The Graph Foundation Allocates Nearly $1M in Wave 6 of Grants

It’s been a tremendous year so far for the growth of The Graph ecosystem. Over $9 million in grants has been paid out, with nearly $12 million allocated to date since the launch of the grants program in 2021. In the same time period, The Graph ecosystem has welcomed five additional core devs, including GraphOps and its first core subgraph developer, Messari, that were both announced at Graph Day in June. The Graph Foundation is maintaining and nurturing this momentum by onboarding the next cohort of grantees: over $800,000 in Wave 6 grants has been allocated towards protocol improvements, providing support to dapps building with subgraphs, creating new tools, and growing the community!

This wave also marks the end of an era and the beginning of a new chapter in decentralization: The Graph Foundation is officially passing responsibility of community grants to the Graph AdvocatesDAO! Anyone can apply for a grant from the AdvocatesDAO, as long as it follows the DAO’s goals for community growth and is aligned with the DAO’s Charter. The DAO received a $250,000 grant from The Graph Council in Q1 and will be serving community grants valued at $20,000 or under. Prospective grantees should expect to see diversification of opinions, votes, and funding with upcoming grant waves. Community grants will now be evaluated by Graph Advocates participating in community governance through the Graph AdvocatesDAO. Interested in being a part of the mission? Find out more about how you can contribute to The Graph ecosystem with the Graph Advocates program!

Another step bolstering decentralization is in the works: SubgraphDAO, a recently announced DAO supporting subgraph development. The SubgraphDAO will empower a community of subgraph developers, who aim to educate other subgraph developers and grow the pool of contributors who can work with dapps to help build out their subgraph needs. The DAO will also support subgraph migration, fund subgraph grants, and even maintain public goods subgraphs.

While SubgraphDAO takes shape, the Foundation will continue to evaluate grants for building subgraphs and migration grants to dapp teams publishing subgraphs onto The Graph Network. Moving forward, however, subgraph grants will be sized in GRT as opposed to past waves where grants were valued in USDC. Awarding grants to subgraph developers in GRT will help with bootstrapping the developers’ experience on the network, so they can be the first to signal on the subgraph and cover initial query fees. The focus on decentralization as the network moves toward sunsetting the hosted service makes subgraph grants a priority.

In addition to subgraphs, tooling and protocol R&D continue to be priorities. Follow progress on protocol improvements in The Graph Forum where you can also suggest new tooling, instrumentation, or research and receive feedback on your ideas!

If you have ideas or if you’d like to receive support ahead of Wave 7, make sure to apply for a grant. The application portal is always open!

Wave 6 Grants

The Graph community is global—Wave 6 grant applications included submissions from Mexico, Japan, Korea, Poland, United Kingdom, France, Portugal, Canada, United States, and more. Applications were evaluated by Graph Domain Experts: members of the community, The Graph Council, core developer teams, and other builders. All grants are paid in GRT to be used in the The Graph Network and support decentralized participation in web3.

Read the detailed descriptions for Wave 6 grants here and check out the highlights below:

Protocol R&D ~$400K

• Subgraph Bridge - Soulbound - $300,000
• BlockScience - $100,000

Tooling ~$52K

• Safe Subgraph Code Generator - Float - $50,000
• GRTData Hub - Liam Doyle - $2,000

Dapps and Subgraphs ~$77K

• Subgraph Development - ERC721 - $20,000
• Subgraph Development - ERC-4626 - $15,000
• Subgraph Development - Goldfinch - $10,000
• Subgraph Development - JokeDAO - $7,500
• Subgraph Development - Securitas - $3,000
• Subgraph Development - Proof - $2,500
• Subgraph Development - Chainlink-Fantom - $2,000
• Subgraph Development - Social3 - $2,000
• Subgraph Development - Solidly - $2,000
• Subgraph Development - 3RM - $2,000
• Subgraph Development - Xsauce - $1,500
• Subgraph Development - CropXYZ - $1,500
• Subgraph Development - Yieldgate - $1,500
• Subgraph Development - Certy Network - $1,500
• Subgraph Development - Yuser - $1,500
• Subgraph Development - NAMA - $1,500
• Subgraph Development - Phi - $1,500

