Cardano‑on‑BigQuery: Getting Started (7‑Day Trial)

Welcome! This guide explains what you get, how to access it, and gives you some richer example queries to run in BigQuery.

What you’re getting

During your 7‑day trial we grant your GCP email read access to:

Project: blockchain-analytics-392322
Dataset: cardano_mainnet

No local node or sync required — just run SQL in BigQuery.

Prerequisites

You need a Google account and a Google Cloud project where you can use BigQuery.

Option A — BigQuery Sandbox (no billing): Free tier suitable for evaluation (typically ~1 TB of query processing + 10 GB storage per month).
Option B — BigQuery with billing: Recommended if you expect to exceed Sandbox limits or need full features. You still benefit from Google’s free tier before any charges apply.

Quick links (helpful if you’re new to GCP)

BigQuery Console: https://console.cloud.google.com/bigquery
BigQuery Sandbox overview: https://cloud.google.com/bigquery/docs/sandbox
Enable billing on a project: https://cloud.google.com/billing/docs/how-to/modify-project
BigQuery IAM roles (access control): https://cloud.google.com/bigquery/docs/access-control

Tip: You’ll find the shared dataset under “Pinned projects” or “Shared with me” in the BigQuery Explorer as blockchain-analytics-392322.

Example queries (Standard SQL)

Use the dataset path:
blockchain-analytics-392322.cardano_mainnet.<table>

1) Latest blocks with fees & tx counts

Shows the last 10 blocks with their fee totals (in ADA) and tx counts.

SELECT
  epoch_no,
  slot_no,
  TIMESTAMP(block_time) AS block_time,
  tx_count,
  block_size,
  sum_tx_fee / 1e6 AS fees_ada
FROM `blockchain-analytics-392322.cardano_mainnet.block`
ORDER BY block_time DESC
LIMIT 10;

2) Address balance

Retrieve UTXO counts and current balance for a given address using the vw_address_balance helper view.

SELECT
  address,
  incoming_utxo_count,
  incoming_utxo_lovelace / 1e6 AS incoming_ada,
  consumed_utxo_count,
  consumed_utxo_lovelace / 1e6 AS consumed_ada,
  current_balance_lovelace / 1e6 AS current_balance_ada
FROM `blockchain-analytics-392322.cardano_mainnet.vw_address_balance`
WHERE address = 'addr1qx5kyyqpg7xysmqly07qg030425q5ctcjyvxzz8rfcm2ma0fum5wemf2lxe2pvkul6kuu7j2j4p0nt3z0zhz9l5t0tyq6g4qkr';
-- change the address above

3) Transaction summary per epoch

Get a high-level summary of on-chain activity for and epoch, breaking down transaction metrics by type. The data returned highlights the key differences between standard, non-scripted transactions and those involving smart contracts.

SELECT 
  type,
  subtype,
  epoch_no,
  count,
  sum_fees,
  sum_txsz,
  min_txsz,
  average_txsz,
  max_txsz,
  sum_txscriptsz,
  invalid_scripts_cnt 
FROM `blockchain-analytics-392322.cardano_mainnet.vw_tx_summary` 
WHERE epoch_no=500

Need help? Questions welcome at info@blockchain-applied.com.