The Graph (GRT) is a decentralized blockchain data indexer. What it basically does is create a way to query data on the Ethereum blockchain (for now, could be expanded to other blockchains in the future) using graphQL, which is an already well established and known language to "ask things to computers" if data is organized as a graph. If this doesn't make a lot of sense to you, you can see GRT as the Google of blockchain.
One of the biggest launches ever in the history of crypto
Immediately listed on CoinbasePro and shortly after on Binance and Coinbase, GRT is probably one of the biggest launches ever in crypto history.
Why GRT is already a big deal
The Graph wasn't born nor released yesterday, but already existed and offered querying services before the token came out. To list a few, this company already provided services to
- Uniswap
- Coingecko
- Synthetix
- Decentraland
And the list goes on as you can see on the official website. Now, given that the developers really believe in decentralization and the rise of WEB3 (which is the web, but totally decentralized and free from censorship, lack of privacy, and free from big companies that spy and exploit your data) they made it decentralized. This means that everyone can index, curate, delegate, and consume data by querying a subgraph. If you don't understand what these means don't worry! Keep reading and it will be clear.
Let's now talk about daily queries. Keep in mind that this is before the launch of mainnet. We are talking about 400 million daily queries, 1 billion every month. Google, which has been running for decades, has 3.5 Billion daily queries, which is just eight times more. If you are into this project you probably know that an eight-time increase of querying isn't that much, also considering how Defi is also growing steadily. You can read more here.
Circulating supply
The circulating supply right now is 1,245,666,867 GRT. The Circulating supply will be 10.000.000.000 tokens released in 5 to 10 years. In 6 months 1,224,999,438 GRT will be released, and then it will slowly go up as you can see in the image below. It already is rank 42 by market cap and growing. You can read more here and on Coinmarketcap.
Token Economics
Before understanding who has which role in the network, it is needed to understand what a subgraph is. A subgraph is an "API that applications can query with GraphQL". This means that developers write computer code that other applications (therefore computers) can query with GraphQL in a standardized way.
Indexers (high technical level)
An indexer is someone that operates a node on The Graph network, providing querying services by staking GRT. This is done to prevent people from being an indexer and giving away bad data. If you don't have a lot of GRT staked (staked means deposited), people won't curators (which will be explained later), and that's very bad for an indexer.
When people or companies query indexers, they get an answer and pay a fee in GRT to them. To make it clearer, think of an indexer as Google. You query google, you get an answer, for free. Where's the catch there tho? How can Google be one of the biggest companies to ever exist on this planet? Well, you pay with your privacy. Google takes your data and creates personalized ads, which is something very compelling to advertisers that put ads on Google because it means that the probability of you buying the product is high. Have you ever bought a product that after seeing ads for it somewhere? Well, that's money to either Google or Facebook (for the most part) and less money for you. Have you ever bought something that you didn't really need? If yes, probably with that money you could repay all the queries you'll do in your life. Plus you have your privacy back.
Will you really have to pay for searching for stuff on the web3? No, you probably won't, someone will create some sort of business on it that doesn't rely on spying on you, like Brave Browser which already lets you filter the data you give to advertisers and has created a way to get paid in cryptocurrencies to give your data away. Basically, it's a win-win situation.
By the way, querying is not something done only on Google by ordinary people. Information retrieval, in general, is a big topic in today's computer science, and extracting data from the web it's a huge part of making it work better. It is also clear that data in the world we live in it's basically the most valuable thing you can have, knowledge is power.
Some subgraphs are already developed and functioning right now, like the one from Pooltogheter and Ryabina. The latter choose to keep 9.9% of the query fees and give all the rest to curators. This strategy incentivizes curators to signal that subgraph because they get a big part of the cake. Keep in mind that Ryabina can change this in the future.
Curators (medium technical level)
Curators are "or community members who signal to Indexers which APIs should be indexed by The Graph Network" (official tokenomics post). This means that if you have a good technical level, you can stake GRT to signal that that specific subgraph is a good one. The earlier you are in signaling a good subgraph, the more money you get (it follows a bonding curve if that makes sense. If it doesn't just understand that early = good). So if you stake 1000 GRT early someone in the future will need to put 2000 GRT to earn as much as you do. Of course, if someone is as early as you are but puts 2000 GRT vs your 1000 GRT they'll earn a bigger share of the fees given to curators because it scales (rightfully so) with the amount of GRT you stake. And keep in mind that in the meantime you'll earn GRT!
But there's a catch. If the indexer you signal is bad you'll lose GRT. So keep that in mind, try to be early but put your money only on good projects. Also please read more here for official information.
Delegators (low technical level)
A delegator does not run a node on the network. You basically delegate GRT to an indexer and earn a portion of query fees. If it performs well, good for you, if it doesn't well... not so good.
Consumers
Consumers simply pay GRT to query subgraphs. "Consumers are likely to be developers or projects themselves that cover query fees for their applications as they would AWS or cloud service costs" and you can read more here, but it is pretty straightforward.
Who is it backed by?
It is backed by all the names you can see in the image below. One of the bigger players here is Coinbase Ventures.
Conclusions
The Graph is a project that indexes blockchain data, it is already used by the biggest player in the game (like Uniswap and Coingecko) and is now fully decentralized.
If you feel like it and this was useful, please leave a tip. Also maybe follow me on Twitter here. If you want to buy GRT (this and nothing in this post is financial advice) you can do it on Binance or on Coinbase (if you put 100$ you get a 10$ bonus for free!) (Those are my referral links, thanks for using them).
If you trade cryptos, join Changelly Pro (that is my referral, thanks for using it)
If you need a trading bot, check out Haasonline (that is my referral, thank you for using it)
If you want free crypto you can use the following links:
- BAND (only 2 people left)
- COMP (only 2 people left)
- XLM (only 2 people left)
And if you want to tip some Ethereum directly to me, here's my address
0x9C933367D9CC1a98a5C9c646FeECE18FeFd6a064
