At 8 pm on April 9, 2021, Edge and Node Asia Business & Strategy Iris will be a guest in the Uniswap Chinese community, hosted by Jimm, the chief analyst of the Uniswap Chinese community, bringing "See how decentralized indexing protocol The Graph is the backbone of Web 3.0Hello everyone, welcome to today's AMA held by BlockArk in the Uniswap Chinese community. I am today's host Jimmi, the chief project analyst of the Uniswap Chinese community. At the same time, thanks to BlockArk, , Lianwen, Block Rhythm, and Encryption Pavilion for their support of this event.
Jimmi：Hello everyone, welcome to today's AMA held by BlockArk in the Uniswap Chinese community. I am today's host Jimmi, the chief project analyst of the Uniswap Chinese community. At the same time, thanks to BlockArk, , Lianwen, Block Rhythm, and Encryption Pavilion for their support of this event.
BlockArk is an investment bank and marketing agency in the encrypted asset industry. It manages ArkStream Capital, a primary and secondary fund focused on cryptocurrency. BlockArk integrates investment, branding, market growth, and strategic consulting, and is committed to promoting the growth of Web3.0 unicorns.
The theme of today's AMA is "See how the decentralized index protocol The Graph becomes the backbone of Web3.0", and the guest is Iris from Edge and Note Asia Business & Strategy.
Today's AMA event is divided into two stages. The first stage is the theme question and answer. I will ask 9 prepared questions in the form of one question and one answer. After the 9 questions are over, it will enter the second stage, free question and answer. Group friends can freely ask guests questions, and guests are free to choose 4-5 questions to answer. The small partners who are selected can share the reward of 150USDT.
Well, our first part of the Q&A begins~
Jimmi：Iris,Welcome to Uniswap Chinese community and participate in this AMA event, please introduce yourself and The Graph first? What are The Graph's solutions and main goals in the blockchain ecosystem? What is Subgraph?
Iris：Hi everyone, I'm Iris, Head of Asia Business Strategy at Edge and Node. Thanks to BlockArk for the invitation and other media friends for their support.
The Graph is the index and query layer of the Web3 decentralized network, providing core data infrastructure for DeFi and decentralized applications. Developers or anyone can build and publish open data APIs called Subgraphs on our network, and applications can use GraphQL to query these APIs to retrieve data. The bottom layers currently supported and being integrated include Ethereum, Polkadot, BSC, Celo, Near, Solana and the just-announced Avalanche, and more blockchains will be supported in the future. So far, more than 10,000 subgraphs have been deployed on The Graph, with nearly 16,000 developers. It is used by many well-known projects such as Uniswap, Synthetix, Aragon, AAVE, Gnosis, Balancer, Livepeer, DAOstack, AAVE, Decentraland and so on used.
TheGraph solves several problems in the on-chain world:
- dApps require solutions for ingesting and transforming data from underlying data sources. Blockchain data is difficult to store in a format that can be directly retrieved and used in applications.
- Difficult to get data directly from nodes to support web or mobile applications
- Web3 stack missing index and query layer
- Through The Graph, data queries are processed on a decentralized network, thereby ensuring the openness of data and the sustainable operation of dApps. dApps using The Graph will be decentralized, which means they will not rely on a single centralized server to reduce the possibility of downtime, users do not have to trust a certain team to operate the server, and developers can deploy the protocol to Trusted public infrastructure that takes your own time and effort to manage.
We hope to make fully decentralized applications possible by creating tools that improve the developer experience of indexing and querying blockchain data. And build a global open data API network maintained by various actual players/stakeholders that is not controlled by monopolies.
Jimmi: May I ask about the relationship between Edge and Node and The Graph? And why was Edge and Node established? I see that your title is also Edge and Node
Iris：Edge and Node is a new software development company created by the core founding team behind The Graph. It continues to support the continued development of The Graph protocol in the form of a service agreement with The Graph Foundation. Support the wider Defi and Web3 ecosystems by developing, investing in protocols and decentralized applications within The Graph ecosystem, and actively participating in the encryption ecosystem. Further details and future developments can be found on our websitehttps://edgeandnode.com/。
When the news was just announced, I noticed that some friends in the community misunderstood the news. In fact, you can simply understand it as the relationship between Ethereum and ConsenSys. Instead of growing into one giant corporation like tech companies of the past, we are excited to work closely with many independent cryptographic teams around the world, leveraging protocols and decentralized technologies to stretch across organizational boundaries, and working to improve and reinvent Define the mode of collaboration. The Graph is a decentralized network, it does not belong to any single team, we hope that everyone can participate in the network construction together.
Including my title is also a reflection. If I say that someone is in charge of the business of a decentralized network, it sounds very centralized. When we launched the decentralized mainnet, The Graph Foundation and Governance Committee began to perform their duties. As for the founding team, we have become members of Edge and Node, but we will still be committed to the development of The Graph.
