The Graph is a protocol for indexing data on blockchains. The system indexes anything of value in smart contracts within DApps that developers can use for their own DApps. As the developers started building DApps on the Ethereum blockchain they realized that going through all the data available to developers is hard. As a solution they came up with the idea for a protocol that would index data on a blockchain. The official launch of the mainnet was December 17 2020.
What is GRT
The Ultimate Guide to Understanding Cryptocurrency: The Graph
The ultimate guide to understanding cryptocurrency, the graph, and how it’s being used to track every unit of value on the blockchain.
The Graph is a protocol for indexing data on blockchains. The system indexes anything of value in smart contracts within DApps that developers can use for their own DApps. As the developers started building DApps on the Ethereum blockchain they realized that going through all the data available to developers is hard. As a solution they came up with the idea for a protocol that would index data on a blockchain. The official launch of the mainnet was December 17 2020.
How does GRT work
- Create your account by going to this link.
- After you create your account you will have to choose which Ethereum Blockchain. For now you can choose Ethereum, Voatz or Waves.
- For now, as of today, only Waves is compatible with GRT.
- When you create your account, choose which specific Ethereum Wallet that you want to use for your account. Some Ethereum wallets like Parity, IOHK, Qtum, etc. can take more time to download, so if you have a small balance of EUR 1 or ETH of 500,000 you would rather download the wallet right away.
- Create your wallet.
- If you choose a blockchain compatible with your Ethereum Wallet choose the node that you would like to use.
- Then follow the instructions to get a Proof-of-Work token.
How to build a DApp on the Graph
Getting started with the Graph is very simple. If you are a developer on the Ethereum blockchain you can use the geth client to get started. To use the Graph the client simply runs:
geth --graph 1.0 1 geth -- graph 1.0
Once you have installed geth you can create your first DApp on the network.
geth create --graph 1.0 dapp1 2 geth create --graph 1.0 dapp2 1 geth create -- graph 1.0 dapp2
Here we have listed the command to run to create a DApp. With this command the user will get the following error:
Your smart contract does not have a name that can be referenced by geth
To solve this issue we will add a main line to our smart contract. This is the last step before deploying our smart contract to the network.
Conclusion
At this time the Ethereum Blockchain is being used by a wide range of DApps. There are projects built on Ethereum that store data, automate work and keep track of the Ethereum Blockchain. With many different kinds of data available and how the DApps are using it it was important to learn the basics. Ethereum makes it really easy to program Ethereum DApps and allows developers to focus on the business logic of their smart contract rather than having to worry about the technical side of things.