Building The Multi-Chain World: Announcing Our Investment Into SubQuery

September 8, 2021 Ninor Mansor

We are thrilled to announce our investment into SubQuery, which we think will be the prime data aggregation and indexing layer of the entire Polkadot ecosystem. We’re excited to partner with Digital Currency Group (DCG) and Stratos Technologies to co-lead the $9M strategic round. The SubQuery ecosystem is only growing, and we look forward to seeing the protocol emerge as the foundation of Decentralized Finance, NFTs and Web 3.0 on Polkadot.

We will live in a multi-chain world. Nation states are differentiated based on shared history, differing values and unique competitive advantages. So too will Polkadot Parachains cater to users based on specific user requirements. Different political and economic philosophies will manifest as consensus algorithms and emission schedules. Just as nation states specialize in what they produce and export, Polkadot Parachains will specialize in particular crypto-verticals like Decentralized Finance, NFTs or Web 3.0.

To organize and coordinate, Polkadot Parachains will need a secure and decentralized data aggregation layer that standardizes and unifies communication between different applications on separate Parachains. Enter SubQuery. 

SubQuery is a decentralized data aggregation, indexing, and querying layer between blockchains and applications. SubQuery abstracts away blockchain-specific data idiosyncrasies using the SubQuery SDK. This enables developers to seamlessly deploy their applications onto a Parachain without needing to develop their own querying frameworks.

SubQuery enables the decentralized querying of open-source blockchain data. Consumers – application developers – can request data from the blockchain, while Indexers work to clean and provide that data to the Consumers. Data indices are built according to a manifest – a document describing which data from a particular protocol needs to be indexed and in what form. Nodes, operated by Indexers, record these instructions (i.e. what event to listen to, how to store the data and in which form) and update the data indices with the new data that is fetched periodically.

Embedded in the design of SubQuery is a marketplace enabling the efficient allocation of capital and useful Parachain data. Unlike other data indexing protocols, the Consumers and Indexers both equally share the cost of indexing upfront. Consumers and Indexers enter into a bespoke agreement – known as a Purchase Order Contract – about the structure of the data index and the Consumers pay the cost upfront. Hence, the Indexers are guaranteed revenue if they deliver on the data index contract. This means that both Consumers and Indexers are first-class citizens on the SubQuery protocol, and coordinate to efficiently allocate their capital to standardize, index, and aggregate useful Parachain data.

SubQuery Network Value Flow

SubQuery is fully operational on Polkadot and Kusama and is already serving millions of daily data queries to over 60 projects, including three out of the five inaugural winners of the Kusama Parachain auctions – Karura, Khala, and Bifrost.

SubQuery Ecosystem Map

OnFinality, the company behind SubQuery, is a major infrastructure provider for the Polkadot ecosystem. In August alone, its API service received ~5 billion requests from its 15 supported networks, including Karura, Moonriver, Shiden, Phala, and Bifrost.

OnFinality August Recap — 18 Billion Requests

Business Wire: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210908005482/en/SubQuery-Announces-US9-Million-Funding-Round-For-Decentralized-Data-Protocol-For-The-Polkadot-Ecosystem

The Block:
https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/116915/subquery-indexing-protocol-polkadot-funding-saft

Cointelegraph: https://cointelegraph.com/news/subquery-raises-9m-for-polkadot-data-protocol

Coindesk: https://www.coindesk.com/business/2021/09/08/subquery-gets-9m-in-series-a-to-improve-access-to-blockchain-data-on-polkadot/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/subquerynetwork

Telegram: https://t.me/subquerynetwork

Discord: https://discord.com/invite/78zg8aBSMG