Onchain Markets: Blockworks just picked up Messari, bringing together the two biggest names in crypto data and market intelligence platforms. The deal, which follows Blockworks’ recent Series A extension aimed at consolidating crypto’s messy and fragmented data sector, creates a unified system of record for onchain assets, from standardized disclosures and investor relations to Application Programming Interface (API)-driven workflows for AI agents.
Why Blockworks acquired Messari
For eight years, Messari has built the most comprehensive dataset in crypto: over 40,000 assets covered, plus an API that powers funds, exchanges, developers, and increasingly AI agents. The API includes data for assets, markets, exchanges, news, research, stablecoins, protocols, token unlocks, fundraising, social sentiment, and event monitoring. It’s become critical infrastructure.
Blockworks, meanwhile, has focused on the issuer side: standardized disclosures through the Token Transparency Framework, a full-stack investor relations platform for onchain assets, trusted research, institutional relationships, and scaled distribution.
The reason for the merger is pretty simple: issuers need a spot to share their info, and analysts need a reliable way to dig into it. Messari handled the data side for the analysts/underwriters, while Blockworks built the platform for the issuers. Together, they can build the single system of record for all onchain assets.
The bigger bet: AI workflows for onchain markets
Crypto is institutionalizing. As it does, onchain markets need the same machinery every mature market relies on: investor relations, standardized disclosures, compliance tools, ratings, and programmatic access for AI agents. Blockworks and Messari together can provide all of it.
The combined platform will serve two key customers:
- Asset issuers (protocols, chains, foundations, stablecoins, and real-world asset (RWA) issuers, prediction markets) need to earn trust, disclose information, explain performance, and manage investors.
- Asset underwriters (investors, regulators, exchanges, custodians, fintechs, brokerages, and increasingly AI agents) need to analyze, review, and list those assets.
Therefore, the more issuers that join the platform, the more valuable the data layer becomes. The more underwriters that consume the information, the more valuable it becomes for issuers to publish data through Blockworks.
In simple words, “it’s a classic two-sided network effect.” And AI accelerates it: the winning platform will combine proprietary data, issuer-provided disclosures, onchain activity, and market intelligence to make the market easier to understand and operate.
