Unmarshal

Unmarshal is a multi-chain blockchain data infrastructure protocol that transforms raw on-chain activity into structured, queryable data through developer APIs -- and as of March 2025, a fully decentralized network secured through EigenLayer Actively Validated Services, with an evolving role as an intelligence layer for AI agents in crypto.

Background and Origins

Unmarshal was founded in late 2020 and is headquartered in Bangalore, India. The project emerged from a concrete gap in the blockchain ecosystem: raw on-chain data is effectively unusable without significant developer effort to parse, decode, and structure it. Basic blockchain APIs at the time returned low-level transaction records that required complex processing to answer straightforward questions such as what tokens a wallet holds or the DeFi position history for a given address.

Unmarshal set out to solve this by building a data layer that transforms raw blockchain activity into clean, structured, immediately queryable outputs. Unlike indexing protocols that require developers to write and deploy custom subgraphs, Unmarshal emphasized no-code-accessible data: teams could obtain customized data outputs without writing blockchain-specific code.

Fundraising

In March 2021, Unmarshal closed a $2.6 million seed round backed by crypto-native funds including Woodstock, NGC Ventures, Genesis Block Ventures, Black Edge Capital, AU21, Spark Ventures, and BitMax. The round also included prominent individual investors, most notably Sandeep Nailwal, co-founder of Polygon, as well as Ravindra Kumar and Philip Arthur Moore from Frontier. The investor profile reflected Unmarshal positioning as foundational infrastructure for the multi-chain DeFi ecosystem expanding across Ethereum and its adjacent networks.

Core Products

At its foundation, Unmarshal is a data indexing and API platform organized across several product lines:

DeFi and NFT APIs: Developers query wallet balances, token holdings, transaction histories, NFT metadata, and DeFi protocol positions through standardized REST API endpoints. These APIs abstract the complexity of decoding raw blockchain state across heterogeneous networks.

No-Code Smart Contract Indexing (Parser): The Unmarshal parser allows developers and non-technical teams to index custom smart contract events without writing subgraph code, lowering the barrier for custom blockchain data extraction.

xscan.io Multichain Explorer: A multi-chain block explorer aggregating and presenting on-chain activity across dozens of networks in a unified interface.

Notifications and Alerts: On-chain event notification services that developers can integrate into applications for real-time alerting on wallet activity, contract events, and protocol state changes.

Analytics and Insights: Higher-order data products built atop the indexing layer, offering portfolio analytics and market intelligence for DeFi users and protocols.

The platform covers more than 50 blockchains, including Solana, Ethereum, Polygon, BNB Chain, Avalanche, Fantom, Celo, Klaytn, Moonbeam, Kadena, Arbitrum, Optimism, Metis, and XDC Network. At scale, Unmarshal serves more than 2,500 Web3 applications and processes approximately 1.8 billion API calls per quarter.

The MARSH Token

Unmarshal native token, MARSH, is an ERC-20 token on Ethereum. Originally conceived as a utility token for accessing premium indexing services, MARSH role has expanded considerably as the network architecture evolved.

Current and planned MARSH utilities include staking to unlock exclusive API service tiers, delegating through EigenLayer for restaking incentives, voting on the prioritization of new chain integrations and indexing services, and a protocol revenue share mechanism in which protocol fees fund MARSH buybacks to create sustained token demand.

March 2025: Decentralized Mainnet Launch

The most consequential milestone in Unmarshal development was the launch of its decentralized mainnet on March 31, 2025, roughly four years after the project public debut. This transition moved Unmarshal from a centralized API provider to a permissionless, decentralized data network.

The launch was built in collaboration with EigenLayer and Kryon Network. Through integration with EigenLayer AVS framework, Unmarshal node operations inherit Ethereum economic security: nodes are validated using a cryptoeconomic trust mechanism rather than relying on a single centralized operator. The Kryon Network serves as an initial AVS operator, lowering the technical barrier for participants who want to run nodes by allowing them to delegate MARSH and earn rewards without directly operating infrastructure.

Under this architecture, developers, node operators, and MARSH token holders collectively govern the network: determining which chains get indexed, at what priority, and on what terms. The community-owned framing the project uses reflects an ambition to evolve from a company-operated API service into decentralized data infrastructure with open participation.

AI Agent Intelligence Layer

By 2025, Unmarshal began positioning its data pipelines as critical infrastructure for AI agents operating on-chain. As autonomous agents became a major development frontier in the Solana and broader Web3 ecosystem, Unmarshal argued that raw RPC data is insufficient for agents that need to reason about, not merely observe, blockchain activity.

The platform normalized, cross-chain data covering token prices, liquidity states, NFT metadata, DeFi protocol positions, governance events, and real-time market activity is designed to serve as a knowledge substrate for AI agents making on-chain decisions. The 2025 roadmap included onboarding AI and real-world asset partners, expanding real-time analytics capabilities, and developing institutional-grade data products for this use case.