How DappRadar saves $84k annually in operating costs with SimpleHash

Founded in 2018, DappRadar is The World’s Dapp Store: a globally decentralized applications (dapps) store powered by its $RADAR token. You can find over 14,000 dapps tracked across 51 blockchains, including Ethereum, BSC, Polygon, Avalanche, Fantom, Flow, and Cardano. Gain valuable insights using DappRadar, and manage your crypto wallet, tokens, and NFTs from your DappRadar Portfolio.

According to Michael Ionita, Vice President of Engineering at DappRadar, that wide-ranging, multi-chain customer experience wouldn’t be possible without SimpleHash.

“Every time I talk to the SimpleHash team, I always think: ‘Wow, those people are true professionals.’ That’s why I really like working with them in a nascent industry like Web3 apps.” - Michael Ionita, Vice President of Engineering at DappRadar

The Challenge

Handling NFT metadata & media costs tens of thousands each month

DappRadar’s NFT Explorer and NFT Portfolio features – which allow people to find, track, manage, and analyze their NFT holdings – are a major benefit for its users. However, DappRadar needs to load all NFT images, videos, and animated GIFs in real-time as users browse the website. Loading these media files directly from IPFS (and others) was slow and created a bad user experience. 

Meanwhile, storing the media files directly on DappRadar’s backend was costing the business tens of thousands of dollars monthly. That’s an especially hefty price tag considering DappRadar doesn't need to access every file each month — just the collections users want to view. 

With this, Michael’s team began searching for a solution that would simultaneously: 

1. Save the DappRadar team time and money on NFT data indexing and storage
2. Enable DappRadar to continue providing an optimal, multi-chain customer experience

The Solution

SimpleHash powers real-time media & portfolio views

After discovering SimpleHash, the DappRadar team realized our low-lift integration and transparent, competitive pricing solved both pain points. Since onboarding, our multi-chain NFT API has provided the sophisticated data infrastructure DappRadar had been missing. For instance: 

• SimpleHash’s automatic refreshing engine ensures metadata updates in real-time, so users never receive anything less than an up-to-date portfolio view. 

• SimpleHash provides dynamically sized image previews, blurhashes, and media conversions in easy-to-handle formats — solving DappRadar’s media challenges at the source. 

On top of technical functionality, Michael highlights the SimpleHash team’s responsiveness and professionalism from day one of the partnership — two qualities that make us an ideal long-term vendor. 

The Results

DappRadar offers users a faster experience while saving $84K annually

Since teaming up with SimpleHash, DappRadar has seen impressive results from our API:  

• $84,000 saved annually in operating costs

Looking ahead, Michael emphasizes how excited he is to partner with SimpleHash for the long term. In his words, both of our teams prioritize technical innovation and customer care, creating “a great culture fit” for an ongoing partnership.  

“Whenever we find edge cases, the SimpleHash team has already thought of those and taken steps to ensure they won’t happen. I’m really excited to keep partnering with SimpleHash because we’re all on the same page.” 

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