The Next Big Coin To Watch – What Is The Graph Crypto
The market has been swinging wildly since 2020, but what’s the next big coin to watch? Most of the top assets are too inflated to invest in right now, so what is still afforable?
As the market continues to surge, new coins continue to pump to the top to show their face and give opportunity for massive gains. Most recently, a coin did just that and is making waves around the pond. This coin we are mentioning is none other than The Graph.
Therefore, we are going to dive into the project and see what all the hype is about.
*Full disclaimer – I do not own The Graph (GRT) nor are we sponsored. This post is purely educational.
Nothing should be considered investment or financial advice. Enjoy the ride.
What Is The Graph Crypto
The Graph is an indexing protocol that is built on top of the Ethereum blockchain. It has a native token called GRT that is currently ranked pretty well on Coinmarketcap!
The project was started in late 2017 by 3 engineers that were frustrated with lack of tooling from the Ethereum eco-system. After over 3 hard years of work, The Graph went live on December 2020.
Right out of the gate the GRT token was listed on some of the top exchanges in the industry including Coinbase and Binance showing huge promise for the future of the project.
Why Is The Graph called the Google of Blockchains?
The Graph has been referred to as the “Google of blockchains” because of its indexing feature protocol.
This is similar to how Google indexes websites and allows us to easily access to them through a search engine. The Graph does just this with the data that is stored and hosted on the blockchain.
Providing clean, easily accessible data is extremely important for the future of the decentralized industry. Developers will need this feature to build fully decentralized apps that do not depend on third party providers, or from centralized data bases.
Specifically, the protocol mainly focuses on decentralizing the query part and API generation layer of the decentralized network. This allows for querying different networks such as Ethereum, 0r IPFS by using a native query language on the network called GraphQL.
What is GraphQL
GraphQL is a native query language on The Graph crypto that allows users to specify what fields they are interested in and what search criteria they would like to apply to their query. The data that is being queried is then organized into subgraphs based on the set criteria.
A single d-app can make use of one or multiple sub graphs. Furthermore, one sub graph can also consist of other sub graphs similar to Set theory.
The Graph then provides an explorer which makes it easy to locate and use sub graphs for some of the most popular protocols like:
What Is An Indexing Protocol Really For?
An Indexing Protocol allows you to find a particular piece of information similar to using the index in a book to find a specific chapter or page with information on it. In a similar fashion, computer data bases can use the protocol to cut the search time for data and respond quicker to queries enabling stronger real world use-cases.
Indexing protocols make querying blockchain data simple and efficient. They are considered infrastructure protocols because their utility will help build out applications and allow them to easily access data.
What Problem Does The Graph Solve For Blockchain?
Developers are currently having to choose between building slow decentralized applications, or fast ones that depend on a centralized entity to index the data. This makes apps and web services useable at scale but not truly decentralized.
The only other option is to build an indexing or sorting system that can be accessed like a protocol which can take up to a year and is duplicate work across the industry wasting valuable time that could be used for further development.
This is why a decentralized query protocol for blockchains is a necessary solution. Over time, GRT will become one of the main necessary infrastructure protocols for building fully decentralized applications at scale.
Are There Other Indexing Protocols?
There are a few similar indexing protocols currently on the market, but The Graph is the clear leader for the industry. Here is a list of the other top similar protocols that you can research to compare to GRT:
Now, lets dive into the actual architecture of the network!
Protocol Architecture
lets break the architecture of the protocol network down into several parts starting with the indexers.
Who are the Indexers?
They are the Node operators of The Graph network. They join the network by staking the GRT token and running a Graph node. Their main function is to index relevant sub graphs.
The indexers earn rewards by indexing sub graphs and are paid fees for serving queries of sub graphs. Unlike most blockchains, these indexers can also set prices for their services, but prices are kept low through competition with other indexers or aka by the native marketplace on the network.
Who Uses The Indexes?
The people who use the indexes are called consumers!
The consumers query indexers and pay them for providing the service of good quality data from different sub graphs. The consumers can either be end users, web services, or applications.
Who Manages The Indexers?
Curators are the “managers of indexers” if you will.
Curators use their GRT tokens to signal what subgraphs are worth indexing. They are typically developers that want to make sure their sub graph is indexed by indexers, or end users that find particular sub graphs valuable.
In addition, these curators are incentivized through rewards for how popular their sub graphs become.
Are There Other Participants On The Network?
Yes, there are delegators and fishermen as well on The Graph network.
- Delegators stake their GRT on behalf of indexers in order to earn a portion of indexers rewards and fees. These guys don’t have to run a Graph node.
- Fishermen are useful incase of a dispute on the network. Think of them like the hall cops. For example, if an indexer provides incorrect data to a consumer, the Fishermen will intervene and correct the mistake.
Where Can You Buy GRT
If this project interests you, then here is a list of exchanges you can find it on to purchase. As always, please do your own research after this post to make sure this project aligns with your standards!
In addition, many more exchanges are starting to offer GRT. In fact, you can earn $50 of free GRT now by going to coinbase earn and simply learning a few more things about the project.
The Graph Crypto Review
Thanks for reading this post on what is The Graph crypto! This project has huge potential, so definitely be on the look out for it soon. Although, before investing please remember to do your own research!
Cheers
