The Graph aims to build the search engine of the decentralized web
The growing popularity of blockchain technology has brought into focus the need for efficient and reliable ways to retrieve blockchain data. Blockchain-powered systems are great for storing information safely and securely, but finding relevant data among a myriad of data blocks is not always an easy task. And while there are some prominent ‘block explorer’ services on the market, the blockchain space has up until recently been lacking a true decentralized solution. However, this is now changing, thanks to one of the most ambitious blockchain projects out there – The Graph.
What is The Graph?
The Graph is the indexing and query layer of the decentralized web. Developers build and publish open APIs, called subgraphs, that applications can query using GraphQL. The Graph currently supports indexing data from Ethereum, IPFS, and PoA with more networks constantly being added. To date, over 11,000 subgraphs have been deployed by ~17,000 developers for applications, such as Uniswap, Synthetix, Aragon, Gnosis, Balancer, Livepeer, DAOstack, AAVE, Decentraland, and many others. You can find more information about the unique architecture of The Graph’s network in our detailed piece on the technology.
LimeChain’s involvement
Developing a technology as innovative and ambitious as The Graph requires impeccable technical expertise, significant development effort and appropriate tools to support and streamline the development process. Having had plenty of experience working on challenging blockchain projects, LimeChain was able to win a grant with a proposal for a tool that could make it significantly easier for teams to create subgraphs.
As part of the project, our team is building a tool aimed at solving a major development bottleneck – testing. The tool is an open-source Subgraph Unit Testing Framework, which will enable developers using The Graph to test their mapping logic against a known store state and against test fixtures. With this framework we seek to bring value to the entire Web3 ecosystem and especially to DeFi projects aiming to leverage The Graph’s technology.
The future
With roughly 11,000 subgraphs already deployed, it is clear that The Graph’s value proposition is well understood within the blockchain community. And as more people and organizations start using blockchain technology, the importance of The Graph’s decentralized querying platform is poised to become even more apparent. At LimeChain we’re excited about this prospect and we’re eager to keep contributing for the wider adoption of the technology.