Backing Ceramic
Today we are happy to announce that we are supporting Ceramic in a $30M Series A round led by Multicoin Capital and Union Square Ventures. We are very excited to back the team, and to support their vision of unlocking data composability in the Web3 ecosystem. They are solving a problem we have been obsessing over for years and we truly believe they are the right team to solve it.
This is our first investment that we at StreamingFast are publicly announcing, and we couldn’t be more thrilled. StreamingFast is an employee-owned company made up of some of the best Web3 builders in the space. We are Core Developers of The Graph and the masterminds behind the Firehose, a files-based and streaming-first approach to processing blockchain data. We are making strategic investments in projects building core components of the Web3 stack that we can also accelerate through our unique expertise.
Today, we see our data being owned and controlled by centralized tech giants who view us simply as means to earn profit. With no possibility of escaping these walled gardens with our data and with these companies having no plans of protecting it, we have to find another way of approaching user data management. With the introduction of blockchain technology, for the first time in the internet era, some power has been given to the average user. However, the blockchain technology that we know and love can’t solve our data management problems, because the ledgers we use today are transactionally and financially centric. A blockchain built to manage data points instead of transactions would allow for a new, scalable, and interoperable system of data management that would put data back in the hands of the people, whilst keeping it safer than ever.
Enter Ceramic, a decentralized network for composable data…
Builders all around the world are working on a network of machines that will share data in a way that the world is yet to see. The way that this data will be shared will dictate the future, and essentially be the determining factor of whether a world full of metaverses will succeed. To ultimately succeed, this data will require the ability to be opened, shared, and used by everyone. All the barriers that have been placed by tech giants that have become routine and accepted will be reduced to nearly nothing with the creation of a data-centric metaverse.
Ceramic has positioned itself as the leader of this data-centric metaverse by decentralizing application databases — making data universally composable and reusable across applications. The network consists of three core parts:
- A highly-scalable, decentralized infrastructure for data availability and consensus
- A marketplace of community-created data models
- A suite of standard APIs for storing, updating, and retrieving data from those models
The future according to Ceramic is a future we’d want to live in.
They’ve created a clear vision for how that future may become a reality, and it heavily involves helping developers. Lots of the optimism around the metaverse is fueled by the blockchain community. However, with insufficient support and tools for developers, it will never see the light of day. Ceramic plans to focus on catering to the Web3 developer market by providing the tools, development environments, and incentives to flourish within their ecosystem. As an ecosystem, they recognize the importance of positioning themselves as the ideal option for data management. As the space adapts to the wants and needs of the masses, having the go-to ecosystem for managing developers’ data will allow Ceramic to build trust amongst the people. This foundation for developers will support Ceramic’s vision of becoming the reputable option for Web3 developers and enthusiasts alike for building Web3 data features and applications. Developers seem to be on board with Ceramic’s vision, as the network has already served millions of requests from developers across hundreds of apps and thousands of developers during its beta.
There’s going to be lots of change, and Ceramic is more than ready to handle it.
The world has seen Web3 adopters throw themselves into digital communities, be it for a shared cause brought together by a DAO, or by buying an exclusive BAYC or CryptoPunk NFT. While adopters and believers are very optimistic of the future of community-owned protocols, and despite these communities having begun to break out of the “crypto” space into the mainstream, they have yet to prove to the world that they can be sustainable. Ceramic believes that through having networks of shared data and applications, these communities will prove themselves as communities that can adapt over time, and continue to maintain influence and exclusivity in all different and new aspects of life.
With Web3 comes a very strong pseudonymous culture. When it comes to a decentralized world, we’re all on the same playing field. The identities that builders and users have adopted have become crucial to how they do business and how they grow their brand. Ceramic realizes that this culture requires a strong system of being able to transfer identities across the metaverse if it wants to prevail. This identity system would allow for people to seamlessly transfer themselves and attract a following across the tons of new applications that will be built within Ceramic’s ecosystem. This is something that we at StreamingFast believe will play an essential role in mass Web3 adoption and that Ceramic is positioning itself to lead. Not surprisingly, the Ceramic community has already built several data model standards for such use cases including cross-chain identity, user profiles, social graphs, social networks, skills graphs, and reputation systems. All of these innovations are being brought to light thanks to Ceramic’s dynamic ecosystem, so we are so excited for what is to come from them and all they have to offer the world of data decentralization.
About StreamingFast
StreamingFast builds massively scalable open-source software for processing and indexing blockchain data. Founded by a team of serial tech entrepreneurs, the company has deep expertise in large scale data science. Its core innovation, the Firehose, is a files-based and streaming-first approach to processing blockchain data that enables high performance indexing on high throughput chains.
