When you interact with a DeFi app or check your NFT collection, you're not directly talking to the blockchain—you're asking GRT token, the native currency of The Graph, a decentralized protocol that organizes and retrieves blockchain data. Also known as The Graph token, it enables developers to build apps that pull real-time data from Ethereum, Polygon, and other chains without running their own servers. Without GRT, most dApps would be slow, expensive, or impossible to run.
The Graph isn’t just another crypto project—it’s the backbone for thousands of apps that need fast, reliable access to on-chain data. Think of it like Google for blockchains: you ask a question—‘What wallets held ETH before the Merge?’—and The Graph finds the answer across millions of transactions. Developers pay for this service using GRT, and network participants—curators, indexers, and delegators—earn GRT for keeping the system running. Curators signal which data is important, indexers store and serve it, and delegators stake GRT to support them. It’s a real economy built around data, not speculation.
Most people never see GRT in action, but they use it every time they check a token’s price on CoinGecko, track a DeFi yield on DeFiLlama, or view NFT ownership on OpenSea. Those platforms rely on The Graph’s indexed data to load instantly. If The Graph went down, half the crypto web would freeze. That’s why GRT isn’t just a token—it’s infrastructure. And unlike many tokens tied to empty promises, GRT has real, measurable demand from builders who can’t afford to wait minutes for blockchain data.
What you’ll find below are deep dives into how GRT works, how it connects to other protocols like POAP and DeFi platforms, and why some projects using The Graph succeed while others fade. You’ll also see how data indexing ties into broader trends like blockchain voting, security tokens, and even crypto mining regulations—because none of it matters if you can’t access the data cleanly and cheaply.
Claim 10 free GRT tokens from The Graph via CoinMarketCap's Learn & Earn airdrop in 2025. No prior crypto experience needed. Step-by-step guide, eligibility rules, and common fixes.
