ethereum remains the number one blockchain among cryptocurrency developers, with more than 70% of new contract code deployed for the first time on the network, according to the latest report from Electric Capital.
Additionally, there has been an expansion in developer distribution globally, with more cryptocurrency developers living outside of North America, as opposed to the steady growth recorded in regions such as Latin America and West Africa.
More developers involved in multichains
Electric Capital 2023 Cryptocurrency Developer Report revealed that most of the smart contract code released on the ethereum network is unique, while 71% of contracts are implemented for the first time on ethereum, making it the leading blockchain choice for developers.
Meanwhile, the number of multi-chain developers expanded in 2023. According to the report, multi-chain developers grew from three percent in 2015 to 34 percent in 2023, indicating more than 10 times growth in eight years.
It is also not surprising to see the cross-pollination of developers on the ethereum and ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) blockchains. These blockchains include BNB Chain, Polygon, Avalanche, and several Layer 2 networks. All of these chains use the same smart contract logic as ethereum.
According to Electric Capital, cross-pollination occurs between BNB Chain, Polygon, and ethereum, with the three chains sharing “at least 30% of their multi-chain implementers with each other.”
Additionally, BNB shares the largest number of multi-chain developers, with ethereum at 39%, followed by Polygon at 36% and Arbitrum at 24%, while Avalanche is the lowest at 18%.
40% of developers worked on ethereum and bitcoin in 2023
In total, a quarter of all blockchain developers are deployed on ethereum or bitcoin, with the latter representing a higher number of monthly active developers with 7,864 in December 2023, which represented, however, a 25% drop with compared to more than 10,400 the previous year. ,
Meanwhile, bitcoin recorded 1,071 monthly active developers, a 19% decline from 1,322 in December 2022. Most of the decline came from part-time developers and those working on multi-chains, with the report noting that developers who They focused solely on bitcoin were probably to continue working on the network.
Meanwhile, more than 1,000 developers have supported bitcoin since 2017. The largest number of new developers joined the network in 2022, more than 2,700.
Although bitcoin transaction volumes skyrocketed in 2023 following the Ordinals resurgence, only three percent of all bitcoin developers worked on the project, while 40% were dedicated to bitcoin's layer 2 networks and other scaling solutions.
In addition to bitcoin and ethereum, there were also more than 9,300 monthly active developers working in the top 200 crypto ecosystems by market capitalization in December 2023. However, the figure represents a 31% reduction from 2022 records.
Total number of blockchain developers fell by almost a quarter in 2023
As noted in the Electric Capital report, monthly active developers fell 24% to 22,411 in 2023, from 29,611 the previous year, with newcomers with less than a year in crypto contributing to the majority of the losses.
Most of these less experienced developers came to the industry during the bull market and tended to leave during the bear market. The number of newcomers peaked in 2022 at over 90,000 after bitcoin's value rose to over $69,000 and the total market capitalization to nearly $3 trillion in November 2021.
“The newcomers who joined in 2022 are the ones who got agitated and are driving the overall developer loss of -24%.”
On the contrary, those who have been in crypto for at least more than a year continue to grow and contribute to the ecosystem, with 75% of the codes from said developers.
Blockchain developers with more than one year of experience in the industry grew 16% in 2023, while their established peers (people with more than two years in crypto) grew 52% over the past five years, reaching an all-time high .
The report also addressed the distribution of developers globally, stating that 74% are located outside North America, while the US lost 14% of its developer share since 2018, controlling only 26% in 2023.
However, blockchain developers are growing in Latin America, West Africa, South Asia, Southern Europe and Eastern Europe, increasing by 20% since 2018.
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