Sometimes referred to as “the Google of blockchain”, The Graph (ticker: GRT) has just reached a milestone that validates a strong web3 use case – and its adoption.

That milestone happens to be the decentralised protocol hitting more than “one trillion lifetime queries” since The Graph’s inception back in 2018 as a blockchain data-focused project that has deep connections and partnerships right across the crypto industry.

Now, what does “one trillion lifetime queries” mean exactly? To answer that, we first refer you back to an article we wrote about The Graph back in March, and some of the answers Tegan Kline gave us. (Kline is the CEO of Edge & Node, the initial team behind The Graph.)

 

What is The Graph and what are ‘queries’?

Just a reminder, then, in Kline’s words to Stockhead:

“The Graph is a decentralised protocol for indexing blockchain data and making it available for querying for use in downstream applications, like dapps (decentralised applications) frontends, plots, dashboards and data analytics. It’s used by more than 40,000 developers and powers thousands of dapps.”

By “query” you can essentially take that to mean “search” in a Googling sense.

“The Graph’s primary goal is to make blockchain data accessible by indexing it,” explained Kline. “Google made the internet user-friendly by making it simple to search, and The Graph makes blockchain available to developers by making it easy to be queried. So what Google does for the web, The Graph does for blockchain technology.”

Right then, quick refresher course over with, let’s hone in on the protocol’s news and why it has significance…

 

The Graph’s user volume has surged 33%

So, what’s occurred specifically then for The Graph just lately:

  • The protocol has crunched its numbers and revealed it surpassed 1 trillion queries in April 2023.
  • Five years after launching, The Graph currently averages 1.4B daily queries. By comparison, six years after Google’s launch it averaged 200M daily queries.
  • The Graph’s queries grew 50x over the past two years, relative to Google’s current annual growth of 10-15% per year.

This level of adoption for the protocol, and web3, highlights a need for easily accessible data within the blockchain and crypto worlds – which are absolutely overflowing with, and driven by, data.

The most compelling thing about The Graph has always been its potential critical role in the crypto industry to enable blockchain data to be accessed and used in various ways, at scale.

A couple more points of interest: 

• The protocol has more than 74,000 subgraphs powering data to dapps.

• Over the past three months, query volume across The Graph ecosystem grew by 33%, signalling the web3 ecosystem, broadly, is alive and well.

 

‘Innovators need quality data to power their ideas’

You may or may not be wondering how The Graph intends to scale such an increase in protocol usage, especially as its based on Ethereum.

The answer is: it recently transitioned from Ethereum mainnet to one of the leading Ethereum layer 2 blockchain solutions, Arbitrum, in order to help it adapt and continue to grow as a provider of a crucial service to blockchain networks.

“Web3 continues growing, and with it, the demand for robust and reliable blockchain data,” said Kline regarding the protocol’s latest reveals.

“Innovators need quality data to power their ideas and unleash the full potential of web3. This is just the beginning of the journey. We’re revolutionising data indexing and querying with blockchain technology, and empowering the next generation of trailblazers.”

Note: none of the information in this piece, or anywhere on Coinhead, should be construed as financial advice. This is not a sponsored article. 

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