Nansen’s analytics slowly labeling worldwide wallets

Public blockchains can be accessed and read by anyone but creating meaningful insights from this data is no mean feat. Millions of transactions are recorded across a variety of chains and layer-2 protocols, creating petabytes of data daily.

Services like Google transformed the early internet, accomplishing a significant engineering task by structuring and curating millions of websites to serve simple user queries. A handful of blockchain analytics platforms are looking to do the same, with Nansen distinguishing itself by processing on-chain data into a growing database of wallet labels.

Cointelegraph visited the Singapore office of the growing firm during Token2049 for a one-on-one with co-founder and CEO Alex Svanevik. Occupying a dedicated space in a co-working environment, the office was a buzz with employees that were in town from the company’s hubs in Lisbon, Miami, London and Bangkok.

Svanevik’s background is rooted in artificial intelligence. Graduating from the University of Edinburgh in 2010, the Norwegian’s dissertation focused on building models based on how children learn mathematics. His first foray into the world of work involved the establishment of a business-focused AI consultancy before moving into management consulting.

A stint as a data scientist for a media company preceded his eventual move into the world of cryptocurrencies, as Svanevik was introduced to Ethereum in 2017. His first job for a cryptocurrency firm bankrolled by a $15 million initial coin offering lasted about a year, as the company became one of many to boom and bust post-2017.

Svanevik, Lars Krogvig and Evgeny Medvedev then teamed up to create Nansen AI, eyeing a gap in the market for an on-chain analytics tool aimed at investors:

“On the one hand, you had the free tools that all crypto investors had access to like Coinmarketcap and Etherscan and then on the other extreme, you had very expensive tools that were used exclusively by enterprises like Chainalysis.”

Nansen was formed in late 2019 to provide high-caliber analytics tools to investors delivering blockchain data and insights in real-time. Svanevik admitted that the platform originally attracted sophisticated cryptocurrency traders with large holdings but has since evolved to have a 50/50 split of retail and institutional users:

“We started with what you might call the…