Codex Protocol Product Update: Search Overhaul

As the Codex Registry nears half a million items, we’ve made some product updates to support collectors using the platform.

Following a strong end to 2019, this quarter shows no sign of slowing down. Nearly half a million items have been registered on the Codex Registry. In this quarter alone over 100,000 items have been added to Codex by auction houses, collectors, galleries and artists.

Search problems

As businesses scale, it’s natural that some processes retire as room is made for improvements. Our latest product update demonstrates just that. During Q3 of 2019, we launched Search and Browse features on the Codex Registry. These implementations allowed viewers to keyword search through all public Records on Codex. To learn more about those changes, including how it increased SEO benefits, check out this article.

As the Registry grew, searching became more cumbersome and inefficient. Due to the rapidly growing number of Codex Records that the search function had to process, normal search routines became nearly impossible and would often time out, returning no results.

The solution

As far as problems that need fixing go, this is a pretty great one to have. Our engineering team has put in time this quarter to improve the search functionality of the Registry.

Previously, all searches were done through complicated database queries. We’ve now implemented an open-source software called Sonic. Sonic is specifically built for fast text-based searching, exactly what is needed to execute an efficient search through the Codex Registry. When Codex Records are created or updated, they are automatically indexed through Sonic, making searches almost instantaneous.

As we have discussed in this article Codex Records can be public or private. While Sonic does index all Codex Records, private and public Records are kept in two separate “buckets”. Records that have been made private will only appear in searches for the owner of a private Record.

Why this matters for collectors

One goal for Codex is to make searching through the art and collectibles Registry as easy as possible for collectors. As the Codex Registry continues on its trajectory, it will become one of the most comprehensive sources of artwork and collectible item information. A free and searchable resource of auction records is highly valuable for collectors and gives the art world the transparency it craves.

The Codex Registry allows buyers to search through hundreds of thousands (soon to be millions) of auction house results. Collectors can search for items similar to theirs to learn more about a collectible class, or they can verify the authenticity of an asset by finding its tamper-proof Record on Codex.

As Codex continues to add more collectors via our integration with LiveAuctioneers, we are excited to update our search capabilities. More collectors turn to Codex every day to help them manage their collection online, and we’re proud to continuously improve the platform and bring transparency and trust to the art market.

About Codex

Codex is the leading decentralized asset registry for the $2 trillion arts & collectibles (“A&C”) ecosystem, which includes art, fine wine, collectible cars, antiques, decorative arts, coins, watches, jewelry, and more. Codex will be adopted by the Codex Consortium, a group of major stakeholders in the A&C space who facilitate over $6 Billion in sales to millions of bidders across tens of thousands of auctions from 5,000 auction houses in over 50 countries.

To learn more about Codex initiatives, visit our white paper. To inquire about partnerships and developing dApps using the Codex Protocol, please contact us via Telegram or Twitter