Curious how to track what’s happening onchain without being a dev?

Blockchain data shouldn’t be locked behind high technical barriers. Whether you’re a marketer tracking campaign performance, a founder monitoring competitors, or a researcher analyzing user patterns, @Dune Analytics transforms how you access crypto insights.

Even if you don’t want to write new queries and create dashboards yourself, there are thousands of pre-built dashboards to browse and get a wealth of onchain data. It lets anyone query, visualize, and share blockchain data with SQ, no backend setup needed.

Who this guide is for?

This guide is built for anyone who needs blockchain data to work smarter:

Marketers tracking campaigns, user flows, and ecosystem growth

Researchers analyzing protocol mechanics and user behavior

Founders & PMs validating ideas and benchmarking competition

Growth teams building dashboards that engage and convert

What you’ll learn

By the end of this guide, you’ll know how to:

Navigate Dune’s interface and search functions

Discover top dashboards across DeFi, NFTs, rollups, and stablecoins

Use search filters to find high-signal queries and creators

Write basic SQL to filter, aggregate, and analyze onchain activity

Start building your own dashboards in Part 2

Step 1: Explore Dune with the Discover Tab

If you’re new to Dune, start with the Discover tab. It’s your home base for exploring the ecosystem.

Three Main Sections

The Discover tab is your gateway into the Dune ecosystem.

It’s broken down into:

Content: Browse dashboards and queries

Creators: Follow top contributors like @hildobby @CryptoKoryo, and more

Blockchains: Filter data by multiple chans Ethereum, Base, Solana, Arbitrum, etc.

Sort Options:

Trending: What’s hot right now

Most Popular: All-time greatest hits

Step 2: Master Dune’s Search Syntax

Use the top search bar on the Discover page. Some powerful search tips:

Step 3: Learn from these High-Signal Dashboards

Here are some high-signal dashboards to get you started:

1. DEX Metrics by @hagaetc: https://dune.com/hagaetc/dex-metrics

Volume across DEXs, chains, aggregators

Market share over time

Trade size breakdowns: whales vs retail

Solana DEXs, Telegram bots, order flow trends

2. Ethereum NFT Overview by @hildobby: https://dune.com/hildobby/ethereum-nfts

Trading volume, users, and active traders

Wash trading vs organic volume

Marketplace share: Blur, OpenSea, Magic Eden

3. Crypto Buy Signal by @CryptoKoryo: https://dune.com/cryptokoryo/crypto-buy-signal

BTC vs Altcoin trend signals

Market cycles: are we in a buy or distribution zone?

Macro-level crypto signals

4.ETH Staking Overview by @hildobby: https://dune.com/hildobby/eth2-staking

Total staked ETH and % of supply

Lido, Coinbase, Binance, ether.fi market share

Staking inflows/outflows post-Shanghai

• CEX vs LSD vs staking pools

5.ERC20 Token Metrics by @andrewhong5297: https://dune.com/ilemi/Token-Overview-Metrics

Token distribution

Holder concentration

DEX liquidity and usage

New users vs dumpers vs accumulators

6.DeFi User Growth by @richardchen39: https://dune.com/rchen8/defi-users-over-time

How DeFi adoption is trending

User base over time

7.Rollup Economics by @0xKofi: https://dune.com/niftytable/rollup-economics

L1 cost data: calldata, blobs, proof verification

Rollup revenue from tx fees

Are rollups profitable after L1 costs?

8.Stablecoin Overview by @RZinovyev: https://dune.com/KARTOD/stablecoins-overview

Fiat vs crypto vs algo-backed supply

Mint/burn activity

Market share trends

On-chain volume per stablecoin

Addresses banned by USDC/USDT

Project-Specific Dashboards

9.Optimism Superchain by @OPLabsPBC: https://dune.com/oplabspbc/op-stack-chains-l1-activity

L2 activity across OP Mainnet, Base, Zora, Mode

L1 data cost efficiency

OP Collective revenue contributions

Onchain profit after DA costs

Developer trends across OP chains

10.GMX Analytics by @GMX_IO: https://dune.com/gmx-io/gmx-analytics

TVL, volume, and fee data (Arbitrum + Avalanche)

Long/short open interest

Weekly/daily trader PnL

Market utilization by pool

Daily/weekly user activity

Bonus Tip: Explore More Creators

While this list highlights some key dashboards, there are many other creators doing amazing work.

Check out:

@EntropyAdvisors – https://dune.com/entropy_advisors

@dyorcryptoapp – https://dune.com/dyorcrypto

There are dozens more worth exploring. Spend time on the Creators tab inside Dune — it’s one of the best ways to learn and get inspired.

