The Challenge: Drinking from the Solana Data Firehose
In the world of Web3, the Solana blockchain operates at an incredible velocity, processing thousands of transactions per second. This constant flood of on-chain data is a goldmine for developers, analysts, and builders. But it also presents a massive technical challenge: how do you capture, parse, and visualize this data in real-time without complex, inefficient, and costly systems?
Traditional batch processing is too slow, leaving you hours or even days behind. Many real-time solutions are resource-intensive and struggle to keep up. This is the problem we set out to solve.
The Solution: Real-Time Insights with RisingWave
We developed a demo that pairs the high-throughput capabilities of Solana with the stream processing power of RisingWave. The result is a simple, efficient, and powerful real-time dashboard that transforms raw on-chain data into actionable insights, instantly.
This isn't just another analytics tool. It’s a blueprint for building data-driven applications on the blockchain, powered by a streaming database that makes real-time easy.
Who Should Pay Attention to This Demo?
This demo provides a powerful blueprint for anyone building in the Web3 space. If you're one of the following, this is for you:
Blockchain Developers: Looking to quickly build real-time monitoring tools for your DApps, wallets, or exchanges.
Data Analysts: Want to perform trend analysis and detect anomalies in on-chain data without writing complex batch processing jobs.
Web3 Entrepreneurs: Need to validate real-time, data-driven business models—like on-chain alerts or dynamic fee strategies—at a fraction of the typical cost and complexity.
Now, let's dive into what you can see and build.
A Look Inside the Dashboard: What You Can See
Our demo provides a live, intuitive interface for monitoring Solana's pulse. Here’s a quick tour of what it can do.
1. Live Block-by-Block Analysis
The dashboard displays core metrics for both SOL Native Transfers and SPL Token Transfers across the 15 most recent blocks.
Instantly spot high-activity blocks: At a glance, you can compare transaction counts (Txs), total volume, and average transaction size.
Understand asset flow: Easily distinguish between native SOL and SPL token movements to see how value is moving through the ecosystem.
2. Aggregate View: The Big Picture and the Real-Time Pulse
This second view zooms out to show you the overall health and momentum of the network.
The 2-Minute Transfer Overview gives you a snapshot of recent transaction volume. In this example, it has processed 12,821 SOL transfers and 287 SPL-Token transfers in just two minutes, allowing you to instantly gauge the market "heat" and capital flow.
The 5-Second Transaction Count line chart visualizes the network's heartbeat. You can see the ebb and flow of transaction volume as it happens, making it easy to spot sudden spikes or lulls in on-chain activity.
How It Works: The Technical Architecture
The power of this demo lies in its elegant and efficient architecture, with RisingWave at its core. RisingWave acts as a streaming database, using simple SQL and Materialized Views to process and maintain real-time results without redundant computations.
Here's a breakdown of the end-to-end data flow:
Data Capture (Solana RPC): The system connects to Solana RPC nodes via WebSocket and RPC interfaces to capture every block change and transaction detail in near real-time.
Data Processing & Parsing: A custom script purifies the raw blockchain data, filtering for key events like SOL and SPL-Token transfers. This transforms raw bytes into a structured, analyzable format. The script uses a worker pool for parallel processing to keep up with Solana's speed. The collected data will then be sent to a Kafka topic.
Streaming Engine (RisingWave): This is where the magic happens.
Data Ingestion: Data is streamed into RisingWave from Kafka. With a simple CREATE SOURCE command, the raw transaction stream becomes a queryable table.
Transformation with SQL: We can easily convert the raw JSON data into a clean, relational table structure using a straightforward SQL query.
CREATE MATERIALIZED VIEW tx AS SELECT tx->>'slot' AS slot, (tx->>'blockTime')::TIMESTAMPTZ AS blockTime, tx->>'tx_type' AS tx_type, tx->>'signature' AS signature, tx->>'sender' AS sender, tx->>'receiver' AS receiver, (tx->>'amount')::NUMERIC AS amount, tx->>'fee' AS fee FROM ( SELECT jsonb_array_elements(transactions) AS tx FROM txs );Incremental Computation (Materialized Views): Instead of re-calculating metrics every time the dashboard refreshes, RisingWave uses materialized views to incrementally update results as new data arrives. This is the key to our ultra-low latency. For example, creating a view to count transactions in a 5-second window is incredibly simple:
CREATE MATERIALIZED VIEW tx_5s_count AS SELECT window_start, COUNT(*) AS tx_count FROM TUMBLE(tx, blocktime, INTERVAL '5 seconds') GROUP BY window_start;
Real-Time Visualization: The pre-calculated and always-fresh results from RisingWave's materialized views are fed directly into the dashboard, providing an "at a glance" view of on-chain dynamics.
Build It Yourself in Minutes
Ready to see it in action? This entire demo is open-source. We invite you to dive into the code, follow our step-by-step instructions, and see the power of real-time Solana analytics for yourself.
Get Started with RisingWave
Try RisingWave Today:
Download the open-sourced version of RisingWave to deploy on your own infrastructure.
Get started quickly with RisingWave Cloud for a fully managed experience.
Talk to Our Experts: Have a complex use case or want to see a personalized demo? Contact us to discuss how RisingWave can address your specific challenges.
Join Our Community: Connect with fellow developers, ask questions, and share your experiences in our vibrant Slack community.
If you’d like to see a personalized demo or discuss how this could work for your use case, please contact our sales team.
