The enthusiastic supporters of cryptocurrency often state that we are still in the early stages of this market, despite the extreme highs and lows. However, what truly seems underdeveloped is the technology and infrastructure supporting cryptocurrency.
Cymbal, which claims to be the first Ethereum block explorer focused on user-friendliness and readability, intends to advance the development of blockchain infrastructure. Cymbal launched in a beta version today.
Blockchain explorers such as Etherscan are vital platforms for developers and traders, however they contain overwhelming amounts of data that is challenging for everyday users to comprehend and utilize. Cymbal recognizes an opportunity to create a more accessible and understandable blockchain explorer.
Cymbal ingests the public blockchain data from traditional explorers and transforms it into a visual, user-friendly feed. This makes the data easily digestible at a quick glance, and also incorporates social features.
As Cymbal’s CEO and co-founder Eric Feng explained to Decrypt, “Today, tools like Etherscan are the best in class for looking at the blockchain—but they resemble command line interfaces. We want to get to the GUI,” referring to the transition in computers that had taken place from graphical user interfaces to text-based navigation.
Cymbal’s interface resembles a social network rather than a traditional data platform. It presents transaction details alongside relevant NFT art, data trends, public wallet owner information, related news, and more. This wraps the data in a visual, social context.
Cymbal also utilizes AI to generate conversational summaries of transactions and trends in plain language. This further increases understandability for general users. According to Feng, Cymbal runs this AI tool using OpenAI’s GPT large language model.
Initially, Cymbal focuses on NFT data but will expand to include more robust cryptocurrency and token transaction details over time, with the goal of fully replacing Etherscan. Support for Solana is arriving within weeks, followed soon by Polygon integration.
Feng provided two reasons for the starting with NFTs. First, the visual nature of NFT art is a natural fit for Cymbal’s visual platform. Second, NFTs are commonly people’s first exposure to crypto today, so highlighting NFTs aligns with Cymbal’s mission of accessibility.
As Feng stated, “We consider NFTs to be the gateway to Web3.”
Cymbal’s interface resembles a social network, and can be utilized socially as well. Users can follow wallets, projects, and profiles. Wallet owners can claim their page to create a personalized Web3 profile. Feng hinted at potential future social features like messaging and content publishing.
Cymbal has raised $18.5 million from notable investors including oinbase">Coinbase Ventures, Solana Ventures, CAA Connect, UTA Ventures, Shima Capital, and Google Ventures (GV). Prominent angel investors include John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins, Dapper Labs co-founder Roham Gharegozlou, and outgoing Polygon Labs president Ryan Wyatt.
According to Feng, who previously served as Hulu’s CTO and worked at Meta and Microsoft, Cymbal plans to generate revenue through targeted advertising using wallet data, and by selling its curated data to developers via APIs. This is similar to the business models of other block explorers and crypto price trackers.
Cymbal aims to increase blockchain comprehension for regular users, not just crypto experts. This could support wider adoption as more user-friendly tools emerge.
As Feng stated to Decrypt, “There is a subset of hardcore crypto people that can read Etherscan, just like there’s people in ‘The Matrix’ that could look at the green squiggly lines and understand what’s going on, Great. This is not for them. It’s for the masses.”
He also added “It’s not the tens of thousands of hardcore crypto people right now. It’s for the tens of millions of people that hopefully will come into the ecosystem if we can create better tooling for them.”
#Ethereum #Etherscan #Blockchain
