ChainSafe awarded a grant by The Graph for Filecoin Integration Spec
Authored by Timothy Hao Chi Ho
[Editor's note: The original version of the article has since been modified. The original incorrectly stated that ChainSafe would be helping to spec and build the Filecoin integration on The Graph. However, the grant was awarded for building the spec, and not the build itself. We apologize for any confusion or inconvenience this may have caused!]
ChainSafe is thrilled to announce we have received a Wave 2 grant from The Graph Foundation to spec a Filecoin integration for The Graph!
The Graph straddles a core component of the Web 3.0 stack by providing indexing and querying services for Ethereum, IPFS, and PoA. Even though The Graph was originally optimized for EVM compatibility, the Web 3.0 ecosystem has continued expanding as a multi-chain world utilizing runtimes beyond just the EVM. This changing reality has created an increasing need for The Graph's indexing and querying services to expand towards additional blockchains. This announcement is one in part of The Graph's ongoing expansion efforts within the Web 3.0 ecosystem.
And as our world tomorrow transforms before our eyes into a hybrid on-chain and off-chain reality, more and more of humanity's most important data will live on Filecoin's incentivized distributed file storage network. Adding Filecoin to the blockchains and data sources supported by The Graph will allow subgraph developers to build subgraphs that index data from Filecoin blocks and actors. In this way, people can soon use real-time data to create updates, triggers, and hooks from Filecoin into their dapps.
The grant will leverage ChainSafe's expertise within the Filecoin ecosystem. As official implementers of the Filecoin spec in Rust ("Forest"), a mining participant on the Filecoin network, as well as being one of the first inductees to the Filecoin MinerX fellowship, ChainSafe possesses an intimate familiarity with the core codebase and holds key relationships with the folks over at Protocol Labs and the Filecoin Foundation. Additionally, ChainSafe has leveraged both the IPFS and Filecoin stack to launch products like ChainSafe Files and Storage, which provide intuitive front-end UI's to interact with the otherwise sophisticated technology.
With the Forest codebase nearing completion of a major audit with Sigma Prime, ChainSafe Forest is on the cusp of productionizing alongside Lotus on the Filecoin network. In conjunction with the team's continued contributions to the implementations of the Storage and Retrieval Markets, ChainSafe will be in a prime position to provide technical and architectural expertise to integrating Filecoin with The Graph. This will be especially true considering ChainSafe's wealth of experience within the Ethereum domain, which will guide the team's mapping of EVM structures for Filecoin adaptation with The Graph's data models.
About The Graph
The Graph is the indexing and query layer of the decentralized web (Web3). Developers build and publish open APIs, called subgraphs, that applications can query using GraphQL. The Graph currently supports indexing data from 22 different networks including Ethereum, Arbitrium, Avalanche, Celo, Fantom, Moonbeam, IPFS, and PoAa with more networks coming soon. To date, over 18,000 subgraphs have been deployed on the hosted service and now subgraphs can be deployed directly on the network. ~20,000 developers have built subgraphs for applications such as Uniswap, Synthetix, Aragon, Gnosis, Balancer, Livepeer, DAOstack, AAVE, Decentraland, and many others.
If you are a developer building an application or Web3 application, you can use subgraphs for indexing and querying data from blockchains. The Graph allows applications to efficiently and performantly present data in a UI and allows other developers to use your subgraph too! You can deploy a subgraph to the network, using the newly launched Subgraph Studio, or query existing subgraphs that are in the Graph Explorer. The Graph would love to welcome you to be Indexers, Curators and/or Delegators on The Graph's mainnet. Join The Graph community by introducing yourself in The Graph Discord for technical discussions, join The Graph's Telegram chat, or follow The Graph on Twitter! The Graph's developers and members of the community are always eager to chat with you, and The Graph ecosystem has a growing community of developers who support each other.
The Graph Foundation oversees The Graph Network. The Graph Foundation is overseen by the Technical Council. Edge & Node and StreamingFast are two of the many organizations within The Graph ecosystem.
Get Involved
Want to work with ChainSafe? COME JOIN US! Check out the new Careers section of our website and our open positions, and get in touch with us at careers@chainsafe.io if you are interested.
Stay tuned to both ChainSafe and The Graph's Twitter accounts for more updates. We will be releasing more technical details and blog posts once the implementation phase begins.
Make sure to join in the conversation on ChainSafe's Discord! Learn more about ChainSafe by visiting our website, through Medium, via Twitter, or by visiting the ChainSafe GitHub.
Acknowledgements
Thank you to Alex Voto, Pedro Diogo (The Graph), Tegan Kline (Edge and Node), Jeremy Sklaroff (Edge and Node), and Noelle Becker Moreno (Edge and Node). Your contributions were invaluable to the making of this article.
