The Graph Foundation has announced the fourth step of the Rewards Eligibility Oracle (REO), the system that decides which Indexers may claim indexing rewards. From Tuesday 17 November 2026, the number of Subgraphs an Indexer must serve each online day will depend on its total stake. The change was announced at Graph Office Hours on 3 November and set out on The Graph forum on 5 November, giving the 14 days' notice that every REO change gets.
What changes
Today every Indexer must serve qualifying queries on at least 10 Subgraphs per online day, a rule BitBasic covered earlier this week. From 17 November the minimum becomes the higher of:
- 10 Subgraphs, or
- one Subgraph for every 4M GRT of total stake (self-stake plus delegated GRT), rounded up.
In practice this only raises the bar for Indexers with more than 40M GRT of total stake. According to the Foundation's examples, an Indexer with 100M GRT will need 25 Subgraphs and one with 200M GRT will need 50. The count is of Subgraphs on which the Indexer actually served qualifying queries, not Subgraphs it merely syncs.
The Foundation's stated end goal is one Subgraph per 1M GRT of total stake (100 Subgraphs for a 100M GRT Indexer), reached in further steps, each announced at least 14 days ahead. It justifies the change by noting that the 10 largest Indexers hold about 70% of total stake and received about 71% of indexing rewards paid from 2 August to 29 October.
What stays the same
- Indexers must be online on 5 or more days in a rolling 28-day window.
- A qualifying query returns HTTP 200, answers in under 5,000 ms and comes from an Indexer within 50,000 blocks of chain head.
- Eligibility renews on-chain daily at 10:00 UTC and lasts 14 days. Each daily run checks every day in the 28-day window against the current minimum, but eligibility renewed before 17 November stays valid for the rest of its 14-day period.
Who is affected
On BitBasic's The Graph dashboard, 12 active Indexers had more than 40M GRT of total stake on 5 November 2026. Under Step 4 their minimums would range from 11 to 52 Subgraphs, depending on stake. Indexers below 40M GRT keep the 10-Subgraph minimum.
What it means
- Large Indexers: work out your number (total stake divided by 4M GRT, rounded up, minimum 10), count the distinct Subgraphs you serve qualifying queries on each day, and allocate to and sync more before 17 November if you are short. The Foundation advises planning capacity towards the end goal, not only this step.
- Delegators: delegating to an Indexer raises its total stake and so its Subgraph requirement. Rewards flow only through eligible Indexers, so it is worth checking your Indexer's status on the REO dashboard. Undelegating starts a 28-day thaw.
