Alchemy
Alchemy is a comprehensive web3 development platform that provides developers with a wide range of application programming interfaces (APIs) and tools to create different types of web3 solutions in one place. It currently powers several leading projects in the crypto space such as CryptoKitties, Aave, and dYdX. [1]
Overview
Alchemy was founded by Nikil Viswanathan, currently the CEO, and Joseph Lau, the Chief Training Officer, in 2017 and is operated out of San Francisco, California. Their platform ended beta and officially launched on August 10th, 2020. [2][3]
The company's platform is designed to simplify the process of building decentralized applications, allowing companies to focus on creating their applications without having to manage the underlying blockchain infrastructure. Its web3 development platform offers a wide range of APIs and tools for creating different types of web3 solutions, with support for multiple blockchains including Ethereum, Flow, Polygon, Arbitrum, and Optimism. [1][4]
In addition to its platform offerings, Alchemy has a team of experienced professionals with a background in blockchain, scalable infrastructure, and AI. The team has worked on projects at top tech organizations such as Google, MIT, Stanford, Microsoft, and Facebook. [1][4]
Infrastructure
Alchemy attempts to build a platform that provides essential building blocks for developers to use in order to expand the web3 world by integrating these tools. [4]
Supernode
The Alchemy Supernode is an Ethereum node API that enhances the scalability and reliability of data. It uses a proprietary coordinator service to ensure real-time and accurate data, preventing errors that could harm user experience and crash apps. Instead of relying on multiple centralized servers, the Supernode leverages a dedicated and distributed system similar to those used by tech giants like Amazon and Facebook. This approach makes it easier to develop at scale by handling infrastructure management, and it supports unlimited archive data requests and advanced API methods. The Supernode also provides access to block and transaction requests, smart contract event logs, and a virtual mempool for pending transactions. [1][18]
Alchemy Build
Alchemy Build is an essential part of the Alchemy platform and offers a suite of tools for blockchain developers. The no-configuration, in-house suite is designed to help developers prototype, debug, and ship products quickly and efficiently. It offers a comprehensive solution to the difficulties faced by web3 developers. With its unique features, developers can quickly and easily identify and resolve issues, enabling them to develop and ship high-quality products with ease. [1][4][19]
In addition, Alchemy Build aims to solve the issue of lacking debugging tools available to developers by offering several unique tools:
- Explorer tool: allows developers to search through millions of historical requests to find specific bugs and optimize performance
- Mempool Visualizer: provides a real-time view of transactions in the mempool, making it easier to identify and resolve issues.
- Composer tool: allows developers to make JSON-RPC calls from the dashboard, which helps in prototyping and fixing failing requests.
- Debug Toolkit provides a fast way to scan recent requests and errors and includes a real-time query visualizer to speed up the debugging process.
Alchemy Monitor
The Alchemy Monitor is a central tool for web3 developers to monitor the health and performance of their applications. It offers a comprehensive suite of dashboards and alerts that give developers insight into their applications' health, usage, and user behavior. [1][20]
The Commander Center, provides a centralized view of the high-level health of all applications being monitored. It displays real-time metrics such as requests per second, response time, and error rates. This allows users to quickly check the health of all their applications in one place, without having to go through multiple dashboards or systems. [4][20]
The Usage Analytics feature offers in-depth usage statistics, including a comparison of production and staging phases and usage by method. The User Insights feature provides aggregated data about user behavior, location, activity, and traffic without compromising privacy or security. [1][4]
The Alchemy Monitor also includes automated alerts and digests to notify developers of any issues, as well as daily reports of key health metrics. It is an essential tool for web3 developers who need to ensure the stability and performance of their applications. [1][4][20]
Alchemy Notify
Alchemy Notify addresses the issue of providing a user-friendly experience in web3 applications, which is crucial for mainstream adoption. Alchemy Notify enables developers to send relevant and timely notifications for the most significant web3 events, improving the user experience. The tool offers a simple setup process, allowing developers to send push notifications for events such as mined transactions, smart contract events, dropped transactions, and more. This helps users to track important on-chain activities, such as deposits, in-game actions, purchases, and more. The Address Activity webhooks further enhance the notification experience by allowing users to receive notifications for external and internal transfers, ERC20 transfers, and non-fungible token (NFT) transfers. [1][4][21]
