Author: Samantha, Writer and Editor at BanklessDAO

Original Title: 《How Web3 Writers Do Research》

Translation: Gu Yu, Chain Catcher

Entering Web3 Research

When all the information you might want is unrestricted and unlicensed, research looks different.

Do you need subscriptions to access information, like you did as a Web2 creator, from The Wall Street Journal to JStor to the Pew Research Center? Thankfully, no. Does this mean information is easier to find? Well… not really.

In fact, finding information in Web3 is harder than it seems. This is because we lack the information aggregators and archaeologists we are accustomed to relying on in the traditional world. Instead, you have to be your own aggregator and archaeologist. What you need to do is not just become a creator—you can also become an on-chain ontologist, a deep diver in Discord, and a Medium article miner.

Of course, this takes practice. But here are ten tools I use to mine the golden information buried out there.

1. Dune Analytics

2. DMs on Discord and joining servers

3. Advanced Twitter search

4. Forum posts and comments

5. Token explorers

6. Crypto philosophers of our time

7. Crypto-native publications we have now

8. Podcasts that broaden your thinking

9. Absurdly specific, keyword-stuffed Google searches

10. Block explorers

1. Dune Analytics

In my opinion, Dune Analytics is the closest thing we Web3 creators have to a gift from the gods on Earth. Anyone can create queries that run forever. Since this is probably my most used source of information gathering, I will take the time to explain it.

Reason 1: The dashboards are incredibly creative, meaning your articles can include a lot of cool new information.

Check it out: BanklessDAO Tipping Economy, my favorite dashboard provided by Bankless's own @paulapivat. Where else can you find such a unique dashboard? Centralized services? I think not.

Reason 2: You can learn SQL and create your own dashboards.

If you are willing to put in the work, please learn some SQL (fully public—I'm not yet willing to put in the work) and create your own dashboards. The great thing about Dune is that you don't have to rely on anyone else to get the information you need—Web3 Archaeology 101.

Reason 3: Because Dune is crowdsourced, people update these ways faster than traditional analytics services.

One thing I love about Dune is that contributors can update content there at lightning speed. Even native crypto but still centralized analytics services can have some lag time. I recently wrote an article about OpenDAO and was thrilled to see Dune contributors starting queries almost on the same day the DAO launched.

This chart shows the changes in SOS token holders over time.

Reason 4: You can search for the creators of dashboards and draw some interesting conclusions based on the information they choose to include or exclude.

If the creator of a dashboard has some relation to the success of a token or DAO, you can draw some conclusions about why they might include certain dashboards while ignoring others. But be careful here, as you don't want to go too crazy with your conclusions. Doing some wallet searches on the dashboard creators (see Strategy #3) and Twitter tracking (see Strategy #10) is just an interesting exercise, and then critically think about why they did what they did.*

Reason 5: You can befriend the creators and ask them to make specific dashboards for you. (Becoming friends usually means sending some tokens. But hey, that's okay!)

If you're looking for specific data, just ask. Really, it's that simple. I recommend reaching out to your favorite dashboard creators and offering to send them some tokens of their choice in exchange for creating the dashboard you need. Remember, analytics experts are also trying to make a living. Learning SQL might be cheaper, but I bet making friends with dashboard creators will be more fun.

Yes, use Dune. It's amazing.

2. Cold DM on Discord and ask for their opinions (you can earn bonus points if you join their server)

Did you know crypto enthusiasts love to talk about themselves? Shocking, I know. (Also guilty of loving to talk about myself.) However, cold DMs are indeed one of the best ways to gather information, especially if it’s about something too early to find reliable information on. (We’re still early, right?)

You'd be surprised at the verbosity of contributors when you ask interesting questions. Chatting with people on Discord for interviews is also less intimidating because both the interviewer and interviewee have time to think about their answers and really craft their words.

Joining Discord servers is itself another great way to conduct research. Lurk around like the DAO lurker you are (or the lurker you always wanted to be) and see what's happening. Listen to meetings (I recommend listening to large community calls or amphitheater-style meetings, as smaller meetings might require you to introduce yourself) and see what people are talking about.

