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Data has been, is, and will continue to be the linchpin resource. It’s the element separating the good from the great. the Alpha(bet) and the Omega. You get the point. But, as data keeps growing exponentially, we are drowning in data - but starving for wisdom.

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Who is the wise one?

An old saying opines: “A wise man does not enter a (bad) situation that a smart man can get out of”. In essence, it is the ability to foresee the future and act accordingly that makes the difference. 

That is the power of information systems and, more generally, the scientific process. They enable us to predict the future.

But data by itself is not enough. It's just noise. You need to transform it into information. 

You collect and extract the data, look for similarities and differences, discover patterns and relationships within the data. You then transform the data into information, and finally load the information into a database. The end product is Business Intelligence. 

Alas, providing productionized mission-critical services is a highly demanding, multifaceted task. Running a complex, scalable, resilient infrastructure requires a small team of infrastructure engineers, and monitoring it constantly for outages is a task that nobody wants.

This is even more profound with Blockchain technologies. The network's size and its linked list structure (block-chain), make extracting and traversing data even more complex. The exponential adoption rate and the necessity for real-time solutions add more layers of complexity.
As if that’s not enough, the very nature of decentralized data adds to the mix, speed, and latency challenges. Finally, managing, storing, and deploying apps is more friction developers would love to avoid.

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Therefore, the solution needed is an indexing and data transformation tool. Throw in a reliable storage and hosting solution, and you’ve got the whole package.

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Show Me the Info!

If you dabbled in crypto you must know by now that two of the biggest problems Ethereum has are low transaction speed and high transaction fees, i.e. it’s slow and expensive.

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There is great anticipation in the DeFi space regarding other Layer 1 (L1) and L2 solutions that have started to manifest in the past few months. 

Polkadot is a multichain network that aims to connect different specialized blockchains into a single unified network, thus tackling the interoperability problem of blockchains. Today, blockchains, as a general rule, operate as independent silos, making it hard to transfer value from one to another. Polkadot solves this problem with its network design. It’s a single network made up of a collection of separate, specialized blockchains - a sharded blockchain. 

Regarding speed, Polkadot focuses on enterprise and B2B financial applications that require bank-level security and stability and has a reported throughput of 1500 Transactions Per Second. Ethereum’s TPS is currently around 16.

We believe that Polkadot has great potential for growth.

Hello, SubQuery

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This is where SubQuery enters the picture. SubQuery is an indexing, data transformation and, in collaboration with its parent company, Onfinality, offers Infrastructure solutions for project deployment.

Since its inception, SubQuery has focused on Polkadot's smart chain, while maintaining close connections, support, and strong collaborations with the Polkadot community.

SubQuery’s experienced team has separated itself from the rest of the data indexing field in Polkadot's ecosystem, and we believe it can become the central hub for all the various networks mentioned.

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Hello World in Five Minutes

SubQuery puts great emphasis on user experience and simplicity. Its simple documentation and straightforward SDK enables users to be up and running within 5 minutes. 

Today, it’s powering some of the top applications in Polkadot and serving API requests, including DeFi apps like Acala and Bifrost, wallets like Fearless Wallet, NFT platforms like KodaDot, cross-chain bridges like Darwinia, and analytics platforms like SubVis. 

SubQuery has also put much attention on reliability and scalability. In the first quarter of 2021, it provided approximately one billion API requests. Its current goal is to leverage its resources and experience to support the demand of one billion requests - per day.

The Builders

Sam Zou and James Bayly, the founders of SubQuery, also have under their belt the founding of OnFinality, the successful infrastructure company, which serves Polkadot’s leading projects such as Acala, Bifrost and many more.

The Actors

The protocol focuses on three types of users. Consumers, i.e. app developers, who make requests to the SubQuery network for data. Indexers who prepare, transform and index the data. Lastly, Delegators participate in the network by backing their favorite Indexers in order to earn rewards.

Opposed to other solutions in the market (where there may be an active projects curator), SQ is planning to build a code-based market mechanism called Purchase Order Contract.

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Why We Partnered With SubQuery

We live in a data-driven world. The potential of acting on quality data in the context of blockchain technologies is clear. In a field where the complexities and barriers to entry are uniquely high, SubQuery, with its experience, infrastructure, network structure and connections, and technical capital generated, is in a prime position to become the leading search engine of the Polkadot ecosystem. 

We believe in the future de-siloization of decentralized finance. More and more bridges, literal and figurative, are being built to create a unified, interoperable blockchain:  a multichain. SubQuery’s team is purposely building generic solutions, thus enabling agile migration to other ecosystems, and is planning to move next to Solana, Algorand, and other prominent blockchains.

We are proud to support the SubQuery team in its goal to become a leading player in the blockchain data infrastructure field.

Want to share thoughts?