Alchemy Notify empowers developers to send real-time push notifications to users, driving engagement and keeping users informed at every critical point in the application journey. The tool utilizes webhooks to provide address activity notifications and includes notifications for changes in the Mainnet gas price. With Alchemy Notify, web3 app users will no longer experience issues such as lost tokens, missed trades, and more. [1][4][21]
Alchemy Amplify
Alchemy's Amplify is a marketing effort designed to support partners in launching new products. The program aims to ease the product development process for developers and creators by providing a certified infrastructure alliance that associates the partner company with reputable names in Alchemy's customer ecosystem and enhancing their credibility. The marketing campaign includes social media hype and a feature in Alchemy's Supercharged newsletter, which is read by over 10,000 people. Additionally, Amplify offers access to Alchemy's accelerator program, which offers benefits such as discounts, mentorship, and support through a Web3 channel to startups. [1][4][22]
Application Programming Interfaces (APIs)
Alchemy offers a comprehensive suite of application programming interfaces (APIs) for web3 development. The APIs include web3 APIs as well as enhanced APIs to enable new functionalities for web3 apps. Alchemy supports popular blockchain networks such as Ethereum, Solana, Polygon, and Optimism and enables developers to connect their dApps to the blockchain of their choice through the Alchemy infrastructure. [1][24]
- NFT API: allows for instant identification, verification, and display of any non-fungible token across popular blockchain networks. It indexes and caches images and metadata to provide quick access to NFTs. [23]
- Token API: enables developers to request information about specific tokens, such as wallet balances or metadata.
- Transfers API: critical for web3 development and helps in fetching historical transactions for specific addresses.
- Transact API: a collection of APIs that help in enabling speed, security, and transparency in web3 app transactions.
- Trace API: provides in-depth information about on-chain activity.
- Debug API: offers comprehensive information and data related to transaction behavior, making debugging easier.
- Transactions Receipts API: provides all transaction receipts for a specific block, either by block hash or number.
- Web3 API: an alternative to web3.js and has been configured to work seamlessly with Alchemy. It offers strong WebSocket support and automatic retries.
- Subscription API: enables subscriptions to receive full transaction receipts for new unresolved transactions rather than just transaction hashes.[1][4]
Funding
Series A
On May 1st 2019, the Series A funding round, attracted investment from notable names such as Pantera Capital, Stanford University, Coinbase, Samsung, SignalFire, and high-profile individuals such as Charles Schwab, Jerry Yang (Yahoo founder), Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn founder), and John Hennessy (Google chairman). The round raised $15 million in total. [7][8]
Series B
On April 28th 2021, Alchemy raised $80 million in a Series B funding round led by Coatue and Addition, Lee Fixel's new fund. The round included a diverse group of high-profile investors, such as DFJ Growth, K5 Global, the Chainsmokers, Jared Leto, and the Glazer family, among others. The funding brought Alchemy's total raised to $95.5 million since its launch in 2017. [7][9]
Series C
On October 28th 2021, Alchemy announced a $250 million Series C funding round, led by Andreessen Horowitz, their record in total amount raised. The round also saw participation from Pantera Capital, Redpoint, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Coatue, DFJ, and Lee Fixel’s Addition. The founders, Nikil Viswanathan and Jon Lau, stated that the company is "very profitable" and the new capital will be used to build a community around blockchain. [7][10][11]
Series D
On February 8th 2022, the series D funding round raised $200 million in a funding round led by Lightspeed and Silver Lake, taking the company's valuation to $10.2 billion. The new investment came amid growing interest from venture capitalists in the crypto and decentralized finance sectors, as well as increased retail interest in the space. [7][12]
Alchemy University
On December 21st 2021, Alchemy announced that they are working on an online platform that aims to provide educational courses on the subject of web3 and blockchain development. They also announced that they partnered with leading organizations of the blockchain space, a16z, Pantera Capital, Arbitrum, Polygon, Flow, OpenSea, buildspace, Chainshot and top developer advocates like Nader Dabit, Patrick Collins, Albert Hu, and Austin Griffith. [25]
On October 5th 2022, the Alchemy University (AU) was officially released. Alchemy University is a free online platform that offers comprehensive educational courses for learning about web3. The courses are designed for individuals with varying levels of experience, from beginners to seasoned developers. AU offers a range of educational materials, including the JavaScript Fundamentals course, the Ethereum Developer Bootcamp, and the Road to web3 project-based learning path. The courses start with the basics and progress to expert-level content, providing students with a comprehensive education in web3 development. In addition, AU also offers a collection of pre-built code repositories (starter code) to help developers kickstart their projects. [26]