I wouldn’t directly quote anyone from casual meetings, but if someone is giving a prepared speech, maybe take out your notebook. Be polite in these situations and don’t be too eager—if someone quotes me at a random meeting where I didn’t know I was being quoted, I wouldn’t be too happy. Remember, this is the office and the stage. But definitely embrace the vibe, learn about the DAO, and start looking for contacts to interview.

3. Advanced Twitter Search

If you haven't tried it, it's a lot of fun. By searching the right way in the Crypto Twitter sphere, you can unearth some super weird, interesting, informative, and downright wild stuff. That noisy place sometimes feels like looking for a tiny fish in a vast ocean: what you're looking for might be deep down.* Advanced Twitter search is your gold mining tool. (To be honest, I don't know what people actually use to mine gold.) Bookmark this URL before you forget: https://twitter.com/search-advanced?lang=en

When you click it, this dialog box will appear in the center of your screen:

I usually fill in the boxes under "All of these words" and/or "Any of these words." I'm typically looking for some specific events or topics people are tweeting about, and I want to see what the most popular tweets are.

Advanced Twitter search is a great way to gather a general sentiment about a particular idea. For example, I recently wrote an article about the MakerDAO/SocGen partnership. I wanted to see what people on Twitter were saying after the initial announcement, so I entered my search terms separated by commas:

All of these words: Maker, DAO, SocGen

Any of these words: OFH, tokenized bonds, SG-Forge, DAI, dai

Through this search, I discovered:

1. The overall sentiment towards the partnership.
2. Twitter accounts of people involved in the partnership, which easily leads to more information (and potential interview sources).
3. A rough timeline of when people were talking about this partnership.

You can also change the language at the bottom, which helps when reporting on DAOs and protocols that operate in multiple languages or looking for sentiment among different crowds around the world. (While I may sound mundane, I’m not fluent in any other languages and haven’t used that feature yet.)

If you're starting to create and don't know where to go, I recommend doing an advanced Twitter search. You'll have plenty of interesting hot spots and ideas afterward.

4. Forum Posts and Comments

Forums are where high-signal, low-noise DAO conversations happen. (Okay, sometimes the noise is loud.) These are open posting platforms in a Reddit style where DAOs make governance decisions before approving them on-chain. Think of them as digital town squares where thought leaders and key members of DAOs share ideas and reach consensus on everything from new projects to protocol collaborations to governance concepts.

Forums are important places where Web3 creators should spend time. If you're writing an article about a DAO and haven't delved into their forums, are you really writing an article about that DAO?

You can find DAO forums by:

1. Visiting the DAO's website and checking the footer for terms like "Governance," "Forum," "Community," or "Discourse." Example: MakerDAO's footer has a Governance section.
2. Visiting the DAO's Twitter account and checking what links they have. Sometimes you get lucky, and it’s a link that helps you find the forum. If it’s Discord, you might not be able to join unless you hold the required amount of tokens. So, DM the DAO Twitter account or contributors and ask where their forum is. Or tweet and @ them. You’re likely to get a response. DAOs love to promote!
3. Entering a search engine [DAO NAME] + [Forums] or [DAO NAME] + [Discourse]. Google doesn’t like our Web3 content (at the moment), but sometimes it shows up.
4. CoinGecko! (Yes, really. Read Strategy #5.)

5. CoinGecko and CoinHall

These two token explorers are classic additions to the Web3 writer's toolbox. Here, you can get detailed information about any token you’re looking for. I always start with CoinGecko (great for blue chips, it has almost everything you want), and if I can’t find the token there, I migrate to CoinHall. Both should be bookmarked on your browser of choice.

I love using token explorers to look for:

1. Token market cap fluctuations.
2. Price fluctuations.
3. Trading volume.
4. Supply: circulating, total, and max supply.
5. Forums and other links I’m trying to dig up. (If you jumped here from Strategy #4: CoinGecko does have forum links!)

