Founded by Ryan Selkis in 2018, Messari is an online database for the crypto industry that provides data insights, pricing, and research on crypto-assets through an open-source library of information. It seeks to be the crypto industry’s equivalent of Crunchbase and the US Security and Exchange Commission’s EDGAR database, which contains company registration statements and reports among other documents, all of which are publicly available.
In late 2018, Messari launched a disclosure registry for token projects to publicly share information on things like token supply, token design, treasury management, team members, official communications channels and, if available, any audits of the technology. In 2019, the registry had 35 participating projects including Blockstack, Maker, polymath, zcash, and zilliqa.
Messari also offers a dashboard of crypto-assets displaying metrics including but not limited to price, market cap, supply, volume, and percent issued of the supply. Messari has proposed precise definitions for a variety of metrics with the aim of creating an industry standard. Messari’s platform also includes profiles of token projects created by vetted analysts from the crypto community.
Additionally, in 2018, Selkis notably suggested that Messari could act as a self-regulatory organization for the crypto industry by utilizing a ‘token-curated registry’. In this model, Messari would build a decentralized registry of token projects which would be governed by a token. More specifically, crypto projects would apply to become a part of the registry, and people or organizations who held the registry token – such as major funds, crypto exchanges and advisory firms – would vote to admit or reject applicants. Selkis has said the token could be distributed through an initial coin offering (ICO).
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Authored by Matthew Kimmell
https://www.coindesk.com/company/messari
