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.

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The Graph

# The Graph Fees Methodology

## 1. Overview

The Graph fees metric measures the total protocol revenue generated from The Graph's decentralized indexing and query infrastructure. This metric aggregates four distinct fee types: query fees paid by users for GraphQL API access, curation taxes from curators signaling on subgraphs, delegation taxes from delegators staking to indexers, and dispute resolution fees from the network's fraud-proof system. The calculation combines daily fee amounts from multiple blockchain events across Ethereum, Arbitrum, and Polygon, converts them to USD, and provides a comprehensive view of The Graph's protocol-level revenue generation.

## 2. Data sources

- **Blockchain events**: Parsed billing events (`Billing_TokensPulled`), curation events (`Curation_Signalled`), staking events (`Staking_StakeDelegated`, `Staking_StakeSlashed`), and dispute resolution events (`DisputeManager_DisputeAccepted`, `DisputeManager_DisputeRejected`) from Ethereum, Arbitrum, and Polygon networks
- **Token transfer data**: GRT token transfer events from Ethereum and Arbitrum, specifically transfers to burn addresses (null address and dead address)
- **External data**: End-of-day GRT token price feeds for USD conversion
- **Token metadata**: GRT token decimal precision data (18 decimals) for amount normalization

## 3. Step-by-step calculation

### Component A: Query fees
- **Purpose**: Captures revenue from users paying for GraphQL API access to subgraph data
- **Logic**: Extracts `amount` values from parsed `Billing_TokensPulled` events on Arbitrum and Polygon. These events are emitted when the billing system pulls GRT tokens from user accounts to pay for query usage. Special handling excludes the migration date (2022-12-13) when normal billing was paused, instead adding a hardcoded amount of 44,191.57 GRT to account for the migration to Arbitrum
- **Key fields**: `amount` field represents GRT tokens pulled for query payment, `account_address` identifies the billing contract, `block_timestamp` provides timing

### Component B: Curation fees  
- **Purpose**: Captures protocol taxes from curators signaling on subgraphs
- **Logic**: Extracts `curationTax` values from parsed `Curation_Signalled` events on Arbitrum and Ethereum. When curators deposit GRT to signal confidence in subgraphs, a percentage is burned as a protocol fee to prevent spam signaling
- **Key fields**: `curationTax` field represents the protocol fee portion of curation signals, `account_address` identifies the curator

### Component C: Delegation fees
- **Purpose**: Captures protocol taxes from delegators staking GRT to indexers  
- **Logic**: Matches parsed `Staking_StakeDelegated` events with corresponding GRT token transfers to burn addresses within the same transaction. Uses transaction hash and action ID matching to pair each delegation action with its associated token burn. The burned amount represents the delegation tax
- **Key fields**: `tokens` field from delegation events for stake amounts, `value` field from token transfers for burned amounts, `action_id` for matching delegation events with burns

### Component D: Dispute fees
- **Purpose**: Captures protocol revenue from the dispute resolution and slashing system
- **Logic**: Combines two fee sources: For accepted disputes, matches `DisputeManager_DisputeAccepted` events with `Staking_StakeSlashed` events to calculate the protocol's portion (slashed amount minus fisherman reward). For rejected disputes, takes the full deposit amount from `DisputeManager_DisputeRejected` events as penalty fees
- **Key fields**: `tokens` field from dispute events for deposit amounts, `tokens` and `reward` fields from slashing events for calculating net protocol fees

### Final aggregation
- **Combining components**: All four fee components are combined using union operations, standardized with daily timestamps, chain identifiers, and business classification metadata
- **Currency conversion**: GRT amounts are corrected for 18-decimal precision and converted to USD using end-of-day price feeds
- **Time aggregation**: All timestamps are truncated to daily boundaries for consistent time-series analysis
- **Final calculation**: The metric represents the sum of all USD-converted fee amounts per day, with zero-filling applied for periods without fee activity to maintain complete time series data

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

Total value users pay to use a protocol (gross fees, user-paid fees).

The GraphGRT

Fees

Fees

Competitive landscape

Chain breakdown