can fact-check claims made by projects, participate in governance with confidence, and make informed decisions in DeFi participation.
Because the project is fully open-source under the MIT License, its impact extends long-term: the community can continue to use, improve, and expand the tool without restrictions. This ensures that the solution grows with the ecosystem, amplifying its value over time.
We will measure impact through:
By lowering barriers for developers, improving research capabilities, and increasing transparency for all users, this project strengthens Cardano’s DeFi ecosystem and supports its sustainable growth.
What is your capability to deliver your project with high levels of trust and accountability? How do you intend to validate if your approach is feasible?
Our team has a proven track record of delivering high-quality Cardano development projects, both independently and through Catalyst. We have successfully delivered multiple proposals in the past, including open-source DEX analytics initiatives, demonstrating our ability to complete complex projects on time and to specification.
Each member brings specialized skills, ensuring all parts of the project—from smart contract parsing to backend deployment—are covered by experts with prior delivery experience.
Feasibility approach:
We will build on an already established framework from previous analytics work, reducing both technical and execution risk. The architecture is well understood: blockchain data is parsed, stored in a local database, and served through a REST API. This allows us to focus on extending analytics features and performance, rather than reinventing core infrastructure.
Validation measures:
Our combination of prior delivery, technical expertise, and a clear plan for validation ensures this project is not only feasible but highly reliable. By leveraging experience and community feedback, we can deliver with high levels of trust and accountability.
Milestone Title
Core Analytics Framework
Milestone Outputs
Build the core analytics framework that ingests Cardano blocks/transactions, decodes DEX events, normalizes them to a documented schema, and persists to a local database. Expose initial REST endpoints for raw data, parsed swaps/liquidity ops, and basic health/metrics. Include API versioning and minimal read-only auth notes for later stages.
Acceptance Criteria
A running service can sync from a chosen starting slot, parse swaps, deposits, and withdrawals, and persist them according to the published schema. Initial REST endpoints return correct JSON with pagination and filtering. README documents setup, config, and data shapes. Error handling and consistent response shapes are documented.
Evidence of Completion
Public GitHub repositories show the framework, schema files, and initial APIs. A short demo script queries endpoints and prints sample results from a synced network segment. Release notes and a community post summarize scope, limitations, and next steps. Issue tracker shows closed tasks for this milestone.
Delivery Month
2
Cost
40000
Progress
40 %
Milestone Title
Advanced Liquidity Pool Integration
Milestone Outputs
Extend integration of major DEX smart contracts into the parser, covering liquidity deposit/withdrawal and swap paths. Replace heuristics with contract-aware decoding where possible. Document protocol edge cases and fallback behavior.
Acceptance Criteria
For each covered DEX, the parser consistently identifies pools, mints/burns LP tokens, and swap edges, producing deterministic records. Unit tests pass, and spot checks against explorers or contract docs validate amounts and actors without manual rewrites.
Evidence of Completion
Updated repositories include protocol modules, test fixtures, and coverage badges. A technical report maps contract calls to parsed records with examples. A tagged release and milestone note link the report, test runs, and instructions to reproduce validation. Reproducible make target runs the validation suite.
Delivery Month
3
Cost
25000
Progress
60 %
Milestone Title
Advanced Analytics Features
Milestone Outputs
Deliver advanced analytics endpoints: DEX overviews (TVL, volume, users), liquidity flow views, whale activity surfaces, and detectors for arbitrage/manipulation patterns. Provide query parameters, response contracts, and notes on caveats and thresholds. Publish metric definitions and detector assumptions.
Acceptance Criteria
Endpoints respond within reasonable latency on a sample dataset and return values that match hand-verified calculations for at least two days of history per DEX. Contracted fields are stable, and error handling, pagination, and rate limits behave as documented. Thresholds for detectors are configurable and documented.
Evidence of Completion
Code and docs show endpoints with example calls and JSON. A validation notebook reproduces the published metrics from raw records. CI artifacts include benchmark timings and test logs. A community update announces availability and links to examples. A short write-up explains detector thresholds and cautions.
Delivery Month
4
Cost
25000
Milestone Title
Deployment & Reliability Enhancements
Milestone Outputs
Add deployment scripts (Docker Compose and bare-metal), environment templates, and migration helpers. Implement a basic test suite, profiling-led optimizations, and operational metrics. Provide troubleshooting, upgrade paths, and data retention guidelines. Provide operator notes and minimal hardware guidance.
Acceptance Criteria
Fresh installs complete in under an hour on a typical dev machine and sync a test window successfully. Tests pass locally and in CI. CPU/memory usage meet documented targets, and logs/metrics enable operators to spot backlogs, failures, and slow queries. Upgrade from a previous milestone works via documented steps.
Evidence of Completion
Repository includes scripts, .env templates, and make targets. Test reports and simple performance dashboards are published. A final close-out report and short video walk through setup, operation, and validation, with links to releases and documentation. Final tagged release includes checksums and a changelog.
Delivery Month
5
Cost
10000
Progress
100 %
Please provide a cost breakdown of the proposed work and resources
Total Budget Request: 100,000 ADA
Milestone 1: Core Analytics Framework - 40,000 ADA
Milestone 2: Smart Contract Integration - 25,000 ADA
Milestone 3: Advanced Analytics Features - 25,000 ADA
Milestone 4: Deployment & Reliability Enhancements - 10,000 ADA
Cross-cutting Notes
How does the cost of the project represent value for the Cardano ecosystem?
The requested 100,000 ADA represents strong value for the Cardano ecosystem because it directly funds the delivery of an **open-source, unified DEX analytics tool **that benefits developers, researchers, and the wider community.
Most of the budget is allocated to developer work (backend, on-chain parsing, analytics features), ensuring resources go into building the actual solution rather than overhead. Each milestone provides tangible outputs — from the core analytics framework to advanced detection of trading patterns — that will be publicly accessible from the start.
Because the project is licensed under MIT, the community gains long-term value: the code can be freely reused, extended, and integrated into other projects without restriction. This prevents vendor lock-in and maximizes the return on investment, as future teams can build upon our work at no additional cost.
The phased milestone structure also ensures accountability and deliverability: funds are tied to clear outputs such as API endpoints, schema definitions, reports, and deployment scripts. This makes it easy for the community to verify that value is being delivered.
In summary, this proposal offers high leverage for Cardano: a modest one-time cost produces an extensible, transparent tool that strengthens DeFi transparency, reduces duplication of effort for developers, and improves trust across the ecosystem.
Terms and Conditions:
Yes