SQD: Our 5-Year Evolution

Everyone always asks when $SQD will moon, but no one asks how did $SQD even start?

Like any big journey, it started with a niche obsession by one of the protagonists.

Act 1: The Meeting.

Despite much of his time being consumed by research for his PhD studies, @dizhel always found time to spend on crypto forums, quickly realizing the potential of the technology. He was convinced to the point of being willing to quit his math PhD.

In the end, he didn’t, but became a Messari community analyst on the side. After traveling to DAppCon, one encounter led to another, and after an evening on the roofs over Berlin, he met @i_1337_i, who ended up offering him a job.

Act 2: Trials and Tribulations

Unfortunately, this first collaboration did not result in a revolution but was torn apart by another crypto winter, leading our Co-Founders to part ways.

Undeterred by the cold, both remained in the crypto space. Dmitry joined a video streaming startup in the Polkadot ecosystem and, as part of the indexing team, quickly stumbled across a major problem: accessing blockchain data is hard.

His MVP wins the infra track at the Web3 Foundation hackathon. After reconnecting with MF, they both officially established Subsquid Labs, raising their seed round with 80% marketshare in the Polkadot ecosystem and an ambitious whitepaper powered by hard math.

Act 3: From Underdog to Established

Since establishing the company, $SQD (formerly Subsquid) has been on a steady growth trajectory, expanding the engineering team, increasing the network size, and gradually establishing ourselves as a serious contender in the blockchain data access space.

We went from just a little squid to having partnered with the Deutsche Telekom, integrations with Google Cloud, and powering the backend of PancakeSwap and other million-user apps.

But we’re far from done.