The Story of Yaniv Tal and Why He Built The Graph

• Yaniv Tal co-founded The Graph to simplify blockchain data access using decentralized indexing.
• He later launched Geo to fix online trust through verifiable, user-curated knowledge.

While most people start to get in touch with the world of technology through social media or smart devices, Yaniv Tal actually started his journey from a much quieter world: firmware. Yes, firmware—a kind of “hidden brain” of hardware that is rarely touched by ordinary people except when their laptops completely break down.

He once sat behind an HP screen, programming the UEFI interface, a kind of modern bios. Interestingly, this man didn’t stop there. He stepped into a much noisier place: Ethereum and Web3.

If you think the journey from hardware to blockchain protocols is like moving to a boarding house, think again. For Yaniv, it was like moving planets. But somehow, he seemed more comfortable in the new world.

Turning Chaos Into Code: The Moment The Graph Took Shape

It was around 2017, when the world started to get interested in blockchain not only because of the soaring price of Bitcoin. Many were curious, but they actually had difficulty when they wanted to build applications on it. In the middle of the chaos, Yaniv and two colleagues—Brandon and Jannis—saw a big hole they could fill: how to make blockchain data accessible without having to become “part-time hackers.”

Rather than repeating the same process every time they built a new application, they created The Graph. The idea was simple: to create a kind of “Google” of blockchain data. But don’t expect them to immediately get investors and have a startup party.

They even had to rebuild the technology foundation from scratch: choosing Rust, embedding WebAssembly, and sewing it into GraphQL.

And sure enough, the Web3 world welcomed it. In December 2020, The Graph officially launched on mainnet. In a matter of months, this protocol has been used by hundreds of projects, including those based on Ethereum and Layer 2 networks like Arbitrum and Optimism. They also raised a lot of funding: millions of dollars from token sales and investors who seemed to really believe in Tal et al.’s vision.

However, the story doesn’t end there. Instead of sitting back and enjoying the results, Yaniv decided to step down as CEO at Edge & Node, the company that raised The Graph. The reason? He has a new mission.

Yaniv Tal: Geo and the Obsession with Truth on the Internet

After The Graph was established, Yaniv felt that one thing was still unsolved: how can people know what is true on the internet? Especially now, when everyone can make their own “facts.” Thus was born Geo—a new project that sounds like a blockchain version of Wikipedia, but with a little social spice and digital reputation.

In Yaniv’s eyes, the internet has become too dependent on information authority centers that are vulnerable to abuse. Through Geo, he wants everyone to be able to contribute to the world’s knowledge map, with data that can be verified and traced. Looks idealistic? Indeed. But for him, this is not about dreams, but about system design. If Google used to index all pages, Geo wants to index the “truth.”

Furthermore, Geo is not just a technology project. Yaniv sees it as a subtle resistance to the internet that is increasingly filled with opaque algorithms. In one interview, he even called Geo the “browser of the future” that will change the way we search for and trust information.