6. Heavyweights: Vitalik, Balajee, Chris Dixon, and Bankless Writers on Wednesdays/Thought Thursdays

If you’re not digging for specific information but looking for broader, more thoughtful ideas, I would choose heavyweight helpers, which include:

1. Vitalik Buterin's Blog
2. Balajee's Blog
3. A16z's Blockchain and Cryptocurrency section
4. Writers from Bankless on Wednesdays and Thought Thursdays

But seriously, finding truly good "thought pieces" for a crypto audience isn’t easy. Bookmark these gems, and you’ll use them again to help shape your ideas and mold your writing time and time again.

7. Crypto-native Publications: Messari, The Defiant, Decrypt, CoinTelegraph, and CoinDesk

The benefit of the rapid development of Web3 is that information aggregators are also evolving quickly: we’re just starting to see some information. However, the downside of the rapid development of Web3 is that these guys can barely keep up. Add these to your information diet, but sometimes they tend to be very price-focused, primarily highlighting ETH and BTC. If you’re writing about ETH and BTC, that’s great… but not very friendly for anything else.

1. Messari's free newsletter
2. The Defiant
3. Decrypt
4. CoinTelegraph
5. CoinDesk

8. Podcasts: Uncommon Core, Bankless, Collectively Intelligent, On the Other Side, Citizen Cosmos, The Defiant, Crypto Sapiens, and Terra Bites

I love podcasts, but I don’t always use them as a research method because most Web3 podcasts are so long.

Having a healthy diet of various Web3 podcasts helps shape your own views and papers, which will inform your writing. What they’re not great at is finding specific information. Instead, use these to challenge your beliefs, form your ideas, and hey, maybe learn something!

My recommendations include incorporating these into your rotation for a well-rounded and thorough educational podcast diet:

1. Uncommon Core: Great for technical concepts and first principles.
2. UpOnly: Great for interesting, unique conversations with crypto thought leaders.
3. Bankless: Great for interviewing crypto thought leaders and people on or near Capitol Hill.
4. Collectively Intelligent: Great for organization-centered DAO and Web3 discussions.
5. On the Other Side: Great for DAO-centered conversations about how Web3 impacts people's daily lives.
6. Citizen Cosmos: Great for interviewing people in the Cosmos ecosystem (who are notoriously hard to pin down).
7. The Defiant: Great for interviewing people with one foot in the traditional world and one foot in Web3, providing some perspective.
8. Crypto Sapiens: Great for interviewing founders of interesting protocols, mainly in the Ethereum and Ethereum-adjacent space.
9. Terra Bites: Great for Terra ecosystem updates and technical concepts.

9. Extremely Specific, Sounding Like Nonsense Google Searches, Because Google Sucks at Indexing Crypto Content

You may have noticed that sometimes when you search for topics deeply rooted in Web3, you see a bunch of Forbes, New York Times, and WikiHow articles that are far from what you’re actually looking for. This is a symptom of how new our industry is, and Google’s algorithms struggle to keep up. Therefore, to avoid getting what the algorithm thinks you want, you need to tell it exactly what you want so that you can find certain articles on platforms accessible to many, like Medium, Notion, and Reddit.

Be very good at using keywords. Many of them. Soon enough, you’ll find Notion pages in Google searches. (Really! It’s possible!) That’s all my advice for searching for cryptocurrencies on Google. Good luck.

10. Block Explorers (I find these a bit boring)

I find that block explorers aren’t very helpful unless you know exactly what you’re looking for. Honestly, if I had a transaction stuck somewhere and was having a typical panic attack, I’d want to know if I sent my money to the wrong address, I would use these. However, since block explorers are unique tools for collecting on-chain data, I thought I would include them.

Bookmark these:

1. Etherscan
2. Terra Finder
3. Solana Explorer
4. ATOMScan
5. PolygonScan
6. ApeBoard

Now that you’re equipped with all these gold mining tools, you’re ready to dig! Good luck on your journey to becoming a true Web3 creator—whatever that means—and stay safe as always!