Sunrise of decentralized data FAQ

The sunrise of decentralized data is an initiative spearheaded by Edge & Node, working on The Graph. The goal is to seamlessly enable subgraph developers and data consumers to upgrade to The Graph’s decentralized network.

This plan draws on many previous developments from The Graph ecosystem, including an upgrade Indexer to serve queries on newly published subgraphs, and the ability to integrate new blockchain networks to The Graph.

Sunray: Enable support for hosted service chains, offer a seamless upgrade flow, offer a free plan on The Graph Network.
Sunbeam: The upgrade window that subgraph developers will have to upgrade their subgraphs to The Graph Network. The start and length of this will be announced soon.
Sunrise: Hosted service endpoints will expire as traffic moves to The Graph Network.

No, all infrastructure is operated by independent Indexers on The Graph Network, including the upgrade Indexer (read more below).

You can use the Subgraph Studio to create, test, and publish your subgraph. All hosted service users are encouraged to upgrade their subgraphs to The Graph Network. The upgrade Indexer ensures you can query your subgraph even without curation signal.

Once your subgraph has reached adequate curation signal and other Indexers begin supporting it, the upgrade Indexer will gradually taper off, allowing other Indexers to collect indexing rewards and query fees.

Running infrastructure for your own project is significantly more resource intensive when compared to using The Graph Network.

Additionally, The Graph Network is significantly more robust, reliable, and cost-efficient than anything provided by a single organization or team. Hundreds of independent Indexers around the world power The Graph Network, ensuring safety, security and redundancy.

That being said, if you’re still interested in running a Graph Node, consider joining The Graph Network as an Indexer to earn indexing rewards and query fees by serving data on your subgraph and others.

If you are building in web3, the moment you use a centralized indexing provider, you are giving them control of your dapp and data. The Graph’s decentralized network offers superior quality of service, reliability with unbeatable uptime thanks to node redundancy, as well as significantly lower costs, and you won’t be held hostage at the data layer.

With The Graph Network, your subgraph is public and anyone can query it openly, which increases the usage and network effects of your dapp. With a centralized indexing solution, the subgraph is private to the centralized provider.

Here's a detailed breakdown of the benefits of The Graph over centralized hosting:

• Resilience and Redundancy: Decentralized systems are inherently more robust and resilient due to their distributed nature. Data isn't stored on a single server or location. Instead, it's served by hundreds of independent Indexers around the globe. This reduces the risk of data loss or service interruptions if one node fails, leading to exceptional uptime (99.99%).

• Quality of Service: In addition to the impressive uptime, The Graph Network features a ~106ms median query speed (latency), and higher query success rates compared to hosted alternatives. Read more in this blog.

• Censorship Resistance: Centralized systems can become targets for censorship, either through regulatory pressures or network attacks. In contrast, decentralized systems, due to their dispersed architecture, are much harder to censor, ensuring continuous data availability.

• Transparency and Trust: Decentralized systems operate openly, enabling anyone to independently verify the data. This transparency builds trust among network participants, as they can verify the system's integrity without relying on a central authority.

Just as you've chosen your blockchain network for its decentralized nature, security, and transparency, opting for The Graph Network is an extension of those same principles. By aligning your data infrastructure with these values, you ensure a cohesive, resilient, and trust-driven development environment.

Yes, the upgrade Indexer will support all hosted service subgraphs published to The Graph Network.

However, some subgraphs may not be eligible for indexing rewards, and as a result, may have difficulty attracting further Indexers. For example, indexing rewards may not be available for subgraphs on certain chains. Members from these blockchain communities are encouraged to integrate their chain through the Chain Integration Process.

It is designed to improve the experience of upgrading subgraphs from the hosted service to The Graph Network and supporting new versions of existing subgraphs that have not yet been indexed.

The upgrade Indexer is aimed at bootstrapping chains that do not yet have indexing rewards on the network, as well as a fallback for new subgraph versions. The goal is to ensure that an Indexer is available to serve queries as quickly as possible after a subgraph is published.

The upgrade Indexer will support chains that are currently only available on the hosted service. This will include many hosted service subgraphs that have already been synced.

Find a comprehensive list of supported chains here.

Edge and Node has historically maintained the hosted service and, as a result, has already synced data for hosted service subgraphs.

Any and all Indexers are encouraged to become upgrade Indexers as well. However, note that operating an upgrade Indexer is largely provided as a public service to support new subgraphs and additional chains due to the lack of indexing rewards before they are approved by The Graph Council.

Chains that are currently exclusively supported on the hosted service will be made available to developers on The Graph without indexing rewards at first, though this does unlock query fees for any Indexer that is interested. This is expected to lead to an increase in the number of subgraphs being published on the network, providing more opportunities for Indexers to index and serve these subgraphs in return for query fees, even before indexing rewards are enabled for a chain.

The upgrade Indexer also provides the Indexer community with information about potential demand for subgraphs and new chains on The Graph Network.

The upgrade Indexer offers a powerful opportunity for Delegators. As more subgraphs are upgraded from the hosted service to The Graph Network, Delegators stand to benefit from the increased network activity.

No, the upgrade Indexer will only allocate the minimum amount per subgraph and will not collect indexing rewards.

It operates on an “as needed” basis, and serves as a fallback until sufficient service quality is achieved by at least 3 other Indexers in the network for respective chains and subgraphs.

Subgraph developers will be able to query their subgraphs on the network almost immediately after upgrading them from the hosted service or publishing them from the Subgraph Studio, as no lead time will be required for indexing.

The upgrade Indexer enables chains on the network that are currently only supported on the hosted service. Therefore, it widens the scope and availability of data that can be queried on the network.

The upgrade Indexer will price queries at the market rate so as not to influence the query fee market.

The upgrade Indexer will serve a subgraph until it is sufficiently and successfully served with consistent queries served by at least 3 other Indexers.

Furthermore, the upgrade Indexer will stop supporting a subgraph if it has not been queried in the last 30 days.

Other Indexers are incentivized to support subgraphs with ongoing query volume, so the query volume to the upgrade Indexer should trend towards zero because the Indexer will have a small allocation size and other Indexers will be chosen for queries ahead of the upgrade Indexer.