Swap GRT at the Best Rate

What is GRT?

GRT is the coordination asset of The Graph, a protocol that turns raw blockchain history into queryable APIs. Developers publish subgraphs describing what to index, and independent operators called indexers serve those queries for fees. GRT is what every participant puts at stake, so honest work is rewarded and bad data is penalized.

The token is not gas for a chain of its own. It is an ERC-20, deployed on Ethereum in 2020 and on Arbitrum One through the protocol's own bridge, and the contracts that hold stake, route fees and mint rewards have lived entirely on Arbitrum One since 2024.

How GRT works

Indexers stake GRT to operate nodes, choose subgraphs to index and set the reward cuts they share. Their stake can be slashed for serving wrong data. Delegators add GRT to an indexer's stake for a share of rewards, paying a 0.5% delegation tax that is burned and accepting a thaw of roughly 28 days when they withdraw.

Curators signal GRT on subgraphs to point indexers at data worth serving, paying a 1% curation tax that is burned and earning a share of that subgraph's query fees. Applications pay for queries in GRT, and a slice of every query fee is burned as well.

GRT supply and tokenomics

Ten billion GRT existed at the December 2020 launch. Issuance targets about 3% new supply per year, paid to indexers as indexing rewards, while the delegation tax, curation tax, the query-fee cut and slashing together burn roughly 1% of supply per year according to the protocol's documentation.

About 20% of genesis supply endowed The Graph Foundation on a ten-year vesting schedule to fund grants, and early team and backer allocations followed multi-year lockups. The issuance rate is a protocol parameter, so it can move through governance rather than being fixed in the token contract.

Who builds GRT

The Graph was started by Yaniv Tal, Brandon Ramirez and Jannis Pohlmann, whose company Graph Protocol, Inc. renamed itself Edge & Node around the network's launch to signal that it would no longer be the sole team behind the protocol.

Development is spread across core developer teams funded through The Graph Foundation, including Edge & Node, StreamingFast and others building products such as Substreams and Firehose. The Foundation reported the network had served over 1.27 trillion queries by early 2026.

How GRT is governed

Protocol changes go through Graph Improvement Proposals and are executed by The Graph Council, a 6-of-10 multisig representing indexers, users, researchers, backers and the initial team. The Foundation is accountable to the council, which approves grants and parameter changes.

GRT holders do not cast binding on-chain votes directly; the council model was announced as a starting point intended to decentralize further over time. Major shifts followed the GIP process, including moving the protocol to Arbitrum One and switching 100% of indexing rewards there on 28 June 2024.

What people use GRT for

GRT's utility is participation in the network's marketplace for data: it is the asset each role commits in order to do its job and earn from it.

• Stake as an indexer to serve queries and earn indexing rewards and fees.
• Delegate to an indexer and share its rewards without running hardware.
• Signal on subgraphs as a curator to earn a cut of their query fees.
• Pay for subgraph queries when building applications on The Graph.

GRT risks and considerations

The Graph's economics depend on real query demand. Issuance pays indexers regardless of fee volume, so the roughly 3% yearly inflation is only offset when network usage keeps burns meaningful, and governance can change the issuance rate itself.

Control is concentrated in the council multisig rather than token votes, delegation carries a burned 0.5% tax plus an unbonding wait of roughly 28 days, and protocol activity now lives on Arbitrum One, so holders who stay on Ethereum hold the token but not the protocol's functions. GRT on networks beyond those two is a third-party bridged asset.