The Graph Grants $12.5M in ‘First-Ever’ Effort To Drive Web3 Standards

Messari, which already has 20 subgraphs within the ecosystem to date, said it wants to add a further 200, focusing on Web3 protocols

article-image

Blockworks Exclusive art by axel rangel

share

key takeaways

  • Messari has won a $12.5 million developer grant from The Graph Foundation to further its efforts within the ecosystem
  • The crypto intelligence platform said it will use the grant to grow resources and continue driving toward its mission of open data

Crypto intelligence platform Messari said Thursday it has become the inaugural winner of a $12.5 million core developer grant from The Graph Foundation, earmarked for furthering data standards in Web3.

Messari will continue working on improving those standards by dedicating resources to subgraph development, of which it has already completed 20, the company said in a statement.

The Graph is a protocol for building decentralized applications on Ethereum, as well as indexing and querying data from various blockchains. It is considered by some to be a critical layer of Web3 development, supporting 34 different networks including Ethereum, Near, Arbitrum and Polygon.

Its foundation, meanwhile, is charged with stewarding the protocol’s ecosystem while shepherding developers and community members.

A subgraph defines which data The Graph will index from Ethereum and how the data will be stored, according to a blog post. The issue, The Graph says, is that data points are required to be collected across multiple protocols and often face a lack of standardization, proving cumbersome and inefficient.

Two protocols that share many similarities, for example, AAVE and Compound, may have significantly different application programming interfaces. The Graph protocol lets developers bootstrap, what are termed subgraphs, to their existing project’s smart contracts to query blockchain data quickly.

Messari said the grant will help it continue driving open-source data standards and “high-quality” subgraph development within The Graph ecosystem. 

“We are proud to have been awarded the first-ever Core Subgraph Developer grant by The Graph Foundation,” Messari CEO Ryan Selkis said.

“We share The Graph community’s belief that structured on-chain data should be accessible to everyone, not just enterprise data consumers.”

Messari also said it plans to build another 200 subgraphs for Web3 protocols and has begun creating standards and DeFi working groups to share best practices with other DeFi applications.


Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

Tags

Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily, with Byron Gilliam.

Upcoming Events

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

recent research

Research Report Templates.png

Research

Pipe Network is a decentralized content delivery network (dCDN) that replaces the sparse, capital intensive data center footprint of traditional CDNs with a permissionless mesh of independent node operators. By orchestrating under-utilized resources that already exist at the edge, rather than purchasing or leasing thousands of servers, Pipe slashes capital intensity while letting supply expand autonomously in the places where bandwidth is scarcest and most expensive.

article-image

ETH’s “breakout marks a significant structural shift and clears the path towards…$4,000,” Kraken’s OTC desk noted

article-image

Fiscal dominance isn’t about interest rates and it isn’t about Trump, either

article-image

Firestarter Storage brings decentralized storage and delivery to Solana

article-image

After lengthy closing arguments on Wednesday, the case is now in the hands of 12 jurors

article-image

Analysts cite weak trading volume and regulatory progress as factors

article-image

Builders weigh in on Ethereum’s first decade and the decisions that will define its next one