Asia is now the continent with the highest share of developers; one in three crypto developers resides in Asia. Europe ranks second. Since 2015, North America has dropped from first to third place.
Written by: Maria, Electric Capital
Compiled by: 1912212.eth, Foresight News
The sixth annual ElectricCapital developer report involved 829 contributors since its inception, analyzing a record 902 million code submissions across 1.7 million repositories.
How did the crypto industry perform in 2024?
Key takeaways:
The crypto industry has a global nature, with developer momentum shifting from North America to other regions.
Developers and use cases are diversifying across different ecosystems.
Applications span all time zones, indicating widespread use on a global scale.
We have underestimated the number of developers in the crypto space because our statistics only focus on open-source development activity.
Our methodology includes:
Combine developer profiles into a single standard identity.
Identify and exclude bot accounts.
Remove codebases that do not reflect development activity, such as data lists.
Since Ethereum's launch in 2015, the crypto industry has grown at an annual rate of 39%. In 2015, there were about 1,000 monthly active developers. Today, that number has grown to 23,613.
In the past year, the number of monthly active developers slightly decreased by 7%.
However, the number of developers in the crypto industry for over two years has grown by 27%.
These experienced developers drive industry growth by contributing 70% of code submissions.
How has the crypto industry changed since 2015? Let's take a look at the global diversity of crypto developers.
The focus of developer distribution has shifted from 82% in the US and Europe to other parts of the world.
Asia is now the continent with the highest share of developers; one in three crypto developers resides in Asia. Europe ranks second. Since 2015, North America has dropped from first to third place.
We can identify the top ecosystems of these continents based on developer share.
Based on developer share, Ethereum ranks first among every major continental region.
Solana ranks second.
Polygon ranks third in Asia and South America.
Polkadot ranks third in Europe.
Base ranks third in North America.
Dfinity ranks third in Africa.
The US, India, UK, China, and Canada have the largest share of global crypto developers.
The United States still has the highest share of crypto developers, but it has been declining since 2015. India rose from 10th to 2nd place.
The top three ecosystems by developer share calculated by country:
Ethereum ranks first in the US, UK, China, and Canada, and second in India.
Solana ranks first in India and second elsewhere.
Base ranks third in both the US and India.
Polygon ranks third in the UK.
NEAR Protocol ranks third in Canada.
Polkadot ranks third in China.
India welcomed the most new crypto developers in 2024. 17% of new crypto developers are from India.
Let's focus on new developers—39,148 new developers explored the crypto space in 2024. We can break down these new developers by ecosystem.
Solana became the ecosystem with the highest number of new monthly developers added in July 2024.
Overall situation of new developers in 2024:
Solana is the ecosystem with the most new developers, ranked first.
Ethereum ranks second. Dfinity, Aptos, Base, Bitcoin, SuiNetwork, NEAR Protocol, Polkadot, Polygon, and Starknet all have over 1,000 new developers joining.
Arbitrum, BNBCHAIN, Optimism, StellarOrg, and ton_blockchain all have over 500 new developers joining.
Who has the fastest growth in total developer count? The total number of developers reflects the interest of new developers and hackathon participants.
According to data from Q3 2023 and Q4 2024, the ten ecosystems with the fastest growth in total developers are:
Who has the fastest growth in the number of full-time developers? Full-time developers submit code for more than 10 days each month, thus contributing stable work to the ecosystem.
According to data from Q3 2023 and Q4 2024, the top ten ecosystems with the fastest growth in full-time developers are:
Many developers are active across multiple chains—now, one in three crypto developers works on multiple chains, and this trend is increasing. The percentage of monthly active multi-chain developers has grown from less than 10% in 2015 to 34% in 2024.
Chains with the most multi-chain developers share developer resources with Ethereum.
EVM chains share the most developers and exhibit significant network effects: 74% of multi-chain developers work on EVM chains.
Since 2021, the proportion of EVM cross-chain deployers has increased fourfold.
Base is the most popular chain for EVM multi-chain deployers in 2024, but deployers on Base tend to stay on the Base chain.
Since deployers publish code to multiple chains, where is most of the original code written?
Before 2020, almost all original on-chain code logic on EVM was on Ethereum.
Now, no EVM chain accounts for more than 30% of code innovation.
Base now accounts for 25% of all original on-chain code logic on EVM chains, the highest among all major EVM chains.
This is how the Ethereum ecosystem maintains its leading position in code innovation—through L2 chains. 65% of innovations occur on the mainnet and ETH L2 chains.
The Ethereum ecosystem demonstrates strong network effects through its dominance in EVM and multi-chain developers. How is this ecosystem performing?
Ethereum's monthly active developers were 6,244, down 17% year-on-year.
Most losses come from developers who joined after 2021. Among developers who have already worked on Ethereum, those with over 2 years of experience grew by 21%.
Now, more than half of Ethereum developers work on Ethereum L2 chains, up from 25% in 2022.
Ethereum L2 chains have experienced significant developer growth over the past 4 years. The total number of monthly active developers on Ethereum L2 chains is 3,592, with an annual growth rate of 67% since Arbitrum launched in 2021.
Base is the largest Ethereum L2 chain.
