Edge & Node April/May 2023 Update

Research & Development Core Team Updates
1

:woman_astronaut: Exec Summary

In April, Edge & Node improved both the demand and supply side of The Graph Network’s query market by focusing on the experience of both Indexers and Subgraph Developers.

Major accomplishments:

  • Enabled L2 the first tranche (5%) of indexing rewards for The Graph protocol on Arbitrum One
  • Added support for Sepolia testnet to Subgraph Studio
  • Shipping the newest stable release of Indexer components: v0.20.16
  • Starting protocol improvement discussions regarding exponential query fee rebates and direct Indexer payments

Additionally, we have made significant progress on tooling to analyze and improve data consistency on the network and make the user journey to the network smoother.

On the business side, we had a very successful month of events and hackathons which contributed to migrations and subgraph spotlights. One third of the way through the quarter, we’ve hit about one third of our goal for subgraph migrations from the hosted service to the decentralized network, and we have many more events lined up in service of that goal. Press coverage of The Graph has ratcheted up with segments on Bloomberg TV and Fortune.

More detailed updates can be found below, lining up with our tracks to support top-level strategic initiatives.

Looking back (what was delivered)

1. Running and supporting Indexers on network:

  • Released Indexer components v0.20.16 (the first release marked as Mainnet-stable since v0.18.6), including support for Fantom network
  • Published Exponential Query Fee Rebate GIP to forum and provided support for exponential rebate implementation
  • Proposed concrete Direct Indexer Payments (DIPs) and indexing rewards protocol changes
  • Improved indexer-agent robustness via early identification and error-throwing on common configuration issues
  • Presented Quality of Service (QoS) Oracle and operational tips at Indexer Office Hours
  • Found a new algorithm for the Allocation Optimizer that improves performance (proof of optimality pending)
  • Made significant progress toward MVP of Graphix, a tool for monitoring and investigating Indexer POI divergences

2. Monitoring and reducing infrastructure costs:

  • Implemented monitoring of outgoing calls (both RPC & Firehose) in graph-node
  • Made logging cluster improvements and removed several Testnet and Mainnet Indexers to support cost savings
  • Configured nginx-ingress controller autoscaling, with close monitoring now in place

3. Unblocking decentralized network go-to-market:

  • Migrations
    • Migrated 12 subgraphs to the network so far in April. These migrations included Balancer v1 and an optimized a Uniswap governance subgraph.
    • Got migration commitments from 31 projects
  • User journey improvements
    • Integrated and announced Subgraph Studio support of Sepolia testnet
    • Completed API to enable migration journey from hosted service to Studio
  • Arbitrum scaling
    • Completed and announced Phase 2 of Arbitrum Scaling:
      • Enabled 5% of protocol indexing rewards to be on L2
      • Co-hosted Twitter Spaces with Arbitrum & three top Arbitrum dapps using The Graph
    • Nearly finished with subgraph migration helpers after working through numerous use cases and edge cases
  • Billing improvements
    • Implemented notifications and API key management panes, updated Studio API keys table, and integrated request tickets
    • Progressed in generating query keys, retrieving query keys, and managing query keys
    • Added a new code helper in query key panel

Other accomplishments this month

  • Tegan appeared on Bloomberg TV and had a segment on The Graph and web3 – Ethereum Steals Spotlight from Bitcoin Post-Upgrade
  • The Graph made Fortune’s Crypto 40 List
  • On the business side
    • Events
      • Kyle gave featured a keynote and panel at Consensus 2023 in Austin
      • 8.6% of all projects used The Graph in ETHGlobal Tokyo hackathon
    • Brian published “Why we Lowercase web3” article
    • Recorded podcasts for Blockchain Dialogues, Hashmail, Coin Bureau, Tokensoft, and Fuse Network
    • Participated in AMAs/Twitter Spaces for Banxa, Fenbushi, and All Roads Lead to Polygon
    • Co-marketed Celo x The Graph development series for building subgraphs on Celo
    • Launched Awesome-TheGraph GitHub repo & got featured in Awesome-Web3 repo
    • House of Web3 approved 75 new co-creators, upgraded A/V in the main speaking room, finalized livestreaming and recording capabilities for events, and sent comms to all co-creators outlining platform for ongoing community participation
  • Graph Node
    • Refreshed api-next query node to support graphQL validations
    • Fixed graph-node issues with logging and Firehose start
    • Worked on enabling Transaction Receipts on events to leverage Firehose block when available
  • Graph Explorer

Looking ahead (upcoming priorities)

  • Running and supporting Indexers on the network
    • We are targeting completion of Graphix MVP by end-of-month, with 2 views
      • subgraphs dashboard for visibility into POI discrepancies per subgraph
      • POI divergence report with all available data to support investigations for root causing divergences
    • We will then begin POI divergence investigations using Graphix MVP with the goal of finding root causes and upstreaming fixes for divergence-causing issues
    • Update graph-node to batch writes during subgraph syncing
  • Unblocking decentralized network go-to-market
    • User journey improvements
      • Launch claim subgraph functionality
      • Release UI/UX updates in Hosted Service, Studio, and Explorer
    • Billing improvements
      • Implement email notifications for billing
      • Finish the feedback collection widget
    • Arbitrum Scaling
      • Implement Curation migration helpers
      • Start on Delegation + Staking migration helpers
      • Provide native support for Indexers operating on both L1 and L2 with a single infrastructure
  • On the business side
    • Launch a new podcast reading out blogs on TheGraph.com. Primary distribution is with a link at the top of each blog that functions as a “read this blog out loud for me” button, with secondary distribution on various podcast platforms
    • Write a blogpost detailing progress made on the sunrise of decentralized data since last October’s update
    • Get up to 30 subgraphs migrated
    • Get at least 5 migrations for each chain live on the network
    • Create a positive presence at Avalanche Summit
    • Continuing education for The Graph Network participants
      • Publish another “Best Practices in Subgraph Development” blog post
      • Teach users how to pay for queries with GRT using video & docs content
      • Publish blog on QoS improvements and The Graph Network comparison to other options
      • Educate Indexers on the progress of L2 indexing rewards from 5% to 100% (pending approval by The Graph Council)
    • House of Web3 events
      • NEAR SF Hack & Pitch Night on May 4th
      • AI Workshop with Semiotic Labs on May 5th
      • My First DAO with Upstream on May 5th
      • First conference at House of Web3: BuildETH on May 12th from 9am to 5pm
      • VC Office Hours with Open Web Collective on May 17th
6 Likes