The Graph Expands Subgraph Support to NEAR and 40+ Blockchains
COMMUNITY
March 14, 2024
The Graph Foundation recently announced the inclusion of NEAR into its expansive subgraph support, now encompassing over 40 leading L1 and L2 blockchains including Arbitrum, Base, Fantom, Celo, Optimism, Polygon Labs, and Scroll. By integrating with The Graph, NEAR developers gain access to a decentralized network for streamlined data querying, significantly reducing costs and improving synchronization speeds. 

The partnership highlights the NEAR Foundation’s ongoing commitment to enhancing developer resources and interoperability within open web ecosystems as part of advancing the Chain Abstraction vision. In 2021, NEAR became The Graph’s first non-EVM chain integration for its hosted service, kickstarting the evolution towards a multichain open web ecosystem. 

Subgraph support will take things a step further, facilitating better multichain data accessibility for NEAR builders and increasing the reach and breadth of tools and technologies to support Chain Abstraction. This moment also marks NEAR as the first non-EVM chain to become available on The Graph Network.

How Subgraph Support Empowers NEAR Developers
Subgraphs on The Graph are transformative open APIs that efficiently organize and serve blockchain data, accelerating the development of decentralized applications (dApps) on the NEAR Protocol. This integration offers developers further support in efficient data querying, swift access to indexed blockchain data, and seamless interoperability across multiple chains.

By streamlining data retrieval, The Graph’s subgraph support eliminates the need for exhaustive blockchain scans, allowing for quick navigation, filtering, and location of specific data points. This advancement equips NEAR developers with tools similar to Web 2.0 search engine capabilities, tailored for the precision and complexity of blockchain data. 

The Graph’s Multichain Support and Expansion Goals 
The Graph’s integration with NEAR and over 40 additional blockchains is a step towards more rich multichain development. By extending beyond Ethereum, The Graph is facilitating a unified, accessible ecosystem for designing advanced, user-focused decentralized applications (dApps) across a diverse range of blockchains. 

Enhancing interoperability among different blockchain networks also grants developers access to a broader spectrum of data, supporting the creation of dApps that are both feature-dense and user-friendly. These improvements also promote more unrestricted data exchange across chains for the purposes of dApp development.

NEAR Protocol and Future of The Graph Network
Looking forward, The Graph Network is aiming to break the barriers of decentralized access to blockchain data, as it plans to introduce new data services to meet the growing needs of Web3. The Graph’s core devs are planning ahead on executing the “Sunrise of decentralized data” initiative, designed to improve tooling and developer experience. 

Soon, NEAR devs building on The Graph Network will be able to take advantage of a free query plan, an intuitive subgraph upgrade wizard, and more. The Graph-NEAR Foundation collaboration will further emphasize the shared mission of both teams for a more interconnected and inclusive Web3 ecosystem via Chain Abstraction, enhancing the value of indexing and querying blockchain data.  