The Graph ditches Ethereum, migrates to Arbitrum in anticipated move

The Graph, a blockchain indexing protocol founded in 2018, is fully migrating to the Arbitrum network from Ethereum on Wednesday. 

The Graph’s move to the popular layer-2 was initiated by network participants in an attempt to lower gas fees, accelerate transactions, and increase the protocol’s accessibility, according to a press release from The Graph Foundation.

Edge & Node CEO Tegan Kline said users weighed the options among layer-2 networks and Arbitrum ultimately came out on top.

“The Graph users have continually searched for solutions to improve gas efficiencies and enhance other aspects of the network,” Kline said in a statement. “After careful consideration of all options on the market, the ecosystem selected Arbitrum as the Layer 2 scaling solution that will bring speed and affordability to protocol developers and network participants.”

This has been long in the making, with plans to move being known as far back as April 2022 via a governance proposal that suggested creating a set of contracts that would bridge GRT transactions to Arbitrum. Discussions about moving to a layer-2 network because of prohibitively expensive gas prices date back to November 2021 on The Graph’s forums. 

A June 2022 proposal was the first to present a deployment of The Graph on Arbitrum. Its proposers, Edge & Node software engineers Pablo Carranza Vélez and Ariel Barmat, suggested it wasn’t a good idea to migrate in “one go.”

Since then, The Graph has gradually taken more steps to exit the Ethereum network, including enabling indexing rewards on Arbitrum and deploying transfer tools enabling users to move tokens to Arbitrum. Both proposals were passed unanimously.

The statement from The Graph Foundation further explained that its users should start receiving transition prompts today.

“Protocol users will be presented with an option to transition to Arbitrum across The Graph’s suite of products. Protocol rewards will continue to gradually shift from Ethereum to Arbitrum, and over time, will transition entirely to Arbitrum,” the press release said.

Updated June 14, 2023 at 2:00 pm ET: A previous version of this article stated that The Graph migrated to Arbitrum on Tuesday. The protocol made the switch on Wednesday.

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