Jimmi: The next question is a basic question about the node network. How do The graph’s nodes operate? What roles will participate in the operation of The graph’s node network? What roles do they play?
Iris：The nodes in The Graph network are called Indexers, who are responsible for organizing and structuring data by staking GRT to provide indexing and query processing services. Indexers earn query fees and indexing rewards for their services.
The GRT pledged in the protocol has an unfreezing period. If the indexer (node) does evil, provides wrong data to the application, or the index is wrong, the GRT will be cut. Indexers can also obtain entrusted rights and interests from delegators to contribute to the network. The delegator is the person who entrusts and pledges the currency to the node.
With so many subgraphs (open data API) in the network, how to improve the efficiency of indexing? The indexer selects the subgraphs to be indexed according to the curation signals of the subgraphs, and the curator uses GRT to delegate, indicating which subgraphs are of high quality and should be prioritized. Consumers (such as applications) can also set parameters for indexers to process their subgraph queries, and set query fee pricing preferences.
To sum up, there are consumers (end users, paying query fees), indexers (running nodes to earn query fees and node rewards), curators (storing GRT to indicate which subgraphs are worth indexing) and delegators (staking coins to Nodes earn income) constitute the main ecological role of the network. Active indexers, curators, and delegators can earn income from the network proportional to their workload and GRT staked. Each ecological role has a clear reward and punishment mechanism. Indexers earn query fees and indexer rewards. Curators send signals in a specific subgraph, share a part of the query revenue of the subgraph, and encourage the highest quality data sources. Delegators make contributions by staking GRT to existing indexers/nodes, and get a part of query fees and indexing rewards from them. Users/consumers pay query fees to nodes, curators and delegators.
Jimmi：The underlying index and query layer of the blockchain is the cornerstone of the normal operation of DApps. I always think that there is still a lot of room for middleware in the market.
Jimmi: We have seen that the Graph protocol has been integrated with many applications on Ethereum, and we have also seen that The Graph has also added support for the other four underlying blockchains: Polkadot, NEAR, Solana, Celo, BSC, and Avalanche can Talk to us about this? Do you think the relatively centralized BSC and Heco chains are temporary solutions or do you think they have greater potential in the future?
Iris：Well, let's start with our support for blockchains other than Ethereum. Before this, we received a lot of feedback from the community, hoping that we would support other underlying blockchains, and many demands came from developers on other chains.
We believe in and support the future of multi-chain. As mentioned at the beginning, The Graph's goal is to make it as easy as possible for developers to access data on the chain and build decentralized applications. Through such middleware and developer tools, developers can solve some problems and focus on the applications they want to develop, greatly reducing the barriers to WEB3 development. Therefore, we feel that it is necessary to provide support for other bottom layers adopted by developers with strong community support to help promote the overall development of WEB3, and to help developers of Ethereum and other chains build interactive applications through subgraphs .
I don't think we need to pay too much attention to the competition between different bottom layers. In the long run, an immeasurable number of centralized programs will be replaced by decentralized protocols and applications, and different chains will be able to solve different needs based on their respective characteristics.
We have already integrated BSC and are still evaluating HECO. Personally, I think exchange public chains such as BSC and HECO will complement and enhance its existing centralized exchange business, and this will also have great potential. For example, using their underlying features and strong user base to build more decentralized financial services, BSC has recently made a lot of commitments and efforts to further decentralization. Decentralization is not achieved overnight. For example, treating the exchange public chain as a new product has indeed helped reduce financial friction, remove middlemen, provide a more transparent trading environment, and also solve some problems and needs of high transaction costs. And I want to emphasize that I think the most important thing is that these public chains should not put Ethereum on the opposite side, but have many innovations of their own.
Jimmi: The growth of index query volume reflects the active situation of the market to a certain extent. So can you tell us about the recent growth in the number of subgraphs? How is the daily query volume growing? How has the total query volume of DeFi and NFT data changed in the past few months?
Iris：Well, judging from the latest March data, the number of subgraphs has exceeded 10,000 from more than 7,000 when the mainnet was launched in December. About 1,000 more every month.
There were 19 billion queries in March (15 billion in February), and more than 600 million daily queries. And last June we just broke through 1 billion, this growth is amazing.
The total query volume of DEFI and NFT has grown rapidly, and the number of DEFI queries accounts for more than 80%, but this is still related to the type itself. The query frequency required by DEFI is different from that of NFT.
Jimmi: The Graph actually supports many infrastructures, smart contract platforms and even the most recent Layer2 protocols. So what do you think about Layer 2 theory and other smart contract platform services and scalability solutions?
Iris：Let’s talk about my personal opinion. After all, there are many different opinions and controversies about various solutions. The current GAS problem of Ethereum makes it impossible for retail investors to use it, which is one of the biggest obstacles to the popularization of blockchain or DEFI; at present, layer2 is the fastest and realistic expansion solution that can be implemented at present, and the rollup solution led by optimism will also be applied The threshold and difficulty of migration are minimized.
