What is The Graph(GRT)?

The Graph is an indexing protocol for searching data on networks such as Ethereum and IPFS, and it powers many apps in both DeFi and the larger Web3 ecosystem. Anyone can create and publish open APIs, known as subgraphs, that applications can query for blockchain data using GraphQL. There is a hosted service in production that allows developers to quickly get started building on The Graph, and the decentralized network will launch later this year. The Graph now indexes data from Ethereum, IPFS, and POA, with more networks on the way.

As of October 2020, the Graph had a global community of over 200 Indexer Nodes in the testnet and over 2,000 Curators in the Curator Programme. The Graph raised funding from community members, key VCs, and influential persons in the blockchain world, including Coinbase Ventures, DCG, Framework, ParaFi Capital, CoinFund, DTC, Multicoin, Reciprocal Ventures, SPC, Tally Capital, and others, to fund network expansion. The Graph Foundation also conducted a public GRT Sale with participation from 99 nations (excluding the United States). The Graph has raised $25 million as of November 2020.

Who are the founders of The Graph?

The Graph team is comprised of skilled professionals from prominent organizations such as Ethereum Foundation, OpenZeppelin, Decentraland, Orchid, MuleSoft, Puppet, Redhat, and Barclays. Notably, the company's journey began with a co-founding team consisting of Yaniv Tal as the project lead, Brandon Ramirez as the research lead, and Jannis Pohlmann as the tech lead. These founders share engineering backgrounds and have a history of working together for 5-8 years.

Yaniv Tal and Brandon Ramirez both studied electrical engineering at USC and collaborated at MuleSoft, a company specializing in API developer tools. MuleSoft experienced significant growth and success, culminating in an IPO and acquisition by Salesforce.

Before launching The Graph, the founders had already co-founded a startup in the developer tools domain. Throughout their careers, they focused on optimizing the API stack. In their previous venture, they developed a custom framework based on an immutable database called Datomic. This experience inspired their vision to create The Graph, aiming to provide immutable APIs and data access using the GraphQL query language.

What makes The Graph unique?

The Graph tries to make trustworthy decentralised public infrastructure available to the general people. Participants use Graph Token (GRT) to assure the economic security of The Graph Network as well as the integrity of the data being searched. GRT is a work token that Indexers, Curators, and Delegators keep locked up in order to provide indexing and curating services to the network.

GRT will be an ERC-20 token on the Ethereum blockchain that will be used to allocate network resources. Active Indexers, Curators, and Delegators can receive money from the network based on how much work they do and how much GRT they own. Indexers receive indexing incentives (new issuance) as well as query fees, whereas Curators receive a percentage of query fees for the subgraphs they signal on.

Explain the network security of The Graph.

The Graph has established an open data layer on top of blockchains: indexers can run Graph Node on their own Ethereum archive nodes, or they can use node operators such as Infura or Alchemy.

Any analytics firm can create an application to query subgraph data indexed by The Graph. Subgraphs are open APIs that allow you to pull data from the blockchain in the most efficient and frictionless way possible.

What are the recent developments of The Graph?

The Graph team has introduced several new features and updates to their platform. Here are the key points:

Substreams-Powered Subgraphs: The latest version, graph-node 0.31.0, supports Substreams-powered subgraphs. This feature is being slowly rolled out and is currently in a testing phase. Indexing rewards for substream-powered subgraphs are not yet active.

Full-Text Search + Where Filtering: Users can now combine full-text searches with where filtering to narrow down query results effectively. For example, one can search for an NFT that has the word "Love" anywhere in the metadata and specifically look for the word "fire" in the description metadata.

Derived Field Loaders: Subgraphs offer reverse lookups through the @derivedFrom directive, creating virtual relationships between entities. The new Derived Field Loaders allow access to data associated with these virtual relationships directly in the mappings, leading to smaller databases and fewer queries.

In addition to these updates, The Graph is also introducing its Subscriptions Beta Program, providing a more predictable billing experience for users. EthCC and EthGlobal events have seen significant participation and support from The Graph team and developers, with numerous workshops and hackathons being held. The Graph's L2 Scaling Journey event at The House of Web3 was a success, featuring presentations from various teams working on scaling Web3 applications.

The team encourages developers (The Graph Builders) to try out the new features and participate in the ongoing testing and development of Substreams-powered subgraphs. They also provide resources such as documentation, videos, and tutorials for getting started with the new features.

To read more information about The Graph, visit Suncrypto Price Explorer.