The Graph provides blockchain data and receives query fees from demand-side users. Supply-side users also pay fees for delegating to a node, curating subgraphs, disputes and when slashing occurs (revenue). Indexers, delegators and curators perform indexing services for which they are compensated by The Graph (expenses).

The Graph is an indexing protocol built on Ethereum and other blockchains. The Graph was founded by Brandon Ramirez, Jannis Pohlmann, Yaniv Tal and launched in 2018.

GRT tokenholders own and govern the protocol. They currently take all of the total fees (revenue). The Graph’s investors include Multicoin Capital, Coinbase Ventures, Framework ventures, etc.

governance

github

twitter

discord

etherscan

website

Infrastructure

The Graph

# The Graph Cost of revenue Methodology

## 1. Overview

The Graph cost of revenue represents the total operating expenses paid by The Graph protocol to network participants who provide indexing and curation services. This metric captures the protocol's direct costs for maintaining its decentralized data indexing infrastructure, including query fee rebates paid to indexers and delegators, and curation rewards paid to curators. The calculation aggregates daily expense amounts across Ethereum and Arbitrum networks, converted to USD for standardized reporting.

## 2. Data sources

- **The Graph protocol events**: Parsed `RebateClaimed` and `AllocationCollected` events from The Graph Staking contracts on Ethereum and Arbitrum networks
- **Blockchain transaction data**: Ethereum and Arbitrum transaction logs containing The Graph protocol interactions
- **Token price data**: End-of-day GRT (Graph Token) price feeds for USD conversion
- **Token metadata**: GRT token decimal specifications for amount normalization
- **Protocol contract data**: The Graph Staking contract addresses and event schemas across supported chains

## 3. Step-by-step calculation

### Component A: Query fee rebate expenses
- **Purpose**: Captures rebates paid to indexers and delegators when they claim their share of query fees
- **Logic**: Extract `RebateClaimed` events from The Graph Staking contracts on Ethereum and Arbitrum. Parse two types of rebates from each event: indexer rebates from the `tokens` field and delegator rebates from the `delegationFees` field. Filter out removed events and only include events where `unclaimedAllocationsCount` is non-zero, indicating actual rebate distributions occurred
- **Key fields**: `tokens` (indexer rebate amount), `delegationFees` (delegator rebate amount), `block_timestamp`, `address` (Staking contract), transaction identifiers

### Component B: Curation reward expenses  
- **Purpose**: Captures rewards paid to curators when allocation fees are collected and distributed
- **Logic**: Extract `AllocationCollected` events from The Graph Staking contracts on Ethereum and Arbitrum. Parse the `curationFees` field which represents rewards distributed to curators. Filter out removed events to ensure only valid distributions are included
- **Key fields**: `curationFees` (curation reward amount), `block_timestamp`, `address` (Staking contract), transaction identifiers

### Final aggregation
- **Combining components**: Union query fee rebates and curation rewards into a single expense dataset, categorizing both as "Operating expenses" under the "Data Provider" business line
- **Currency conversion**: Convert raw GRT amounts from blockchain units using token decimal metadata, then apply USD conversion using end-of-day GRT price feeds matched to transaction dates
- **Time aggregation**: Truncate all timestamps to daily boundaries and aggregate total expense amounts by day for each chain
- **Final calculation**: Sum all daily operating expenses across both Ethereum and Arbitrum to produce total daily cost of revenue. Apply zero-fill strategy for any missing days to ensure continuous time series, and filter results based on chain data availability windows

*This methodology was automatically generated by Token Terminal's methodology analyzer.*

Expenses paid to third parties to deliver core service output.

The GraphGRT

Cost of revenue

Cost of revenue

Competitive landscape

Chain breakdown