Core Logic: For general L1, DX is more important than UX.

Written by: Alex Liu, Foresight News

DX is very important

On October 22, Nader Dabit, DevRel (Developer Relations Head) of EigenLayer, posted a tweet on X containing screenshots of four different people complaining about Solana's developer experience, sparking a huge discussion in the community.

Helius CEO, Solana ecosystem big V mert stood up to refute two of these points but had to admit that 'writing smart contracts on Solana is not easy.'

This raises a current shortcoming of Solana — Developer Experience (DX). Unlike User Experience (UX), users cannot directly perceive the underlying blockchain's DX, but it is the core factor that leads me to choose to bet on the Move public chain, despite Solana's dominance in high-performance public chains. (The author is also optimistic about and holds SOL, SUI, APT).

The logic is simple: in the long run, for general L1, DX is more important than UX.

Is DX important? DX impacts developer onboarding; developers are the moat of the EVM ecosystem.

According to developer report data, Ethereum remains the leading blockchain in terms of monthly active developer count. As of July 1, there were 2,788 full-time developers, with a total developer count exceeding 8,865. Since 2019, the number of Ethereum research teams has surged by 2,100%.

The top three blockchains in terms of full-time developer rankings all come from the EVM ecosystem. This is related to the fact that the EVM smart contract development language Solidity is easy to learn (similar syntax to the most commonly used web development programming language Javascript), and the development frameworks are mature (Hardhat, Foundry).

Does this have any impact? Users have no perception of developer experience but can notice that 'Solana's token price significantly outperformed Ethereum last year.'

The issue is: in reality, developers are the customers of general L1. Users need to use apps, not chains. Good DX can attract good developers, create good apps, and thus lead to widespread adoption. Given that the underlying premise is high-performance public chains, in a future where chain abstraction pathways develop vigorously, users' perception of differences between public chains will approach 0, focusing solely on the app's UX.

Users do not have a need to use blockchain but have a need to use apps. Polymarket's election prediction market brought a large number of new users to Polygon, and these users may not understand 'what is blockchain?', while Moonshot is another typical example — users pay with credit cards, and the on-chain behavior is packaged in layers, leaving almost no sense of presence.

Ethereum and EVM have the largest developer ecosystem, the most talent reserves, and the greatest mindshare, making it the largest smart contract platform by market capitalization. An easy-to-use, friendly DX somewhat supports ETH's valuation.

DX Ranking

In terms of DX alone, the current ranking is approximately: Move public chain > EVM (Solidity) > Solana.

Here, DX refers not only to experience but also to the difficulty of getting started. Solana smart contracts primarily use the Rust language, which has relatively complex syntax and is not specifically designed for blockchain, often leading to situations where developers have to 'reinvent the wheel.' The Anchor framework launched by Backpack founder Armani has significantly improved this situation, but it still cannot compare to the Move language, which is based on Rust and designed specifically for blockchain by resources aggregated by Facebook. (The viewpoint is summarized from the author's surveys of multiple Sui, EVM, and Solana developers).

Future Prospects of Move

If DX is so good, why haven't killer applications emerged on the Move public chain?

The author believes this is related to the industry's development process. The current blockchain industry is still in the 'infrastructure' stage — paving the way for or the upcoming widespread adoption, with funding and attention not yet focused on the application layer. Solana's UX still needs improvement, but it has achieved undeniable success because most users are really 'using the chain' directly, leveraging the most primitive and core asset issuance function of blockchain to speculate on memes, more inclined to crypto-native PvP, rather than entering the market on a large scale due to a specific app. The author is optimistic about Solana in the long run, believing its DX will improve in the future, but it is not the best at the moment.

I believe 'for general L1, DX is more important than UX'; an application-driven industry will emerge in the future. I bet on the better DX of the Move public chain.