Thread by @oralabs_

Hello World!

We’re excited to announce Ora: the search engine for blockchain data ▩ ▩ ▩

Our vision is to make querying blockchains as easy as a Google search 🔍

Traversing crypto transactions should feel like surfing the web(3) 🏄

What’s the problem we’re solving ❓

Right now, it's impossible for most users to understand what's happening on-chain

Simple questions like "how much did I pay @MagicEden in fees last week?" require complex solutions (e.g. indexing an archive node or running SQL queries) 😰

Lots of people like @andy8052, @zachxbt or @jackbutcher have noted that Solana transactions are notoriously difficult to interpret

Why are all these accounts here, what's actually happening in the transaction, why is it calling into this program?

https://twitter.com/andy8052/status/1554625297336729609

So, how is Ora solving this?

In two ways:
1️⃣ A blockchain search engine 🤖
2️⃣ A human-readable transaction viewer 🔍

We let users query on-chain data with natural language 💬

Using large language models in the backend, we let anyone easily explore, navigate and inspect on-chain transactions 🧐

We also built a transaction viewer your parents could understand

Want to see all trades between two dates? One click ✅

Want to filter for transactions that called a specific instruction? One click ✅

Want to order transactions by descending SOL amount order? One click ✅

Our first prototype looked like this lol

But we quickly iterated and soon arrived at a working conversion process for basic queries that hooks up into our search interface

As @FurqanR likes to say, we made sure to “get the f** out of localhost”

After a month of building for Solana's Summercamp hackathon, we now have a search engine that lets users

◼️ make complex queries in natural language - e.g. “show me all successful @JupiterExchange swaps between between 42 and 420 SOL from two days ago”

◼️ filter transactions - e.g. by called instructions or time range
◼️ sort transactions - e.g. by descending SOL balance changes
◼️ see summary descriptions in the form of “hey, X user called Y program with Z arguments, ABC is what happened”

So, what about existing solutions?

Block explorers and SQL dashboards are great ✨

But they mainly serve technical users and are not geared towards mainstream users 🤷‍♂️

Ultimately, Ora is a complementary piece to existing infrastructure 🧩

We already integrate block explorers like @solanafm @solscanofficial 🤝

Our search results could further link to existing Dune/Nansen pages (@ASvanevik @mewwts if you’re reading this, we’d love to chat!) 🌐

Why now?

🚀 Web3 is slowly reaching a mainstream market
🔍 Blockchains are a radical shift in data transparency
🤖 Large Language Models are turning into APIs
📲 Crypto is going Mobile

While crypto hasn’t found its iPhone moment yet, initiatives like @solanamobile are leading the charge

Our hypothesis is that mobile users will seek out a Google-like experience in the long run

Or would you want to use an explorer / run SQL queries on a phone? 🤔

The idea of a web3 Google/search engine is not new

@gaby_goldberg @spencernoon @mariogabriele @nickgrossma @cdixon @dunkhippo33 @packyM @nosleepjon @richerd @wilburforce_ @TaschaLabs @BrendanEich @joemccann @sriramk @benedictevans have all talked about it in one form or another

Neither is the concept of using LLMs for search engines

People like @amasad, @KyleSamani, @0xdoug, @ericjang11 have all pondered how LLMs could be leveraged in new search engines while @paulg has contemplated the value proposition of verticalized search engines

.@balajis has even floated the idea of leveraging LLMs to power a search engine for blockchains 👀

Coincidentally, that’s exactly what Ora is:

We let users query on-chain data with natural language.

https://twitter.com/balajis/status/1368848541041369089

Thanks to @CarlKVogel @0xMert_ @0xSelina @abishekinguout @evgeth_ @_ilmoi @analyticalali @evanbat_ @DavidTiczon @JustinBarlow @aeyakovenko @kunal_modi @ai @shayonsengupta @mccannatron for feedback/help the past month + @mtnDAO @barrett_io @edgarpavlovsky for convening the squad🫶

There's still a ton to build and this is just version 0.1 of Ora

Stay tuned as we add more features and improve the product 🫡

We'd love to chat with anyone who's interested in collaborating. So, feel free to hit our DMs 🤝

We’re currently piloting Ora with a handful of early users

If you’re interested in trying out the alpha release, feel free to join our waitlist here ✌️

forms.gle/W5wWfkeMhcLtyg…