moddel The only phone that meets GrapheneOS requirements is the Pixel, why is this?
In a sense it's because many millions of people are willing to purchase phones that are less secure and/or less open, so manufacturers can sell enough of those phones and don't feel a need to spend extra to produce secure phones.
moddel Let's be honest Google has effectively abandoned the pixel project years ago.
Perhaps? But meanwhile they have been bringing more and more of the SoC design in-house, which is expensive. That's an unusual arc for abandonment.
moddel Now that Google has just laid off hundreds of Pixel developers, pixels days are numbered.
"Hundreds" out of "over 20,000" (source) may not mean immediate disaster.
moddel Can GrapheneOS adapt or will it die with the pixel?
"It is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future."
One piece of good news is that there is a pretty long exit ramp. Google has committed to firmware support for recent Pixel devices for many years (source). Even if somehow that doesn't happen, existing devices will keep running for quite some time.
In the long run, of course, the Sun will swell up and melt the Earth, which might result in the entire Pixel team being laid off, plus work conditions for the GrapheneOS developers might become difficult.