KEY TAKEAWAYS
- The Graph is shifting its focus towards sustainable growth and adoption-driven incentives, aligning protocol systems with long-term goals.
- The Chain Integration Process (CIP) now requires chains to demonstrate real adoption and growth to receive indexing rewards.
- Indexing rewards will be allocated based on growth-focused criteria, ensuring Indexers serve high-value queries and enhance protocol performance.
- The Graph aims to ensure protocol growth is demand-driven, community-aligned, and future-proof, reflecting its evolution from exploration to focus.
The Graph, a leading indexing and query protocol for the decentralized internet, is shifting its focus towards sustainable growth and adoption-driven incentives. This change comes as the ecosystem matures, with the network now serving billions of queries monthly. The Graph’s new strategy aims to align protocol systems with long-term goals, ensuring that incentives are directed towards chains and projects demonstrating substantial adoption.
Since the introduction of the Chain Integration Process (CIP) in 2023, The Graph has provided indexing rewards funded through protocol issuance. These rewards were initially designed to bootstrap the decentralized data layer of web3, supporting a wide array of chain integrations and community-led experimentation. However, as the network has grown, the criteria for these rewards are being updated to reflect the ecosystem’s maturity.
Adjustments to the Chain Integration Process
The Chain Integration Process (CIP) is the mechanism through which new chains become fully supported on The Graph. Previously, chains could receive protocol-funded indexing rewards before demonstrating high usage. Moving forward, eligibility for these rewards will require chains to show signs of real adoption and growth, such as active Subgraphs, sustained query volume, and ecosystem engagement.
Chains that have already integrated with Subgraph Studio or Substreams will undergo an updated evaluation process. This includes meeting a minimum query threshold and demonstrating ecosystem engagement before receiving full protocol support. Chains that do not meet these criteria will not receive subsidized indexing rewards but will remain part of the network.
Focus on High-Value Queries and Protocol Performance
Indexing rewards, which are GRT tokens issued to incentivize Indexers, will now be allocated based on growth-focused criteria. This ensures that Indexers concentrate on serving high-value queries, enhancing protocol performance, and enabling smart scalability. The updated process aims to direct incentives towards builders and chains that demonstrate substantial adoption, thereby supporting the network’s long-term sustainability.
The Graph’s broader effort is to ensure that protocol growth is demand-driven, community-aligned, and future-proof. These changes reflect the network’s evolution from a phase of exploration to a phase of focus, concentrating incentives on the most active parts of the network.
For more details on these updates, please refer to the complete proposal here.
Why This Matters: Impact, Industry Trends & Expert Insights
The Graph is implementing changes to its protocol incentives to prioritize sustainable growth and align with long-term goals, focusing on chains and projects that demonstrate substantial adoption.
Recent industry reports indicate that blockchain indexing protocols are increasingly prioritizing scalability and cross-chain compatibility. This aligns with The Graph’s updated focus on growth-driven incentives, which supports the network’s maturation and demand-driven expansion.
As per insights from Finextra, sustainable growth in crypto protocols is driven by technological innovation and regulatory compliance. This supports The Graph’s shift towards a more sustainable incentive model that emphasizes substantial adoption and long-term viability.
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