Step 4: Your First SQL Query on Dune

So you’ve explored dashboards and played around with filters. But now you want to build your own insights, right?

This section will teach you how to write your first SQL queries, understand Dune’s Ethereum data tables, and confidently analyze basic metrics using just a few powerful commands.

Let’s get started.

How Ethereum Data Maps to Dune Tables

Think of Dune like a massive Excel workbook where:

Each table = a spreadsheet (e.g. ethereum.transactions)

Each row = a transaction or event

Each column = a piece of data (e.g. from, to, value, block_time)

Dune organizes this raw blockchain data into several types of tables:

Everything starts from a transaction. Events (logs) and internal calls (traces) happen inside it.

Your First SQL Query

To run your first query on Dune, click Library in the top navigation bar, then click New Query.

Paste the following:

SELECT * FROM ethereum.transactions LIMIT 10;

Click Run, and you’ll see the output in a table format below your query.

This just shows the first 10 transactions ever recorded on Ethereum (as stored in Dune).

Now let’s build our muscles. 💪

Filtering with WHERE

Let’s find transactions from a specific wallet:

SELECT

*

FROM ethereum.transactions

WHERE

“from” = 0xabcd…

LIMIT 10

You can also filter by block time:

SELECT

*

FROM ethereum.transactions

WHERE

block_time >= CURRENT_TIMESTAMP - INTERVAL ‘1’ day

LIMIT 20

Selecting Specific Columns

If you only want a few columns:

SELECT hash, “from”, “to”, value FROM ethereum.transactions LIMIT 5;

🔹 hash: Unique ID of the transaction

🔹 value: ETH amount sent (in wei, needs conversion)

Sorting & Ordering Results

SELECT hash, block_time FROM ethereum.transactions ORDER BY block_time DESC LIMIT 5;

DESC means newest first. Use ASC for oldest first.

Aggregating with GROUP BY

Let’s count how many transactions each address has sent:

SELECT “from”, COUNT(*) AS total_sent FROM ethereum.transactions GROUP BY “from” ORDER BY total_sent DESC LIMIT 10;

You just did your first aggregation 👏

COUNT() is your best friend for basic metrics.

Useful SQL Math Functions

You can apply math too:

SELECT “from”, SUM(value)/1e18 AS total_eth_sent FROM ethereum.transactions GROUP BY “from” ORDER BY total_eth_sent DESC LIMIT 5;

1e18 converts wei → ETH

SUM(value) gives total ETH sent per address

Aliasing: Make Columns Easier to Read

SELECT hash AS tx_id, block_time AS time, value / 1e18 AS eth_value FROM ethereum.transactions LIMIT 5;

DISTINCT: Get Unique Values

Want to know how many unique addresses interacted with Ethereum recently?

SELECT COUNT(DISTINCT “from”) AS unique_senders

FROM ethereum.transactions

WHERE block_time >= now() - INTERVAL ‘3’ DAY;

Working with Timestamps

Here’s how to filter by a specific date:

SELECT * FROM ethereum.transactions WHERE block_time > TIMESTAMP ‘2025-04-04 00:00:00’;

You can also round down time to intervals using date_trunc():

SELECT

date_trunc(‘day’, block_time) AS day,

COUNT(*) AS txs

FROM ethereum.transactions

GROUP BY 1

ORDER BY 1 DESC

LIMIT 10

Bonus: Combine All These Skills

WITH recent_tx AS (

SELECT

*

FROM ethereum.transactions

WHERE

block_time >= CURRENT_TIMESTAMP - INTERVAL ‘3’ day

)

SELECT

“from”,

COUNT(*) AS tx_count,

SUM(value) / 1e18 AS total_eth_sent

FROM recent_tx

GROUP BY

“from”

ORDER BY

total_eth_sent DESC

LIMIT 10

Wrapping up and what’s next?

If you’ve made it this far, treat yourself to some sparkling water. You’ve earned it.

You’ve just taken your first real steps into the world of onchain data analysis with Dune.

But this is just the beginning.

Once you’re comfortable with queries, the real power of Dune comes alive: connecting tables, decoding smart contract logs, and building dynamic dashboards that can power growth, strategy, and storytelling.

Disclaimer:

1. This article is reprinted from [Stacy Muur]. All copyrights belong to the original author [Stacy Muur]. If there are objections to this reprint, please contact the Gate Learn team, and they will handle it promptly.
2. Liability Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not constitute any investment advice.
3. The Gate Learn team does translations of the article into other languages. Copying, distributing, or plagiarizing the translated articles is prohibited unless mentioned.