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5 SQL Patterns Every Onchain Analyst Should Know
From wallet cohort analysis to DEX volume breakdowns, these query patterns show up in real analyst workflows every week.
Ada Okonkwo
Lead Blockchain Analyst
Onchain SQL is not just SELECT * FROM transactions. Analysts spend most of their time turning messy event logs into structured insights for researchers, investors, and protocol teams.
Pattern 1: Cohort retention. Track wallets that interacted with a protocol in month one and measure how many return in subsequent months. This requires self-joins or window functions over first-activity timestamps.
Pattern 2: Token flow tracing. Follow transfers between labeled and unlabeled addresses to understand treasury movements, whale activity, or bridge inflows.
Pattern 3: DEX pair analytics. Aggregate swap volumes by pair, version, and chain. Analysts use this to spot liquidity migration and market share shifts across venues.
Pattern 4: New user acquisition funnels. Combine contract deployment dates, first-interaction events, and referral patterns to measure growth quality, not just headline TVL.
Pattern 5: Cross-protocol overlap. Identify wallets active on multiple DeFi apps to map ecosystem stickiness and partnership opportunities.
These patterns form the backbone of our SQL for Blockchain Analytics course. Master them and you can answer 80% of the questions protocol teams actually ask.