Three Minutes to Understand Web3.0 Data Infrastructure Project SubQuery: Mainnet Breaks Boundaries, Creating a Decentralized Future

Author: SubQuery

Undoubtedly, data is the oil of the new era.

If we could view the wave of Web 3.0 construction from a god's perspective, it would not be difficult to simplify the description of Web 3.0 as follows: every individual with an authenticated identity in the Web 3.0 system generates a massive database through interactions in daily life and spiritual entertainment. By classifying, filtering, analyzing, and processing this database, we can achieve better solutions for value judgment, value services, and value distribution.

This is also one of the important reasons why blockchain can be referred to as the "value internet" and the "cornerstone of Web 3.0": as a distributed ledger technology, blockchain data is public, transparent, and immutable on-chain, allowing all applications to read and write data.

However, reading, writing, and analyzing on-chain data is not an easy task: on one hand, indexing and extracting data requires a certain hardware foundation and technical strength; on the other hand, as various public chain ecosystems expand and multi-chain development progresses, on-chain data becomes increasingly complex and intertwined, raising higher demands for data processing, integration, and analysis capabilities.

Based on this, the data service sector is thriving and further subdivided into different modules such as data indexing, API services, and customized data analysis. Among them, the data service provider SubQuery has developed into a leading data service project in Web 3.0, thanks to its high-performance, high-efficiency, low-cost, and fully decentralized data aggregation and organization services.

With the advancement of multi-chain development and the new design of the mainnet, SubQuery is also becoming a pillar project in the wave of Web 3.0 construction.

Introduction to SubQuery Core Components

SubQuery believes that multi-chain expansion is one of the future development trends of blockchain. As more Layer-1 networks emerge and ecosystem developers and users expand on a large scale, on-chain data becomes increasingly rich, and the challenges of querying and analyzing this data grow exponentially. Therefore, we need a unique, flexible, and open-source platform to lower the barriers to data querying and analysis, further unlocking data value.

SubQuery operates as a decentralized data aggregation, indexing, and querying layer between Layer-1 networks and dApps, providing developers and users with a blockchain development toolkit, complete APIs, open-source indexers, and other services. It can organize and query on-chain data and provide clearer and more understandable analytical data through GraphQL, helping developers focus on deploying the core of their products without wasting effort on custom backend technologies.

In less than three years, SubQuery has developed into one of the highest-performing and most successful open-source decentralized indexers in the Web 3.0 space. Currently, SubQuery's indexing support covers nearly 120 chains, becoming a well-known brand that provides indexing solutions for large projects and some of the fastest-growing applications in cross-chain environments.

SubQuery has the following core components:

• SubQuery's SDK
• SubQuery Hosting Service
• SubQuery Decentralized Network

SubQuery's SDK is the first product launched by the SubQuery team in February 2021. This set of on-chain development tools helps developers query, organize, and structure data. The SDK is not only open-source but also allows users to generate their own SubQuery projects. Additionally, SubQuery provides the community with help documentation, tutorial guides, and more, further lowering the barriers. Subsequently, SubQuery achieved a pursuit of higher performance by launching the 2.0 version SDK, which brought significant improvements in indexing speed, including multi-threading, indexing data from multiple RPC endpoints, and automatic RPC API batch sizes. With continuous performance enhancements, SubQuery's indexing speed has doubled on most networks.

In addition to real-time indexing, testing frameworks, and error logs, this year SubQuery also added real-time indexing for incomplete data blocks. With the release of SDK version 3.0, SubQuery made significant modifications to the manifest file definition, enabling it to provide developers with more control over how projects operate, further facilitating developers to flexibly index the on-chain data they need.

The SubQuery project is an online hosting service where anyone can publish their own SubQuery project and host it for free. After logging in, creators can share their SubQuery projects with the world in just a few minutes. In terms of performance and security, the experienced SubQuery team deploys SubQuery projects on high-performance nodes on behalf of the creators. This way, creators are relieved from cumbersome deployment operations while enjoying an excellent user experience. On December 1st, SubQuery also released a new service billing standard, proactively offering developers more favorable hosting services.

The basic deployment cost used to be $0.25 per hour, which has now been reduced by 20% to $0.20 per hour. Additionally, the multi-chain deployment prices have been updated for the supported 120 chains, with the deployment cost for each additional network being $0.12 per hour. This significantly lowers the cost of multi-chain indexing compared to indexing each network separately, and it also includes all the advantages associated with multi-chain indexing, such as merged datasets and a single GraphQL endpoint.

The SubQuery network aims to establish a multi-chain development, decentralized, transparent, and high-performance network to better address data redundancy issues, providing users with simple, efficient, and clearly predictable decentralized data services.

As SubQuery continues to expand towards multi-chain support and decentralization, the SubQuery network is also about to go live.

Introduction to the Basic Operation Mechanism of SubQuery Network

In the SubQuery network, there are three main participants:

• "Consumers": They will initiate requests to the SubQuery network to query specific data and pay a certain amount of SQT tokens.
• "Indexers": They need to stake SQT tokens and add SubQuery projects to their own infrastructure, indexing data and responding to GraphQL demand instructions by running nodes and query services, earning SQT tokens paid by "consumers" as query rewards.
• "Delegators": They delegate SQT tokens to their favorite "indexers" to earn a portion of the "indexers'" SQT token query rewards.

