I am really excited about this proposal and possibilities it can have. There are really insightful points made so far on query processing and verifiability. I would like to build on this proposal by highlighting an interesting service that opens new markets for subgraphs, which is also very important.
One of the exciting possibilities of this service is the ability to expose an ETL data service layer on top of subgraphs, which can serve SQL queries to consumers. We can call it “SQL as Service”. This would allow all the power of SQL, including business analytics, transformations, complex aggregations, slicing/dicing, can be performed on multi-chain subgraphs.
SQL is the de-facto standard for business analytics, and I strongly believe that graph will have a massive impact on data analytics, much like Dune/Footprint, if SQL as a service is exposed. With the integration of Firehose/substreams on this service, real-time business analytics can be provided, addressing current data refresh interval issues faced by current analytics platforms.
The service will open up new markets and consumers for subgraphs. For instance, domains such as Business Analytics, Financing, Taxes, and Accounting, which require complex queries and multi-step transformations can be done easily, would benefit greatly from this service.
Moreover, users could easily plug visualization layers on top of this service, allowing them to create compelling visual representations of their data.
I believe that it’s important to give indexers or data providers the flexibility to choose whether or not they want to run the ETL and expose this service. It should not be tightly coupled with a graph node. Indexers who choose to run the ETL and serve queries could be incentivized with additional rewards.
I would also like to initiate an open discussion point: if indexers are serving SQL as a service on top of subgraphs, which requires extra processing and storage, should they receive additional rewards for running ETL, aside from query rewards?
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on this matter.