Community Building ~$320K

• Kernel - $100,000
• Business Analytics on the Blockchain - Leeds School of Business - $30,000
• Graphrica - $30,000
• Graphtronauts - $30,000
• GRTiQ - $30,000
• DeveloperDAO - $22,500
• Tech Writer - Sean Moore - $21,600
• Coinfeeds - $15,000
• Web3Con - $10,000
• Community Support - Ahmad Mardeni - $9,000
• Community Support - Jerry Zhang - $7,500
• DAOStar One - $5,000
• YBlockchain - $5,000
• Artemis Academy - $3,000
• DeFi Data and Strategy Education - $2,000

The Foundation is always focused on helping grantees succeed and is looking forward to reviewing submissions for Wave 7 grants while continuing to decentralize grants efforts.

Wave 7: How You Can Get Involved

If you haven’t already, post your idea in the forum to get feedback and then start drafting your grant application! Even though Wave 6 just concluded, grants are awarded on a rolling basis and Wave 7 is already ramping up, with significant focus on education, subgraph and Indexer tooling, helping subgraphs migrate to the decentralized network, and supporting community grants through the Graph AdvocatesDAO!

Given the importance of a sustainable community of decentralized contributors for the long-term robustness of The Graph Network, grant applicants are encouraged to think about how their ideas can be utilized by the community or for the overall betterment of the protocol. The most successful grants are ones that receive support and feedback across The Graph Forum or other social channels. Thoughtful activity across these channels often helps grantees create stronger applications and achieve long-term success.

If you did not receive a grant in any of the past waves, don’t be discouraged—you can reapply! Applications are always open and welcome. When submitting your application, be sure to include as much detail as possible. Learn more about the Grants Program here, core protocol development opportunities here, as well as continuous RFPs that will be posted here.

If you’re looking for ideas, here are several focus areas that have been identified as high priority for more contributions from the community:

• Graph Node and Firehose instrumentation for multi-chain (ie. with node implementations)
• Migration support for subgraph devs and dapp teams
• Subgraph standards and education
• Indexer tooling (eg. allocation management UI, notification bots)
• Contributions to GIPs (protocol development and economics)
• Contributions to the R&D Roadmap
• Contributions to Hardhat The Graph plugin (eg. new features / integrations, video tutorials)
• Zero-knowledge proof peer review - SNARK Force research
• Educational content and curriculums for subgraphs and web3 development
• Community grants at the Graph AdvocatesDAO

While the grants process currently includes many Domain Experts, The Graph Foundation is also exploring ways to enable more direct community participation in funding decision making. Stay in touch in the Forum or Discord if you have ideas or want to get more involved with the grants process.

Don’t forget! Anyone is eligible to apply for a grant with any ideas in the categories of community, dapps, subgraphs, tooling or protocol improvements here, or take on a call-to-action from the ecosystem by looking through the range of RFPs here.

The Graph Foundation believes in showcasing all the amazing work grantees put forth to contribute to the ecosystem. If you’ve completed your grant, don’t forget to contact the Foundation team to discuss cross-promotion opportunities and amplification of your contribution!

How to further participate in The Graph ecosystem

In the interim between applying for your next grant, there are many additional ways to get involved with The Graph Network. You can become a Delegator, Indexer, Curator, build subgraphs, and vote on upcoming governance proposals. The opp ortunities to participate are diverse. If there are any projects you admire in the web3 space that are not using subgraphs, we encourage you to educate them about subgraphs.

You can also provide feedback for tooling recommendations, useful dapps, and gaps in subgraphs across the decentralized web. These recommendations from the community are always appreciated. If you have any other ideas, feel free to post on The Graph Forum to share and stay up to date with highlights by following @GraphGrants on Twitter.

Make sure to also join the monthly Core Dev calls on the first Tuesday of each month, Community Talk on the third Tuesday of each month, or tune into Indexer Office Hours weekly on Tuesdays in the Discord. Status updates regarding the roadmap will be shared across the community. More information can also be found on The Graph Forum.

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 40+ 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.