In this educational guide, we’re going to explore the altcoin and blockchain named The Graph (GRT). We’ll cover its fundamentals and planned roadmap, so you can use it to make your own price prediction.
The Graph functions as a protocol to access data from blockchains via indexing and querying. It is not meant to be a standalone blockchain by itself, but rather a tool for working with data on blockchains like Ethereum themselves. Developers can build applications with open APIs called subgraphs to access on-chain data that is indexed by a network of node operators.
As of the time of writing, GRT currently ranks in the #55 of top cryptocurrencies by market capitalization. Let’s explore the value, implementations, and price of The Graph’s GRT token.
What is The Graph and how does it work?
The Graph’s vision is to make data more accessible and easier to access and query en masse across several blockchains. Subgraphs are open source, which means anyone can use the APIs to build decentralized applications.
A subgraph defines the data The Graph will index from Ethereum and how it will store that data. Once this subgraph is deployed, it then forms a global graph of blockchain data. In this way, The Graph allows users and developers both to decentralize the query and API layer of Web3. Current subgraphs can be noted here.
Prominent Ethereum applications that use subgraphs today include Audius, Uniswap, Opyn, DAOstack, Synthetix, and others.
There are five types of network participants in The Graph network: a developer, an indexer, a curator, a delegator, and a consumer.
Developers create subgraphs or use existing subgraphs in a dapp.
Indexers operate a node to index data and serve queries. They are node operators as referred to on other blockchains. Indexers stake GRT tokens and earn query fees and indexer rewards for their services to the network.
Curators organize data by signaling on subgraphs. They can be subgraph developers, data consumers, or community members who signal to Indexers which APIs should be indexed by The Graph Network. Curators deposit GRT tokens into a bonding curve to signal on a specific subgraph and earn a portion of query fees for the subgraphs they signal on.
Delegators are stakers who are not running their own node, but still want to contribute to securing the network. They can delegate their GRT tokens to indexers and in turn earn a portion of query fees and indexing rewards. Delegators select indexers based on their performance on measures such as query fee rates, past slashing, and uptime as well as delegator parameters like the cut of fees and rewards from the Indexer.
Consumers are the users of The Graph protocol that pay the query fees and use queries. Consumers can be other developers or projects. These projects may cover the query fees themselves or pass it onto their end users.
The Graph Explorer allows any party to see open access blockchain data showing the activity of indexers, curators, and delegators, as well as network activity including indexing stake, query fees, and more.
The protocol operates with the dynamics of a query marketplace since indexers that stake GRT earn query fees for their indexing efforts and the price of these queries can vary based on the cost to index the subgraph, the demand for queries by end users at the time, and the market rate for blockchain queries overall, as well as the amount of curation signal.
Indexers and Delegators also earn indexing rewards in addition to query fees. These rewards are earned in the form of GRT tokens as new token issuance that is distributed proportionally to the Curator signal and allocated stake.
There is also a Rebate Pool which rewards all network participants based on their contributions to the Graph Network. Staked GRT undergoes a thawing period if an indexer or delegator wishes to unstake and can be slashed if the indexer becomes malicious or serves incorrect data or mis-indexes. Approximately 1% of total protocol query fees are burned and subject to future technical governance.
GRT Tokens
GRT tokens are Ethereum-based (ERC-20) tokens that are used for payments for queries themselves, for work, and for voting. GRT tokens can be locked up by protocol participants including indexers, curators, and delegators to provide indexing and curating services to the network. Active indexers, curators, and delegators can earn fees and income from the network proportional to the amount of work they perform and their GRT stake.
Consumers of the protocol pay for their metered usage using GRT tokens and indexers fulfill this service. Indexers can stake Graph tokens (GRT) to participate in the network and earn fees as well as inflation rewards for serving queries.
Token Distribution
The total GRT token supply at the launch of the mainnet was 10 billion tokens. New tokens are issued in the form of indexing rewards at 3% annually and are subject to future independent technical governance.
There have been two funding rounds for GRT so far: the first included a Series A private sale led by DCG and Coinbase Ventures, and before that there was a seed round led by Multicoin Capital in 2019.
The Graph’s public token sale or ICO was held in October of 2020 and was designed to optimize for distribution to community members who intended to participate in the network as indexers, curators or delegators. It took place over 3 phases with start times approximated at 9AM on Ot 22-Oct 24 for each subsequent phase.
The Graph (GRT) Price History & Technical Analysis
As of the time of writing, in April 2022, the price of GRT is at $0.506, with a market capitalization of $2.39 billion USD.
The total value of The Graph’s network grows as the protocol is used more, as more queries are performed, and as more indexers and consumers are active, amongst other network participants. As the indexing stake grows and as the number of burned GRT increases in turn to produce deflationary pressure on the token as demand for the token increases, we expect to see positive price pressure on the token longer term.
Note that GRT is not a fixed supply token and is inflationary, with new issuance occurring at the rate of at least 3% annually for indexing rewards.
