What is The Graph (GRT) cryptocurrency?

Main

• The Graph is a decentralized protocol designed to efficiently index and query data from public blockchains.
• The basic functional element of The Graph are subgraphs created by third-party developers to receive and index data from specific blockchains.
• The Graph protocol was first launched on Ethereum, but its subgraphs are now running on over 30 decentralized networks.
• Blockchain projects that have created their own subgraphs and use them today include Aave, Audius, Uniswap, Opyn, ENS, DAOstack, Synthetix, Gnosis, Balancer, Livepeer, Decentraland, and others.

Who created The Graph?

Graph Protocol was founded in 2018 in San Francisco by Yaniv Tal, Yannis Polmann and Brandon Ramirez. They have previously collaborated on several software startups focused on building developer tools together.

In the same year, a non-profit organization was registered in the United States The Graph Foundationwhich has taken on the task of spreading technology, preserving intellectual property and supporting the development of the ecosystem.

Project in total collected $69.6 million in funding in seven phases. The seed round, which was led by the Multicoin Capital crypto fund, took place in January 2019 and brought the startup $2.5 million.

In October 2020, a public token sale took place, during which $12 million was raised. And the largest round took place in January 2022 and raised $50 million. Graph Protocol investors include funds such as Coinbase Ventures, Digital Currency Group, AU21 Capital and Tiger global management.

On December 17, 2020, after several months of the test version, The Graph Network was launched on the Ethereum blockchain.

After the launch of The Graph Foundation protocol focused on developing the ecosystem and funding third-party engineering teams. The main developer of the protocol was the company Edge&Nodefounded by The Graph team in 2021.

How does The Graph Network work?

The Graph indexes blockchain data in a similar way that Google crawlers index web pages. During this process, files, data, and metadata are searched and cataloged so that results can be quickly found.

The protocol organizes data into subgraphs, which are open API. Any developer can create their own subgraph and offer it to The Graph Network community to transfer data (for example, token quotes) to decentralized applications.

The Graph Network adheres to the principles of maximum decentralization: most of the stages of the protocol are distributed among thousands of community members, and their contribution to the operation of the network is paid for by GRT tokens.

In addition to independent development teams that create subgraphs, there are four types of participants in the protocol:

• indexers are node operators that index the blockchain and process requests in exchange for a reward. To get started, they must lock up at least 100,000 GRT as collateral for the integrity of the node. If the node provides incorrect data, then the operator is penalized;
• curators are community members who signal to indexers which subgraphs contain valuable data and should be indexed. A signal is generated when a curator places their GRTs in a specific subgraph. Moreover, several curators can vote for one or another subgraph. In the latter case, they will all receive a portion of the request commission in proportion to their contribution;
• delegates — these members can delegate tokens to one or more indexers, receiving a share of the request processing rewards. If the delegator wants to revoke the GRT, they will have to wait 28 days for it to be unlocked;
• consumers are the end users of the protocol, who use the GraphQL language to get data from the subgraphs. For each request, they pay in GRT tokens distributed among indexers, curators, and delegates.

An indexer can run its own The Graph Node for any EVM compatible blockchain. Nodes are also able to interact with other blockchains through integration with the Firehose tool. NEAR, Arweave, Solana and Cosmos networks are already supported.

With The Graph, developers create Web3 applications that do not require centralized servers and run entirely on a public, decentralized infrastructure.

Tokenomics The Graph

The Graph Network ecosystem uses the GRT utility token of the ERC-20 standard.

GRT was instrumental in raising funding for the project. Even before the launch of the main network for 2018-20, 17% of the asset supply was sold on private and open token sales and a total of $7.5 million was collected.

At the launch of The Graph Network, the initial emission of GRT was 10 billion. Tokens distributed in the following way:

• team and advisors – 23%;
• community (he Graph Foundation and other purposes) – 35%;
• investors – 34%;
• Edge & Node – 8%.

The token unlocking schedule is designed for 10 years. As of August 2022, 74% of the total supply or 7.4 billion GRT have been unlocked. The additional issue of the asset is about 3% per year. There are also a number of adjustable mechanics that will allow you to flexibly withdraw from circulation and burn some of the tokens.

GRT is a key element of the reward system that powers The Graph Network protocol. The token has several uses:

• financing – The Graph Foundation gives grants in GRT to developers of subgraphs and other tools;
• staking – indexers lock GRT as a pledge of their integrity when indexing subgraphs and processing requests;
• signaling – curators enter their GRT into the subgraphs, to draw the attention of indexers to it;
• delegation – delegators pass GRT to existing indexers;
• payment – data consumers pay GRT for requests to subgraphs;
• remuneration – Indexers, Curators, and Delegates receive a portion of the payment for requests.

Token traded on all major crypto exchanges like Binance, Coinbase, Kucoin, and OKX . The asset is in the top 100 by market capitalization.

How is The Graph developing?

In June 2020, the integration of the protocol with Chainlink was announced. This made it possible to transfer indexed data from subgraphs to smart contracts through the network of decentralized oracles of the latter.

In early 2021, The Graph Foundation awarded $5 million in grants to more than 50 teams in 10 countries to create protocol tools, subgraphs, and educational resources.

OpenZeppelin, Chainsafe, Consensys Diligence and other companies involved in the security of blockchain solutions were involved in the audit of the project ecosystem products.

In February 2022, Digital Currency Group, Multicoin Capital, Reciprocal Ventures, Cryptos Capital, NGC Ventures and HashKey created a $205 million fund dedicated to investing in blockchain projects using The Graph.

In the same month, The Graph Foundation launched the Graph Advocates program. Dozens of ambassadors have been selected from the community to create educational content, host events, provide technical support, and make The Graph resources available worldwide.

In April 2022, we introduced a new governing body – a decentralized autonomous organization Graph AdvocatesDAO, which took control and funding of the program Graph Advocates, as well as the distribution of community grants.

In less than 2 years since its launch, this project has already become an important element of the rapidly developing Web3 infrastructure and DeFi industry.

As of July 2022 The Graph supports data indexing on 31 networks, including Ethereum, NEAR, Arbitrium, Optimism, Polygon, Avalanche, Celo, Fantom, Moonbeam, IPFS, and PoA.

So far, over 24,000 developers have deployed over 31,000 subgraphs for applications like Uniswap, Synthetix, Zora, Known Origin, Gnosis, Balancer, Livepeer, DAOstack, Audius, and Decentraland.