In 2022 the 2021 bull run led to a flood of new crypto developers, however the majority did not survive the subsequent bear market.
According to Electric Capital’s most recent annual report, published on Tuesday, the number of blockchain developers who have been active less than 12 months has fallen by -53%.
This is why total numbers of developers are down a quarter over the same time period, according to the report.
However, there are some good news about the technology skills of the industry.
Experienced crypto developers are increasing in number amongst the 22,411 cryptocurrency developers who work monthly.
“Emerging” You can also find out more about the following: “established” Developers who are working with crypto since more than a year have seen a 15% increase in their earnings from December 2022 onwards, continuing the steady upward trend.
Bitcoin’s market cap dropped by roughly -19% in the last year. The number of monthly developers has increased to a little more than 1,000.
Although the phenomenon of 2023 Ordinals is notable in its contribution to revenue from network fees, there are still few new coders joining the chain as a result.
Ethereum is still the leader in mindshare among developers, with more than two and a half times as many new developers as Polygon. Solana is the comeback star of 2023. “other,” About 4,700 new developers.
“Other” Maria Shen of Electric Capital told Blockworks: “Electric Capital represents all ecosystems that aren’t specifically listed.”
“Besides the ones represented on the graph, there are 131 other chains that received new developers in 2023,” She said that the company is tracking 9,000 eco-systems, which are a combination of layer-1 chains and layer-2 applications, and categories such as developer tools and video games.
Ethereum developers includes those who build on layer-2s and leverage Ethereum’s safety.
You can, for example. “Polygon [PoS] developers are not included in Ethereum’s count because Polygon currently pulls from its own security, but Polygon zkEVM developers are counted toward Ethereum,” Shen says.
The Multichain Trend
This year’s survey shows a notable uptick on developers supporting more than one chain — now upwards of 30% — a figure that includes those Ethereum developers that also work on layer-2s.
“If a developer works on only Optimism, then that developer is not multichain,” Shen says.
Some of the emerging Ethereum rollups are among the chains growing the fastest year-over-year, such as Base — which is already live, and Aztec and Taiko, which are nearing their mainnet launch.
It’s clear that the location from which these developers work has also changed. The number of developers based in the US has been declining steadily, but this trend has slowed down since 2023. US developers are the only ones to have decreased since 2018.
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