While address growth alone does not necessarily translate to the growth of users, it is still a way to gauge growth. Metcalfe’s Law states that the value of a network is directly related to the number of users of that network.
What Expert Analysts say about The Graph:
- CRYPTOPOLITAN says, "As blockchain-based applications continue to increase, the more information the network needs to process and store, escalating the inadequacies facing the blockchain in terms of data querying. The Graph project has found a solution to this challenge, and end-users and developers alike can now leverage a decentralized app to obtain the desired results from blockchain indexing and querying.
Since the inception of the Graph project and GRT token, the adoption of the solution it profers has continued to drive the price of GRT.” - Coinpedia says, "The GRT price has not shown any bullish signs since the start of January as there were increased sell-offs. However, as RSI plummeted to historical bottoms, the asset is now bottomed to a five-month low of $0.5484. The bulls appear to be now looking for support between $0.45 to $0.5. If the asset manages to break out then it is expected to retest $1 in the short supercycle.
If the bulls rally and take the GRT coin price to higher ends, the second half might commence bullish as well. If that’s the case, then the coin would hit $2.512. In contrast, if this year closes at the minimum end, the succeeding year might resume bearishly. And so, it might start trading at $0.541.” - DigitalCoinPrice notes, “The forecast is encouraging and shows positive improvement in its price starting from January 2022. This graph shows that the GRT prices will soar higher in 2022 and the upcoming years. The GRT prices are expected to reach $1.13 in December 2022 as per the predictions. If this rise takes place, it will be a record 72.12% rise in its value.
The prediction for 2028 shows that this rise will amount to 315.18% and its price will be $2.73. These predictions are discussed briefly as follows.”
The Graph Partnerships
The Graph is supported on the Ethereum network and is adding support to The Graph Network with NEAR and EVM compatible chains. This means that subgraphs can be built across chains so that developers have more choices for where to deploy their smart contracts.
Other chains with hosted service for The Graph include xDai, Near, Polygon, BNB, Celo, Avalanche, Arbitrum, Fantom, Fuse, Optimism, Moonriver, Aurora, Moonbeam, and Poa.
Many of the best projects in the cryptocurrency industry are using The Graph today: Uniswap, Synthetic, Decentraland, and Aragon all use The Graph.
The Graph is also backed by prominent investors and VC firms such as Framework, ParaFi Capital, DTC Capital, Multicoin Capital, Coinbase Ventures, Digital Currency Group, CoinFund, Collider, Lemniscap, Reciprocal, Compound, and 122 West.
The Graph Price Prediction: 2022-2026
GRT’s price took off sharply once it was launched onto the public crypto markets and hit a peak of almost $3 in the Spring of 2021. This price has not been seen again since then, and GRT has been on a downtrend seeing lower lows.
The good news is that the price has settled in once again near its original launch price below the $0.50, occasionally touching lower. The bulls keep buying the dip every time the price comes this low, so as long as GRT can hold the $0.50 area, we expect to see $1.00 again eventually. Once a weekly candle on the chart seen above can cross the $0.50 area that was previous support in the Summer of 2021 lows, price can then go on a new run, especially thanks to the fundamental use case of the project.
With more expanding subgraphs and continuing updates to The Graph’s strong roadmap, investors can expect the previous all-time high of $2.88 breached during 2022-2023. However, if the $0.50 is rejected again and/or a greater economic contraction occurs that leads to overall losses in the cryptocurrency markets, then GRT may not see its all time high for a longer time.
The Graph Price Prediction 2022
The Graph’s blockchain explorer metrics don’t show any signs of slowing down, so this is a great overall sign for the project. As long as the price can get back above the $0.50 with a clean break and hold above on the weekly timeframe, we expect more improvement to come with price soon seeing above $1.00 during 2022. This is still dependent on whenever the crypto market resumes its bullish price action.
The Graph Price Prediction 2023
With the growing necessity for indexing and querying blockchain data in an efficient manner from all sorts of end users, applications, and developers, we expect to see continued usage and growth of The Graph.
It would be reasonable to see GRT trading above $2.00 by 2023.
The Graph Price Prediction 2024
The market capitalization alone remains at only $2.3 billion in April 2022, and its peak thus far in 2021 was still less than $12 billion, which could be considered a fair value from a fundamental use case standpoint as the total market grows. This could mean that GRT is trading at $2.5 or above by 2024, given continued development and expansion.
The Graph Price Prediction 2025
2025 is still far away at the time of this writing. The continued usage trends and developmental challenges in blockchain are uncertain to extrapolate that far out, however given that The Graph has prominent backers and partners, and solves a critical use case, we expect for GRT to flourish and see above $3-3.5 by 2025.
