How Dora powers the next generation of search for Web3 with Goldsky

Searching for blocks, transactions, and contract data across chains doesn't have to feel like a chore. Dora is a building a modern multi-chain block explorer, focused on bringing human-friendly search features to users across Web3.

Goldsky powers the onchain data indexing layer for Dora, giving users realtime data and letting the team add support for new chains in under 24 hours.

Searching for a Scalable Indexing Solution

In order to serve crypto data to users at scale, block explorers like Dora need to index information about every transaction & event that takes place onchain. Fast retrieval, accurate datasets, and access to instant chain activity are critical to provide users with a truly responsive experience.

Dora spent nearly four months building an EVM-compatible indexer in-house — an “incredibly hard task,” according to Dora's CEO & Cofounder, Bunny.

“Frankly, we spent way too much time on it. We had to wait for the backend team to unblock the API team, and then the API team to unblock the frontend team. Things weren't getting done as fast as we wanted them to.”

Dora's in-house indexer eventually worked, but it was slow, prone to error, and required heavy maintenance before each new chain integration. After months of trial and error, Bunny eventually had an idea — “Why don't we just talk to Goldsky?”

Discovering Goldsky Mirror

After a quick discovery phase, Dora gracefully migrated their core data infrastructure to Goldsky Mirror. Mirror acts as an end-to-end crypto data pipeline, pushing fully indexed chain data directly to Dora's backend database alongside their core application data.

“Mirror lets us ingest data with the guarantee that anything produced onchain will always be streamed and surfaced to the user, which is the whole point of what a block explorer should be. Other indexing tools we've used sometimes only cover 98% of the chain. With Goldsky, we never have to worry.”

Once Dora retooled their data infrastructure with Goldsky, the team was able to get back to focusing on their core product. With a constantly evolving landscape of L2s & rollups, Dora can now provide search support for new chains in a matter of hours.

“A lot of it comes down to having plurality of services in a modular stack. We can work with the best providers for our use case, and just focus on building technology central to the Dora experience. No team needs to also double as an infrastructure team. Applications can now outsource a lot of their critical infrastructure to partners like Goldsky & Dora to handle the complexities of data procurement, visualization, and interactivity.”

Reflecting on the Future

As Dora continues to build out their fleet of searchable chains, Goldsky is here to support every step of the way. With battle-tested infrastructure and custom solutions, we're built to handle the heaviest workloads.

”Goldsky takes the time to make any necessary modifications where needed. So far, Goldsky is the only infrastructure provider that supports OP Stack, Polygon CDK, and Arbitrum Orbit with same-day chain integrations and 24/7 on-call support. That's the kind of stuff that matters when you're running a large enterprise software company.”

Now that all that data is indexed — what's next? With the extra bandwidth gained from partnering with Goldsky, Dora is focused on building out their decoding & interpretation systems which serve to humanize onchain data. Dora is also developing a fully robust action infrastructure, letting users perform transfers, swaps, mints, and bridges natively within the search engine interface.

“Thanks to Goldsky, we can finally focus on bringing our chains to life. With rock-solid data infra and the ability to interact directly with onchain applications, Dora is creating the friendliest Web3 search engine for people worldwide.”

Realtime Data Streaming with Goldsky

Goldsky's mission is to unleash the full potential of Web3 data.

We're solving complex data engineering challenges so that builders can focus on what matters most — building transformational applications and delivering value to users.

Sign up for full access to Goldsky's realtime data streaming platform today, and be sure to give us a follow on Twitter for the latest news and announcements.