Ethereum remains the leading blockchain for developers: Report

Ethereum continues to be the top blockchain among cryptocurrency developers, with more than 70% of new contract codes being deployed on the network for the first time, according to a recent report from Electric Capital.

Additionally, in contrast to the steady growth recorded in regions such as Latin America and West Africa, the distribution of developers has spread globally, with more cryptocurrency developers residing outside of North America.

More developers participating in multi-chain

According to Electric Capital’s 2023 Cryptocurrency Developer Report, while most smart contract code released on the Ethereum network is unique, 71% of contracts are first deployed on Ethereum, making it the top blockchain choice for developers.

Meanwhile, the number of multichain developers has expanded in 2023. According to the report, multichain developers will increase from 3% in 2015 to 34% in 2023, predicting more than 10-fold growth in eight years.

It is also not surprising to see cross-pollination of developers across the Ethereum and Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) blockchains. These blockchains include BNB Chain, Polygon, Avalanche, and several layer 2 networks. These chains all use the same smart contract logic as Ethereum.

According to Electric Capital, there is cross-pollination between the BNB chain, Polygon, and Ethereum, with all three chains “sharing at least 30% of multi-chain distributors with each other.”

Additionally, BNB shares the highest number of multichain developers with Ethereum at 39%, followed by Polygon at 36%, Arbitrum at 24%, and Avalanche at 18%.

By 2023, 40% of developers were working on Ethereum and Bitcoin.

Overall, a quarter of all blockchain developers are deploying on Ethereum or Bitcoin, with the latter accounting for 7,864 monthly active developers as of December 2023, although this is down 25% from 10,400 the previous year. ,

Meanwhile, Bitcoin recorded monthly active developers at 1,071, down 19% from 1,322 in December 2022. Most of the decline came from part-time developers and those working on multichain, with the report suggesting that developers who only focus on Bitcoin will need to continue working on the network.

Meanwhile, more than 1000 developers have supported Bitcoin since 2017. In 2022, more than 2,700 new developers joined the network, the largest number of new developers ever to join the network.

Although Bitcoin trading volume surged in 2023 following the resurgence of Ordinals, only 3% of all Bitcoin developers are involved in the project, with 40% committed to the Bitcoin Layer 2 network and other scaling solutions.

In addition to Bitcoin and Ethereum, there are more than 9,300 monthly active developers working across the top 200 cryptocurrency ecosystems by market capitalization as of December 2023. However, this figure represents a 31% decrease from the 2022 record.

By 2023, the total number of blockchain developers has decreased by almost a quarter.

As noted in Electric Capital’s report, the number of monthly active developers in 2023 was 22,411, down 24% from 29,611 the previous year, with newcomers with less than a year in the cryptocurrency space accounting for most of the losses.

Most of these least experienced developers tended to enter the industry during bull markets and leave during bear markets. After the value of Bitcoin rose above $69,000 in November 2021 and the overall market capitalization reached nearly $3 trillion, the number of newcomers peaked at over 90,000 in 2022.

“Newcomers joining in 2022 are leaving, increasing overall developer loss to -24%.”

In contrast, those who have been in the cryptocurrency industry for at least a year continue to grow and contribute to the ecosystem, with these developers accounting for 75% of the code.

Blockchain developers with at least one year of experience in the industry grew 16% in 2023, while their existing peers with at least two years of experience in the cryptocurrency space grew 52% over the past five years, reaching an all-time high.

The report also touched on the global distribution of developers, noting that 74% are located outside of North America, while the US has 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, with a 20% increase since 2018.