The Graph has officially announced the start of its “Sunrise of Decentralized Data” roadmap, signaling the final push toward a fully decentralized data indexing and querying network. The initiative is designed to migrate all users from the centralized Hosted Service to the decentralized Graph Network, marking a key milestone in Web3 infrastructure evolution.
What’s Happening and Why It Matters
On October 31, 2023, The Graph introduced a refreshed three-phase plan—Sunray, Sunbeam, and Sunrise—to complete the shift to fully decentralized data services . The goal is to retire reliance on centralized infrastructure and bring every subgraph onto the community-powered Graph Network.
This transition matters because it dismantles the last vestiges of centralization in data indexing. Instead of a single provider serving subgraphs, independent indexers worldwide now compete to serve queries and earn rewards in GRT tokens. This shift enhances resistance to censorship, improves reliability, and aligns with Web3’s decentralized ethos.
Roadmap Breakdown: Three Phases
Sunray – Phase One
Launched in early 2024, Sunray enabled developers to migrate hosted-service subgraphs to the Graph Network. New users were even granted a free monthly quota of 100,000 queries to ease onboarding .
Sunbeam – Phase Two
This phase introduced a 60-day window for upgrades, along with hands-on support to assist developers in making the transition . Concurrently, the Sunrise Upgrade Program was launched in May 2024, offering up to 4 million GRT to participants—developers, content creators, and community members—for completing upgrade-related “missions” .
Sunrise – Phase Three (Completed)
By mid-June 2024, the final phase concluded. The Graph decommissioned Hosted Service endpoints, and now all subgraphs operate exclusively on the decentralized network .
“With the completion of The Graph’s Sunrise of decentralized data, we have removed the ‘training wheels,’ as Vitalik Buterin described them,” said Tegan Kline, CEO of Edge & Node .
Usage Surge Supports the Shift
The migration coincided with explosive growth. Over 6,000 subgraphs are now live on the Graph Network, including popular dApps like AAVE, ENS, Balancer, Decentraland, Lido, PancakeSwap, and SushiSwap .
Network activity reflects the success of decentralization:
- Queries soared from about 89.8 million to 991 million per month, an 11× increase .
- By July 2024, the Graph Network processed 1.95 billion monthly queries, up 11× year-over-year .
- The number of active subgraphs jumped to over 9,000, a 361% increase since Q1 2024 .
- The infrastructure expanded to support 60+ blockchains, offering developers improved performance and cost efficiency .
What This Means for the Ecosystem
Decentralized indexing ensures Web3 dApps don’t rely on a single infrastructure provider anymore. Instead, query services are distributed, competitive, and inherently more resilient . Developers benefit from:
- Lower query costs and higher uptime
- Freedom from vendor lock-in
- Transparent performance metrics
- A growing, multimodal data ecosystem beyond subgraphs
Indeed, the community is already looking ahead beyond indexing. Discussions touch on using the network for advanced data services like SQL querying, file hosting, and integration with AI-driven systems .
Looking Forward
Onward from Sunrise, The Graph’s focus turns toward enhancing developer tools, scaling indexer performance, and building a composable, interconnected data architecture for Web3 and AI agents .
Key questions to monitor:
- How rapidly will support for new data types (e.g., AI, file storage, new query languages) roll out?
- What improvements will surface in developer experience and indexer operational tools?
- Will we see the emergence of a unified “knowledge graph” layer over time?
This is the culmination of a multi-year, community-driven evolution. With Sunrise complete, the foundation for truly decentralized, composable data layers is in place—and now the real work begins.
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