Developer growth in crypto is increasing significantly

22,000 monthly active developers are building in the crypto sector, and their numbers are increasing 5% year-over-year.

The 2022 Electric Capital Developer Report is a comprehensive examination of the current state of the crypto developer community. Using data from 250 million code commits across open-source repositories, the report provides a detailed snapshot of the growth and activity of crypto developers over the past seven years.

The report’s executive summary highlights that, 14 years into the creation of open-source crypto, the number of monthly active developers has grown significantly. In the first seven years, just 1,000 monthly active developers wrote code. In the last seven years, however, that number has grown to over 22,000.

As of December 2022, the report states that there are now 23,343 crypto monthly active developers. Despite a 70%+ decline in prices, monthly active developers grew by 5% year-over-year. Additionally, there are 471,000+ monthly code commits made towards open-source crypto, with an 8% YoY growth in full-time developers.

The report also notes that the crypto network value is back to January 2018 levels, but monthly active developers have increased by 297% since 2018. Comparing the previous crypto winter to today, the report shows that the number of Bitcoin monthly active developers has grown from 372 to 946, and Ethereum monthly active developers have grown from 1,084 to 5,819. Other ecosystems such as Solana, Polkadot, Cosmos, and Polygon have also seen significant growth, going from fewer than 200 developers to over 1,000.

The report also highlights the emergence of major ecosystems beyond Bitcoin and Ethereum. 72% of monthly active developers now work outside of these ecosystems, with Solana, NEAR, and Polygon growing 40% YoY and having over 500 total monthly active developers. 

Other ecosystems such as Sui, Aptos, Starknet, Mina, Osmosis, Hedera, Optimism, and Arbitrum have also grown by 50%+ YoY and have 100+ total monthly active developers. 

Additionally, 3,901 developers work in DeFi every month across multiple chains, a 240% increase since DeFi summer. 50% of DeFi developers are now outside of Ethereum.

The report also notes that 900+ developers now write code monthly in NFTs across chains, a 299% increase since 2021.

The report concludes by stressing that developer engagement is an early and leading indicator of value creation in emerging platforms. As crypto is significantly open source, the report argues that understanding the crypto developer community is crucial in understanding an emerging industry that may be worth many trillions.

Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.