However, both the bottom layer and layer2 are still in the process of development and maturation, so you don’t need to worry about the choice, mainly consider the pros and cons in the middle, such as speed, security and scalability, and choose the most suitable solution for a certain scenario.
Jimmi: I saw on a recent blog that graph will complete the migration of the main network in the near future. Can you talk to us about the migration process and arrangement? And the reason and purpose of mainnet migration?
Iris：Beginning this month, the first batch of subgraphs will begin migrating from The Graph’s hosting service to the decentralized network. The entire migration will be divided into three main stages: migration guidance, application launch and curation launch.
Starting in April, we will work with indexers (nodes) and subgraph developers to release and test the first batch of subgraphs on mainnet to ensure a seamless transition before opening all subgraphs to migrate from hosting services. The initial subgraph sync can take hours to weeks depending on each subgraph. Once the subgraphs are fully synchronized, the decentralized application can be tested, switched to the decentralized network after detection, and start querying fees. Then in the third stage, when the first batch of decentralized applications are operating on the main network, a public gateway will be launched, allowing developers to easily publish subgraphs on the network and pay for query fees. Curators can issue subgraphs on the subgraph Signal.
The main network migration is mainly for The Graph to run completely on the decentralized network through economic model incentives. For the smooth and efficient operation of the decentralized network, we have made a lot of preparations. There are currently about 170 indexers, or nodes, and 6,000 delegators. At present, there are more than 2.7 billion GRT pledged and entrusted, and the TVL value is approximately equal to 4.3 billion USD.
Jimmi: Next is the question about tokens. Graph has been integrated into many applications before the tokens are launched. After the tokens are launched, whether it has played a certain role in motivating the Graph ecological network, and whether the number of queries is significant increase? What are the current functions of the token?
Iris：GRT is used to capture and allocate resources in the network. Consumers, as end users, can use GRT to pay query fees, indexers run nodes to pledge GRT to earn query fees and node rewards, curators pledge GRT to indicate which subgraphs are worth indexing, and delegators pledge coins to nodes to earn income . Since the token launch is also before the mainnet launch, the test network is provided by our team to provide hosting services. So the economic model didn't work. Recently, with the migration, the query will start charging, and we believe that it will motivate various ecological actors to participate.
Jimmi: We learned from a recent blog that the Graph Foundation has allocated more than US$5 million in grants to support the ecosystem, and the first round of Grant projects has exceeded US$2.6 million. May I ask how you have contributed to the ecosystem? Can I get the reward? When will the second round of Grant start?
Iris：There are four main categories of grants: protocol infrastructure; tools; decentralized applications and subgraphs; and community building. It involves all aspects. If there is a plan that is consistent with The Graph's goals and can benefit the ecology, but needs funding or assistance from the foundation and the team, we welcome everyone to apply. We have also released a detailed list of the first wave of funding for your reference. Translations of relevant announcements are available on our official account. You can search TheGraphProtocol on the WeChat public account to find out.
We received over 200 applications from more than a dozen countries. The second round of grants will also begin soon. I interviewed some of the applicants in the first round as one of the Domain experts. I think the applicant mainly needs to fully understand the situation related to your application, confirm the needs, and then have a clear project goal and plan on how to improve and help the ecology, community or development. We will, according to the importance of the application content, urgently Judgment by sex, influence and community feedback.
Jimmi：【Free question and answer session】
【Free question and answer session】
Q: How much GRT is needed for a query? What if the results provided by the indexer are incorrect or disputed?
Iris：For the time being, it is $0.000001 once, and the parameters will be adjusted. Incorrect results provided by the indexer will be punished by cutting tokens. Because the pledged GRT in the agreement has an unfreezing period, which is currently 28 days.
Q: In what ways can we retail investors participate in the ecological construction of the graph?
Iris：Retail investors can delegate coins to nodes, or curate subgraphs to participate in the network.
Question: The most important thing is that you didn't ask if there is a limit on the total amount of coins issued? Is there a reduction mechanism or burn or buyback
Iris：Initial Token Supply: 10,000,000,000 GRT with 3% additional issuance every year.
Q: What is the difference between the data indexed by Graph and Chainlink?
Iris：Chainlink is an oracle machine, and we have also cooperated with them. If they bring off-chain data to the chain, such as feeding prices to DEX, we index the on-chain data to off-chain.
Q: Can the same subgraph be used on different chains? Your token can be used on so many networks, so what format is it? ERC20 or BEP20?
Iris：There is a destruction mechanism for queries. Although we support multiple chains, GRT will remain ERC20.
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*Note: This article is only for research discussion and information sharing, not as investment advice.
*Note: This article is only for research discussion and information sharing, not as investment advice.
