From Vision to Reality: The Graph Network's Year of Breakthroughs, Milestones, and Innovation
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The year is coming to a close, which brings an opportunity to celebrate 2023’s many achievements as the ecosystem ventures into the new era of The Graph, where the boundaries of web3 are continuously pushed through engineering breakthroughs and ecosystem growth. In reflection on a year of monumental achievements, The Graph emerges not just as a trailblazer but as integral infrastructure in the world of decentralized data.
This journey over the past year is more than a celebration of achievements; it's a testament to the passion and dedication of the contributors working in The Graph ecosystem, fueled by their relentless pursuit of a decentralized future, ushering in the next phase of the internet.
Charting Unprecedented Growth: A Year in Review
Throughout the past year, The Graph has experienced a lot of growth, reinforcing its pivotal role in the web3 infrastructure landscape. This period is marked by impressive achievements, including over 210+ active Indexers and a dedicated community of more than 87K+ Delegators.
In addition, The Graph Network has broadened its support by integrating seven blockchain networks, with further additions coming soon. This trajectory is propelled by the upgrade Indexer, built to support all hosted service chains as they are upgraded to the network. While chains added via the upgrade Indexer will not have indexing rewards, they will be able to attract more Indexers by participating in the Chain Integration Process (CIP) which streamlines support for indexing rewards.
A notable highlight of The Graph’s growth is the surge in query fees, with Indexers claiming over 2 million GRT. Further highlighting this trajectory is the astonishing milestone of 1 trillion queries made to both The Graph Network and the hosted service, demonstrating the indispensable role of subgraphs in powering dapps.
The expanding landscape of use cases on The Graph illustrates its impact across the web3 ecosystem. A notable instance is The Graph Foundation's publication of a case study featuring Snapshot, a platform that leverages subgraphs on The Graph to power decentralized governance throughout web3. This case study exemplifies how The Graph’s technology is being utilized to facilitate critical decision-making processes in decentralized communities, showcasing uses of The Graph in empowering transparent governance structures to shape the future internet.
Additionally, The Graph continues to play a crucial role in delivering data to some of the most well-known projects in web3, including Polygon, Art Blocks, and Loopring to name a few. This widespread adoption across various high-profile projects reflects The Graph's robust capabilities in handling diverse data requirements.
Enhancing Performance
In an impressive display of technological advancement, The Graph Network has eclipsed the hosted service, achieving a superior quality of service with a higher query success rate and faster response times. This leap in performance underscores The Graph's unwavering commitment to robust and resilient infrastructure that not only matches centralized alternatives, but surpasses them.
In a move to further enhance efficiency, The Graph ecosystem has initiated a transition to Arbitrum One (L2), a pivotal step aimed at significantly reducing gas fees and accelerating transaction times. Complementing this transition, The Graph's core developer teams have introduced L2 Transfer Tools, a convenient solution designed to help all Delegators and Indexers streamline the process of migrating to Layer 2 with just a few clicks. These tools facilitate the effortless transfer of GRT and subgraphs to Arbitrum, marking a milestone in The Graph's journey towards optimized performance and cost-effectiveness. The result of this initiative is remarkable, with a substantial percentage of network participants already having transferred to L2, further propelling The Graph Network into a new realm of efficiency with lower transaction costs and faster speeds.
The Ever-Expanding Ecosystem
The Graph ecosystem is flourishing globally. This year, The Graph community hosted 21 hackathons with thousands of participants and over 100 winners, a clear indicator of its growing influence and commitment to fostering innovation. These hackathons, along with many events, including the inaugural Datapalooza and The Graph on Campus initiative, have garnered widespread participation, uniting a diverse mix of students, developers, and thought leaders. Core developer teams and community members visited 23 different academic institutions, further highlighting The Graph's dedication to nurturing education and innovation in blockchain technology. Recently, hundreds of community members in seven major cities across the world came together to celebrate The Graph Network's birthday!
Pinax and Geo joined the ecosystem and are set to contribute their expertise and innovative approaches, expanding The Graph to support exciting new use cases!
While core developer teams continue to grow, so too does the community - the surge in the number of Graph Advocates, a testament to the growing interest and engagement for participation at all skill levels. A pivotal aspect of this expansion is the growth of community DAOs such as GraphAdvocates, BuildersDAO and InfraDAO – which collectively boast thousands of active members. These DAOs have become crucial components of The Graph ecosystem, serving as collaborative and innovative platforms that drive the network's vision and goals. Their emergence not only signifies a strengthened community but also represents the collective drive towards advancing The Graph's mission in the decentralized space.
The New Era of The Graph
The Graph is entering a new era, guided by a roadmap that charts the transformative vision for the future of web3 data services. This visionary roadmap lays out a plan for The Graph to comprehensively address all data service needs, encompassing an array of enhancements from improving Indexer tooling to leveraging AI and LLMs for streamlined data interaction. A pivotal element of this new direction is the Sunrise of Decentralized Data initiative, a comprehensive plan to help hosted service users seamlessly take advantage of The Graph Network.
The Graph Network is constantly evolving, and the new era marks only the beginning of a bright future. Looking ahead to 2024, it’s hard not to get excited about The Graph’s evolution and growth!
Want to participate in The Graph ecosystem and contribute to the future of the network & web3? Here are 23 ways to get started today!
About The Graph
The Graph is the source of data and information for the decentralized internet. As the original decentralized data marketplace that introduced and standardized subgraphs, The Graph has become web3’s method of indexing and accessing blockchain data. Since its launch in 2018, tens of thousands of developers have built subgraphs for dapps across 45+ blockchains - including Ethereum, Arbitrum, Optimism, Base, Polygon, Celo, Fantom, Gnosis, and Avalanche.
As demand for data in web3 continues to grow, The Graph enters a New Era with a more expansive vision including new data services and query languages, ensuring the decentralized protocol can serve any use case - now and into the future.
Discover more about how The Graph is shaping the future of decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePIN) and stay connected with the community. Follow The Graph on X, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, Reddit, and Medium. Join the community on The Graph’s Telegram, join technical discussions on The Graph’s Discord.
The Graph Foundation oversees The Graph Network. The Graph Foundation is overseen by the Technical Council. Edge & Node, StreamingFast, Semiotic Labs, The Guild, Messari, GraphOps, Pinax and Geo are eight of the many organizations within The Graph ecosystem.
