Covalent is a project designed to address the challenges of blockchain data accessibility. As the blockchain ecosystem continues to evolve and diversify, retrieving and analyzing data from multiple networks has become increasingly complex.Covalent simplifies this process by providing a unified API (Application Programming Interface) that aggregates deep, granular, and historical data from various blockchain platforms, such as Ethereum, Avalanche, Polygon, and others.
How Covalent Works
Covalent’s core functionality is to index historical data across the entire blockchain, including every smart contract, wallet address, and transaction. This data from different blockchains is standardized into a unified format, which Covalent refers to as “block-specimens.”
- Unified API: Covalent allows users to query data from various blockchains through a single, unified API, eliminating the need to learn different APIs or data structures for each blockchain. This makes it easier for developers to build decentralized applications (dApps) that can interact with multiple blockchains.
- “No-Code” Solution: Covalent positions itself as a “no-code solution,” designed to allow users to access the blockchain data they need without requiring professional developers or complex queries.
- Data Roles: To enable cross-blockchain data availability, Covalent’s software involves multiple roles, including the creation, verification, indexing, storage, and retrieval of fine-grained blockchain data. Validators ensure data integrity and accuracy by staking CQT tokens and are penalized for malicious behavior (through the slashing of staked tokens).
What is CQT?
CQT, short for Covalent Query Token, is the native Proof-of-Stake (PoS) governance token of the Covalent network.
Main Uses of CQT:
- Infrastructure Currency: CQT is the native currency of the Covalent Network. Participants can use CQT or stablecoins to pay for data request fees. Network operators receive CQT as compensation for providing data.
- Governance: CQT holders can propose, vote on, and code changes to the protocol, thereby having a say in the platform’s future strategic development. For example, they can vote on which data sources to include, index new networks, or update data modeling requirements.
- Staking: Validators can participate in the Covalent Network by staking CQT and earn rewards by providing network utility and ensuring honest behavior. Staking CQT also yields variable rewards, depending on the total amount staked in the network.
- Network Access Token: CQT can be used to access the Covalent network to fulfill API users’ query requests.
- Data Analytics Applications: The Covalent Software Development Kit (SDK) is also available to all developers, who can host their own unique applications in a dedicated app store and earn CQT.
Covalent Use Cases
Covalent’s unified API has a wide range of applications in the Web3 space, including:
- Wallets: Used to build cryptocurrency and NFT wallets, providing portfolio tracking, token and NFT information, and user insights.
- DeFi Dashboards: Provide comprehensive information and insights to enhance the user’s trading experience, such as liquidity analysis and transaction history.
- NFT Analytics: Provides detailed NFT data, such as rarity assessments.
- Tax: Helps build on-chain tax tools by retrieving the cost basis and current value of tokens to calculate return on investment.
- GameFi: Retrieves users’ GameFi NFTs, displays their attributes, and even tracks specific in-game events.
- Block Explorer: Provides data such as the number of unique wallets participating in each block and the total gas fees spent in those blocks.
- DAO Data Management: Used for data management within decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs).
Covalent’s History and Team
Covalent was founded by Ganesh Swami and Levi Aul in 2017. The project first took shape during a distributed systems hackathon in 2017, with the aim of providing an interface for accessing data from various websites. In 2018, Covalent was officially incorporated with the goal of providing a unified API to enable access to deep, granular, and historical blockchain data. After three years of effort, the team indexed every transaction, block, and contract state on the Ethereum blockchain. The Covalent network officially launched on April 29, 2021.
The Covalent team consists of experienced data scientists, blockchain engineers, and database engineers. Ganesh Swami is a scientist with a background in physics who has developed algorithms for cancer drug design and founded a company listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Levi Aul built one of Canada’s earliest Bitcoin exchanges and contributed to the development of IBM CouchDB.
CQT Token Supply and Market Performance (Data as of July 2026)
CQT has a maximum total supply of 1 billion tokens. As of June 25, 2026, CQT’s circulating supply was approximately 856 million tokens. Covalent has raised over $18.94 million through multiple funding rounds. CQT’s all-time high price reached $2.09.
Please note: The cryptocurrency market is highly volatile, and the above price and market capitalization data are subject to change over time. They are provided for reference only and do not constitute investment advice. Be sure to conduct thorough research and risk assessment before making any investment decisions.
