Coin columns · Ethereum City (Capital)
The Graph (GRT): A Search Engine for Blockchain Data
From subgraphs to a wider data platform in 2025
The Graph is a decentralized protocol that organizes records scattered across blockchains so apps can query them quickly, often compared to ‘Google for blockchains’. GRT is the token that participants stake and earn.
1. What it is and who built it
Blockchains store records in the order they happen, which makes questions like ‘how many tokens did this wallet receive last month?’ hard to answer directly. On The Graph, developers define the data they need in a ‘subgraph’, the network indexes it ahead of time, and apps ask for it through GraphQL, a query language for fetching just the fields you want. It was started around 2018 by Yaniv Tal and colleagues, Edge & Node has been a core developer, and the mainnet and GRT token arrived in December 2020.
GRT is an ERC-20 token on Ethereum with an initial supply of 10 billion. On the Crypto Nation map, GRT stands in Ethereum City (the capital), because it was issued on Ethereum. The protocol’s contracts run on Arbitrum One, an Ethereum scaling chain, to keep fees low.
2. Roles that fit together
Indexers stake GRT and run servers that organize data and answer queries, earning query fees and newly issued GRT. Curators send GRT as a ‘signal’ to subgraphs they find useful, telling indexers where to focus. Delegators lend their GRT to indexers instead of running servers, sharing the rewards.
An indexer that gives wrong answers can lose part of its stake (slashing), which rewards honest work. New GRT is issued as rewards, while some, such as a curation fee, is burned. In December 2025 the Horizon upgrade widened this structure from subgraphs alone into a general framework for many data services.
3. Uses and milestones
DeFi apps, NFT markets, wallets and analytics sites use The Graph to read chain data, and it supports dozens of blockchains beyond Ethereum. In 2024 the centralized hosted service run by the core team was shut down and subgraphs moved to the decentralized network.
Horizon joins staking and payments into one core protocol and puts new data services on top. These include Substreams and Firehose for real-time data, a Token API for balances and transfers, and Amp for verifiable analytics, with AI agents named among intended users.
4. Things to know
Running an indexer takes expertise and server costs, so operators can concentrate, and users can hardly verify an answer themselves. Much of the reward comes from newly issued GRT, so how far real query fees support it is still debated. Whether Horizon’s new services attract real users remains to be seen.
Data indexing has centralized vendors and other decentralized projects competing, and developers can move to cheaper tools. The protocol also depends on Ethereum and Arbitrum, so outages or policy changes there can affect it. Core development is led by a small number of contributing teams.
Written from information public up to October 2026. It does not recommend or rate any coin and is not investment advice. If something is wrong, please tell us through the contact page.