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2024 in retrospect

SQD Editor

• 6 min read
“A good beginning makes a good end.” - Louis L’amour

In that spirit, the end of 2024 is also the beginning of a new phase for SQD, one of increased decentralization - as we prepare for a full launch of the SQD Portal. 
With this release, SQD is slowly phasing out the archives (a centralized version of the network) and fully releasing all the data onto the network of worker nodes. 

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. This is, after all, a look back at 2024. 

It’s been another fun year in crypto, featuring new Bitcoin ATHs, the big comeback of coins like XRP, prediction markets having a moment, and a glimpse at the power of memes (for better and worse). 

At the same time, one of the Big Tech trends seeped into our cozy crypto corner: AI - leading to VCs writing long thought pieces on how AI will advance (or destroy) humanity (but not their bags) and an increase in experimentation with AI agents (the users formerly known as bots). 

Some of these events impacted SQD, most, not so much as our main focus remained to make onchain data permissionlessly accessible at incredibly low cost. 

So, what exactly did happen at SQD in 2024? 


Quite a lot. Our usage grew steadily.

But let’s start with the most important product updates and launches. 


Product Updates & Launches

Public Sale on Coinlist

Early into 2024, SQD (back then operating under the name Subsquid) conducted its public sale on Coinlist. With all of the supply allocated sold out in 19 minutes, it also became the fastest Coinlist sale of all times.

Thanks to all our supporters who made this possible.

Tenor

After the sale, our efforts went into preparing the SQD mainnet. And after two, the testnet concluded successfully, SQD went live, and with it, the $SQD token.

Mainnet & Token Launch

Within the first week after mainnet launch, the worker node count had shot up to 500 nodes. This is important because the more nodes are in the network, the more distributed it becomes - and the more data it can serve.

In the same week, the SQD token went live on multiple exchanges, including ByBit, MEXC, and Kucoin. Tokens can be delegated to aid curation of worker nodes in the p2p network or be locked up to increase one’s rate limits when accessing data via SQD.

Not to get too far ahead of ourselves, but a tokenomics overhaul is currently in the works as teased by the SQD CEO recently, and you can look forward to tokenomics 2.0 in 2025.

A few weeks later, SQD also became tradeable on PancakeSwap. Now, it can be purchased in a completely permissionless fashion.

The great Rebranding

ICYMI, 2024 was rebranding season, and Subsquid too underwent a change to reflect a transition from being in research phase, to a production-ready data platform. Letters were dropped, but the mission remained the same.

“The new branding not only reflects SQD in its current state as a reliable infrastructure provider but should also be future-proof. A symbol that appears timeless thanks to its simplicity.”  - Marcel Fohrmann, Co-Founder SQD

And for those who liked the Squiddie, don’t worry, our intern is keeping him alive.

Speaking of Squids, in Autumn 2024, Limechain launched their Giant Squid.

Giant Squid

What is the giant squid, and why do people care? It’s an open-source indexer that indexes Poljachain data and massively reduces developers' costs and efforts when starting to build on Susbtrate.

If you are a developer building on Polkadot or a Substrate chain, you can find all the details for the Giant Squid here.

Solana Support

Another big expansion in 2024 was SQD’s integration of Solana. Solana’s read layer is (in)famous for being complex, and hard to manage as only one week worth' of onchain data is stored in validators, and the rest offloaded to archive nodes, Google Cloud and/or ipfs.

By adding Solana’s historical data to SQD, we’re making it more easily accessible, freeing up dev’s mindspace and time to work on their dApps and less on figuring out indexing. We’re looking forward to seeing what people will build on Solana going into the next year.

Cloud deployments 2.0

With hundreds of dApps and solo devs already using SQD’s cloud solution, our team had ample feedback to work with. Later in 2024, based on conversations with customers, we shipped Cloud Deployments 2.0.

While it might not seem like a lot, it improved the deployment experience notably, making it easier for remote teams to manage different deployments and versions. You can learn more about this update on our blog.

Portal Private Beta

Tenor

At the beginning of December, SQD launched the Portal in private beta, an invite-only launch for engineers. For now, soon Portal will be launched for the public.

What is a Portal, and why should you care?

In short, a Portal is an interface, a sort of client sitting between you and the data in the SQD data lake. You get an uninterrupted data stream that’s only maxed out by your ability to consume the data. It’s also decentralized, unlike other solutions in the market.

While decentralization doesn’t make for the greatest usage argument - in this case, decentralization actually contributes to user experience, and an increase in replication of data. That means it’s much less likely that you will ever be unable to retrieve a specific chunk of data or meet bandwidth constraints.

On top of that, Portal is expected to speed up querying speed and bring Cloud customers to the decentralized p2p network. As pointed out by SQD CEO in a Portal AMA, this is just one step in our vision to remove the middle layer, allowing users to stream data directly.

While the first release only supports historic data, early in 2025, Portal will be further enhanced through the introduction of Hot Blocks, a service that provides real-time data streams.

Partners

Tenor

Product development wasn’t the only thing our team focused on. We also entered countless partnerships that benefit the ecosystem, creating win-win situations.

Here just a selection:

We’ve also been fortunate to onboard countless amazing projects to SQD, you can read more about them in our case studies section on the SQD website.

Other notable moments

Outside of Solana, we integrated other Non-EVM chains such as Tron, Fuel and Starknet. We also hosted several successful events and received some nice media coverage.

The only other thing worth pointing out here is that, we decided to quit Discord for good -and open up our telegram chat instead for the community.

We’re working on setting up a cosy corner for fellow Data enthusiasts on a more crypto-native platform. Stay tuned for that.

Last but not least you might wonder, so what’s next?

For an in-depth view on that, check out our 6 months ahead post from this month. In short:

  • Tokenomics 2.0
  • Ecosystem expansion
  • Real-time Data streams

Enough said, thanks for being part of the SQD community.

If you have feedback, questions, or just want to chat with the team, see you on telegram!