Request for a Revised, Big-Picture Roadmap

Questions & Feedback
6

Hi PaulieB, all,

First, apologies for the delay here. I appreciate the thoughtful post - you raise important questions and lay it all out very clearly! I’ve seen similar questions from others, so I know the community would like a detailed response.

The Foundation has been working on these strategic questions internally, but we haven’t done a good job communicating them publicly. We do, however, have plans to release something more formally. For now, I’ll take a moment to address the questions you posed and provide a more high-level overview of what we’re doing and why, as a complement to Nick’s willingness to meet (which was a good first step).

There is a good amount of momentum, but I understand it’s difficult to see the big picture and where The Graph is heading with all the initiatives you’ve alluded to. To start, here is a high-level framework the Foundation is using to coordinate these efforts and drive The Graph’s evolution.

How the Pieces Connect: Three Coordinated Layers

1. The Protocol Layer: As you know, the existing protocol is limited to the Subgraph service. Starting in December, Horizon will be the protocol layer that expands The Graph Network into a platform for additional high-value Data Services, each with its own economic model and trust guarantees. This aligns with one of the core mandates of the Foundation, which is to bring value to the protocol and its stakeholders.

2. The Product/Service Layer: Over the past couple of years, builders supporting The Graph have placed increasing emphasis on product development, aiming to address the limitations of Subgraphs and better serve increasingly complex use cases.

Due to the extensive costs and time required to coordinate distributed systems, The Graph ecosystem has adopted a pragmatic approach: build products first, even if centralized, find product-market fit, and only then work on the network integration. This approach enables us to iterate strategically on The Graph’s product suite. A quick overview of this layer:

  • Subgraphs: The Graph launched Subgraphs on a hosted service before migrating thousands of users to The Graph Network in 2022. While we’re building new solutions, developers are still improving Subgraphs and making them AI-compatible (through things like MCP and x402). In parallel, The Graph is building more opinionated solutions for demanding use cases where Subgraphs aren’t the best fit.

  • Token API: Over the past 8 months, as you mentioned, The Graph developed Token API that serves token, price, NFT, and metadata for wallets and explorers across nine chains. Pinax continues to develop this with an AI-first approach, recognizing protocol integration as a subset of its roadmap.

  • Substreams: Substreams has gained considerable traction in 2025 with some of DeFi’s largest multichain protocols. The Graph Foundation and core dev teams recently agreed on a plan to evolve it into a more extensive, permissionless data service by 2026 (evolving GIP 0083).

  • Amp: Edge & Node’s new product, Amp, addresses the developer experience while expanding the total addressable market with a focus on verifiability - crucial for traditional financial institutions. It is SQL-first, built with DataFusion, has great ergonomics, and is suited for larger analytical needs (compared to Graph Node). We hope it can greatly reduce operational costs and complexities for existing Subgraph Indexers. We hope to share more about this very soon!

3. The Economic Layer: Currently, our core focus is to enable the protocol to scale to multiple data services with the thesis that (a) more staked GRT and (b) more service usage (query fees) drives token value. Scarcity happens via service usage, driving token burns, and more providers staking.

Strategic Outlook: What’s Next?

If I were to summarize all we’re doing and tie it all together, here is where I see The Graph heading:

  1. Evolution to a data platform: With Horizon finally here, we are making the protocol modular. This opens up existing Indexers to new revenue streams as well as future specialized ones.

  2. Enterprise expansion: The Graph is positioned as the solution for indexed blockchain data for financial institutions, working with organizations like ISO and IETF. We are building a dedicated blockchain database with strong built-in verifiability.

  3. AI integration: We are embracing the agentic world, positioning The Graph as the blockchain data layer for AI Agents by natively supporting industry standards such as x402, A2A, and the next generation of MCP servers.

  4. Operational efficiency: We are simplifying the Indexer stack to remove redundancy, aiming to make it economically more viable while ensuring responsible issuance and incentivizing better QoS (initial work introduced with the REO - GIP here and criteria here).

All of this combined allows The Graph to evolve into a highly efficient, verifiable data platform with a suite of value-add services suitable for dapps, analysts, financial institutions, and AI agents.

Conclusion: Our Commitment

For The Graph Foundation, our mandate is clear and straightforward: ensure the health and growth of the network. Through Horizon, we’re coordinating the development and integration of high-value data services into the network and, ultimately, a more active voice in economic matters to ensure the protocol’s long-term sustainability.

I acknowledge that the lack of a cohesive roadmap makes it difficult for the community to fully understand where The Graph is heading with these initiatives. In conjunction with a dedicated blog post update on the roadmap, The Graph Foundation will soon deploy a public-facing, dynamic roadmap page on the website for greater transparency.

This post is not the final answer to your feedback, but a starting point. The Graph Foundation is committed to sharing more information and broad updates with the community more often. I appreciate the thoughtful post and all the very reasonable feedback provided thus far!

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