Disclosure: The views and opinions expressed herein are solely those of the author and do not represent the views and opinions of the crypto.news editorial.
Web3 development has stalled. The concepts that have dominated the current crypto cycle (L2, DeFi, RWA, gaming, and prediction markets) originated in the previous cycle. We are not growing or innovating: we are stagnant.
The web3 developer community has done historic work, but that community is getting smaller.approximately 22,000, less than 0.1% of the My dear 27 million developers worldwide. We can't onboard “the next billion users” until we onboard the first million developers. To achieve these, we must empower developers by treating them not only as creators but also as creatives, adopting ai development tools, and fostering a culture of collaboration among developers.
In his keynote speech at the recent Token2049 show in Singapore, ethereum (eth) co-founder Vitalik Buterin described his vision for the future of blockchain: finishing building the “durable digital structures” that make up the network ecosystem, working to make cryptocurrencies faster, cheaper and easier to use; and preserve the aspirational qualities of blockchain technology that differentiate it from the traditional financial system.
It is an inspiring vision. But who is going to do all this construction and all this work? Where are all the ideas supposed to come from to make this vision a reality? As we often say at web3, “Developers, do something!”
The numbers keep falling
However, in 2023, the total number of blockchain developers fell more than 10%, driven by an exodus of “newcomer” developers (those with less than a year of blockchain experience), whose numbers fell more than 50% year on year. after year. year. Even with the historic launch of Ordinals last year, bitcoin (btc) lost 19% of its developers, leaving only 1,000 btc builders.
The number of web3 developers is decreasing; We need this number to increase. So instead of saying: “Developers, do something!“We need to say: “Do something for the developers!“To make Web3 a more attractive home for developers, we need to let them cook. This is how.
Developers are creative, so treat them that way. Developers are innovative and innovation is creative, so developers are creative. Creativity is messy, non-linear, and doesn't always happen as planned. Let's stop treating developers as if their role is to compile pre-existing blocks of code into pre-designed Lego towers, because it's not. Let's give developers the support they need to create, test and develop new ideas.
ai is part of coding now, so embrace it. ai does not replace developers; It is a development enhancer. ai is a mechanical development suit. ai is the way Generation Z will learn and write code, greatly accelerating the learning curve for newer developers. Junior developers will be able to focus on mastering concepts rather than trying to put together incomplete documentation or reading thousands of lines of code to find the missing semicolon.
And ai is not just for beginners. Experienced developers are already using ai-powered tools to reduce deployment time and assist with increasingly important audits of increasingly complex smart contract protocols.
My company, Cookbook, offers ChefGPT, an ai chatbot that can help generate ideas, search smart contract libraries for templates, troubleshoot, and more. For developers, this means it's faster and easier to plan, build, and deploy on-chain projects. For developer relations representatives, this means developers get answers faster across languages and time zones.
ai development tools have a key role to play in the future of the web3. Let's make these tools available to as many developers and students as possible.
The need for a community
Developers work best when they work together, so help them collaborate. We talk a lot about community at web3, but our community of web3 developers is fractured and isolated. Web3 developers are a small community that should be more united. There are almost ten times more members on the BAYC Discord (yet) than there are web3 developers. Web2 developers are much more collaborative than Web3 developers.
This could be attributed to the still emerging state of the web3 industry, where developers are often also owners, executives, investors, or have direct interests in the success of their protocol. Consequently, they may feel that they have competing interests against the success of others. But that doesn't entirely explain the lack of collaboration between web3 developers.
Web3 is tribal. bitcoin versus ethereum versus Solana, etc., has sometimes felt like a religious war playing out on crypto twitter. But the reality is that we are now, and have always been, moving towards a multi-chain universe where different blockchains serve different use cases with increasing degrees of interoperability. So while x.com/superteam/status/1775514557269877004″ target=”_blank”>fun is funthe idea that we need to destroy each other over different VM structures as human sacrifices to the twitter algorithm is silly. Vitalik is a eth.limo/general/2022/04/01/maximalist.html” target=”_blank” rel=”nofollow”>Bitcoiner. anatoli ethereum-killer-anatoly-yakovenko/” target=”_blank” rel=”nofollow”>eth. Less disputes, more construction.
That means fewer forks and design changes to other people's projects. It also means more communication and cooperation with other developers. Message boards and virtual meetings are fine, but much of the real relationship building has to happen (gasp) in real life.
It's a truism back to Steve Jobs and Pixar, or even World War II-era Bell Labs: that random interactions between creative people tend to generate creative ideas. Web3 needs that energy. And we know that people are less prone to dragging each other online when they have to see each other in person. So, let's meet.
A simple way to facilitate these IRL interactions is to create more shared spaces. work spaces like him Web3 House in San Francisco. We are lucky to have strong global crypto communities (in San Francisco, New York, Lisbon, Zug, Singapore, Buenos Aires, Lagos, Sydney), so let's activate them. Let's go into some rooms with whiteboards and design the future together.
Web3 has made enormous strides in its mission to build a more open successor to Web2. To regain the momentum we had before 2022, we must do more for developers. Don't just give developers work. Let the developers do the cooking.