In this process, the SQT tokens paid by "consumers" will be distributed as rewards to "indexers" and "delegators" through a Cobb-Douglas production function. The specific amount received by "delegators" is determined by the ratio set by "indexers," but the higher the distribution ratio, the more "delegators" can be attracted. When "delegators" find that the reward distribution provided by "indexers" does not meet their expectations, they can freely withdraw their delegation at the cost of losing the rewards for that delegation period.

As the foundation of network operation, the number of requests answered by "indexers" and the amount staked will directly affect their final income level, leading to healthy competition among "indexers." Rational "indexers" will maintain a high level of SQT staking to earn more income. Therefore, even if the network does not require a staking amount, "indexers" will still actively manage themselves to maximize profits.

New Breakthrough in SubQuery Network Operation - Introducing Decentralized RPC

The SubQuery network has identified the next breakthrough point for decentralized data infrastructure. The SubQuery network was initially designed as a decentralized data indexing network to address broader challenges in decentralized infrastructure in Web 3.0, starting with decentralized and super RPC. Today, SubQuery's mission has greatly expanded, and the opportunities are greater; today marks the dawn of a new era in Web 3.0.

SubQuery's mission has always been to innovate Web 3.0 infrastructure, enabling builders to realize a decentralized future. By pioneering fast, flexible, and scalable decentralized infrastructure, SubQuery aims to drive Web 3.0 towards an open, efficient, and user-centered future.

Today, SubQuery has a decentralized data indexer that provides services to developers on its pioneering network. However, over the years, the SubQuery team has discovered a dirty little secret about Web 3.0—leading dApps still rely entirely on centralized data sources and RPC services, which are costly to operate and controlled by institutions. This shocking fact has prompted SubQuery to embark on the next phase of work, dedicated to a decentralized future.

On this path, SubQuery will first decentralize data indexers and RPC providers into a permissionless network composed of thousands of node providers, simplifying the data layer for a multitude of applications and use cases.

RPC is the main interface for blockchain and the foundation of all Web 3.0 infrastructure. The SubQuery Network will provide payment tracks, service validation, and dispute resolution frameworks to facilitate the decentralization of these critical infrastructure components. The second phase focuses on enhancing RPC, implementing SubQuery data nodes, which are highly optimized RPC endpoints designed to prioritize performance and query scalability. Finally, SubQuery will strive to democratize RPC by providing sharded data nodes, addressing the EIP-4444 issue in the process, allowing everyone to run and operate RPC at a lower cost.

The resulting open market will bring three benefits to data infrastructure service providers and their consumers. It will maintain a low barrier to entry, allowing any node operator to join and become a provider of any service on any network. It will automatically incentivize performance and cost, rewarding node operators based on these metrics, thereby promoting these values throughout the network. Since node operators can freely join new chains and projects, gaining a first-mover advantage—constantly expanding the network—this will democratize services across the entire Web 3.0 ecosystem.

SubQuery believes that this approach can address scalability issues related to historical data, ensuring data integrity across the network while improving cost efficiency for queries and contract calls. This innovation has the potential to facilitate the scaling of Ethereum, Layer-2 protocols, and other protocols, promoting greater democratization and decentralization of Web 3.0.

While SubQuery currently leads in providing aggregation and organization of data for large Web 3.0 dApps, the potential of the SubQuery network far exceeds its initial scope. Recently, SubQuery will release more details on how they plan to achieve this and how Web 3.0 practitioners can join their journey. SubQuery's mission has greatly expanded, and the opportunities are broader; today we see the dawn of a new era in Web 3.0. This is a revolution from simple Web 3.0 data indexing to comprehensive Web 3.0 infrastructure.

Conclusion

If you have the ability to analyze on-chain data, it will be a powerful skill for the next decade.

This statement seems to have become a consensus across the blockchain industry, as on-chain data acts like a "barometer" of the crypto world. Services that are easy to operate, have low participation thresholds, high flexibility, and are highly adaptable to multi-chain environments can help us turn off the "filter" of the crypto world, allowing us to step into the crypto world more authentically and make more accurate judgments. This is precisely what SubQuery is doing.

What is even more commendable is that SubQuery incorporates this series of factors into the token economy design of the SubQuery network, using effective incentive models to further ensure low thresholds, low costs, and benefits for all parties involved in the ecosystem.

The continuously expanding and innovating SubQuery has transitioned its requirements for its mainnet from simple Web 3.0 data indexing to comprehensive Web 3.0 infrastructure, paving the way for true decentralization.

As the crypto market continues to develop, the demand for data will only increase. We look forward to SubQuery growing into the preferred data infrastructure in the wave of Web 3.0 construction and, with the advancement of multi-chain, expect SubQuery to serve more ecosystems and accelerate the realization of Web 3.0. We have been discussing what true decentralization is, and SubQuery is providing the answer through action.