The Graph Price Prediction 2026
The crypto market overall could very well be worth $10T or even as high as $15T in total market capitalization by 2026. Depending on regulations and the overall economic cycles, we may see GRT as high as $4-5 by 2026. It could also grow even higher given its usage and the problem it solves for the high amount of data that is building up, with the need for indexing and queries. Unlike traditional databases, the blockchain has no built in query function to access data for retrieval and analysis. As such, as the greater total usage of blockchain technology continues to develop, we expect to see greater growth in GRT that can even surpass this prediction.
None of these predictions are financial advice, and are educated guesses as to where GRT’s price may be at each time interval. It should be noted that any major financial hack, cease in development, or other black swan events could impact these predictions significantly.
The Graph (GRT): Conclusion Price Prediction
The Graph is a fundamentally-sound blockchain investment choice that solves a dire need in the crypto industry for indexing and querying large amounts of data on the blockchain in a decentralized and open source manner.
While GRT cannot be compared to other native blockchains like Ethereum or Bitcoin themselves, it functions as more of an accomplice or helper to blockchains overall, providing significant economic and development value to many end users.
Some may be hesitant to commit their money into an asset for an extended period of time due to the extreme volatility and risk of the cryptocurrency markets. However, it’s great to see many blockchains already working with The Graph.
FAQs
How is The Graph gaining traction?
The Graph is gaining traction thanks to the growing demand and need for data indexing and querying on the blockchain. The Graph is a potent tool for working with data on many blockchains including Ethereum and others.
Many investors are also interested in its token GRT’s price and potential as a result, since the token is used for payments, work, and voting on the network. Because the overall market believes in the technology The Graph offers, the price continues to hold thus far and is poised to do well over the coming years.
Where can I buy The Graph?
GRT, the token, can be bought and traded on all major centralized platforms and exchanges such as Binance, Coinbase, KuCoin, and Voyager, and others for all major fiat currencies such as USD, GBP, and EUR, or even for crypto pairs such as trading BTC or ETH for GRT.
In comparison to other cryptocurrencies, how can The Graph secure privacy?
The Graph Explorer details all public transaction data and activity on the network, so users should not assume utmost privacy on the network. However, transaction data is still pseudonymous as is expected on blockchains.
Note that using advanced blockchain forensics in the modern day, it can be possible to track users in the case of illicit activity.
Is it possible to stake The Graph?
Yes, GRT tokens can be staked by Indexers or delegated to Indexers as well to stake. Indexers earn query fees and indexer rewards for their services to the network in turn. Delegators are stakers who are not running their own node, but still want to contribute to securing the network. They can delegate their GRT tokens to indexers and in turn earn a portion of query fees and indexing rewards.
Why is The Graph on the rise?
GRT tokens are on the rise because of the usage of its subgraphs and queries on multiple blockchain networks.
Is The Graph completely anonymous?
No, all public ledgers are visible for all transaction data to all parties on the blockchain. The Graph is a public network with its token and transactions on top of the Ethereum public blockchain as an ERC-20 token, so any party can see all transactions on the public The Graph explorer.
However, transaction data may be pseudonymous, meaning the user’s name is not necessarily linked to the transactions or wallet addresses. However, depending on where the users sources their fiat or GRT tokens, blockchain forensics can easily identify the user’s identity.
Is GRT considered a currency?
Yes, GRT tokens are a currency that are used for the payment of fees for queries.
Is it possible to generate profits with GRT?
Yes, assuming the GRT token increases in price over time with the continued development of the The Graph protocol’s usage growth and technology, it is possible to generate profits by investing in GRT, but not guaranteed due to other factors that can affect the investment and the overall cryptocurrency markets.
All investors must do their own research, due diligence, and ensure that they are comfortable with the amount of risk they are taking. All cryptocurrencies are extremely volatile and risky. Always proceed with caution.
Why do people believe in The Graph?
Many analysts and investors believe that The Graph is the “Google” of the blockchain world, in the sense that it is responsible for indexing large amounts of data and helping users of all types query it with ease to make the blockchain much easier to use.
Is The Graph supply limited?
No, the GRT supply is uncapped and not limited.
It is an inflationary token, and inflation is programmed to be at an average inflation rate of approximately 3% per year for indexing rewards. These parameters are subject to change based on governance and voting. This may make the supply and demand dynamics of the GRT token slightly different than a fixed or capped supply token, but note that GRT tokens are also burned as can be noted on the The Graph Explorer, so there are some deflationary forces at play
How does The Graph team investigate suspicious or fraudulent transactions?
It is not clear how The Graph team controls the investigation of fraudulent transactions yet.
Since the network requires transaction fees to use, this is a deterrent for potential scammers and attackers that may otherwise try to overwhelm the network with queries.
Thanks to the public blockchain explorers, all participants and associated blockchain forensics systems also have a real-time view of transactions used for predictive analysis and detection of fraudulent activities.
DISCLAIMER
This is not financial advice, only observations and speculation. All investors should do their own research and due diligence. The crypto markets are extremely volatile and losing your investment is possible.