Arbitrum, Starknet, and Optimism each had over 2,000 developers in 2024.
In 2024, Bitcoin had 1,200 monthly active developers, remaining stable.
The number of experienced Bitcoin developers (those working on Bitcoin development for over 2 years) is steadily increasing. Currently, there are 672 monthly active experienced Bitcoin developers, a new high.
42% of Bitcoin developers—almost half—are working on Bitcoin scaling solutions.
Zero-knowledge proofs (ZK) are a developer-centric field rooted in research. How is its development?
Over 2,000 monthly active developers work in the ZK ecosystem, among which 823 are full-time developers who submit code for more than 10 days each month.
The on-chain deployments of zero-knowledge proofs (ZK) have also increased from 40 in 2020 to 639 in 2024.
Although the numbers remain relatively flat, they show a clear increase. The number of deployers has also increased.
ZK is also gaining usage—contracts using ZK precompiles grew from 47 in 2020 to 680 this year.
When are zero-knowledge proof (ZK) developers and users active?
Deployers of ZK Rollup contracts are active during work hours in the Eastern Hemisphere, as are ZK users.
ZK users and deployers seem to be concentrated in the Eastern Hemisphere, particularly in Eastern Europe, Africa, and Asia.
NFTs and DeFi are established application scenarios in the crypto space—most top smart contracts are related to NFTs or DeFi. How are these application scenarios evolving? Let's start with NFTs.
On all major NFT active chains (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Polygon, Solana, Zora, Base), NFT deployments grew over threefold year-on-year.
NFT deployments reached an all-time high. 87% of new deployments occurred on Base and Zora.
NFT activity has significantly shifted towards minting.
In 2024, NFT minting reached an all-time high, with 97% of minting occurring on Base.
Solana has 57% of minting wallets, capturing 64% of minting transactions.
The increase in minting activity is because NFTs have surpassed the art domain in 2024, covering more application scenarios.
NFT trading remains an important foundational application and has expanded from OpenSea to platforms like Magic Eden and Tensor.
NFT minting and trading volumes peaked in different regions—indicating different user groups.
3,532 monthly active developers are engaged in DeFi development. DeFi developers are experienced—2,097 of them (59%) have been working in DeFi for over 2 years.
53% of DeFi developers work on Ethereum and its L2 chains.
In 2024, the total value locked (TVL) in DeFi grew by 89%.
Ethereum's TVL is dominant, seven times that of the second largest chain.
Most TVL has remained concentrated on Ethereum.
Non-Ethereum TVL grew from 3% to 36% over three years.
The largest jump in TVL share occurred in Solana.
What has driven all this TVL growth? We can categorize DeFi developers by type.
In the past year, restaking has grown the TVL by $29 billion.
LRTs have grown to over 3.5 million ETH.
46% of LRTs are used in DeFi.
Most LRTs are deposited into money markets, yield, interest rate derivatives, and bridging platforms.
Eigenlayer facilitated the creation of LRTs as a domain. So, how is the developer ecosystem of Eigenlayer developing?
There are 252 monthly active developers working in the Eigenlayer ecosystem. Developers in Eigenlayer are very engaged: 39% are full-time developers, and more than half have worked in the ecosystem for over 2 years.
TVL is not the only metric we use to understand DeFi usage. Although the TVL of lending platforms is three times that of DEX, the unique address transaction volume of DEX is higher. For example—comparing DEX to lending platforms: in 2024, Uniswap's unique address interactions were 72 times that of AAVE.
In 2024, DEX transaction volume nearly doubled, reaching $209 billion per month.
Solana and Ethereum settled the most transaction volume—over two times that of the second largest chain.
Solana settled the highest transaction volume in 2024, reaching $574 billion. The total DEX transaction volume for Ethereum mainnet and its L2 chains was $931 billion.
Solana dominates the low-fee DEX application space. In 2024, its transaction volume grew over three times, reaching 646 million transactions in a single month.
81% of DEX transactions come from Solana.
In terms of the number of trading wallets, excluding those with only one transaction below $1, Solana has the most independent trading wallets, seven times the number of the second largest chain.
Base has the second most independent trading wallets, excluding Solana.
Base and Solana are very popular for small transfers. The average transaction amount of wallets on these chains is the smallest.
Ethereum is most favored for high-value transfers. The average transaction amount of wallets on Ethereum is the largest.
Where are all these DEX users? We can understand DeFi usage through DEX, as financial activities often start or end at DEX.
Global activity varies across different chains—the more evenly distributed the activity, the more global the usage. Ethereum and Solana have the most evenly distributed usage.
Stablecoins are one of the largest crypto application scenarios globally. How are stablecoins performing? The use of stablecoins has reached an all-time high: the total amount of stablecoins in circulation is $196 billion, with a daily trading volume of $81 billion—both are historical records for stablecoins.
USDC and USDT account for 95% of trading volume.
Ethereum is the first ecosystem for stablecoins—59% of stablecoins are issued on Ethereum.
What is the global activity of stablecoins?
Stablecoins remain active, but trading volume increased by 2-3% during work hours in Asia, Europe, and Africa.
Although stablecoin trading peaked during work hours in the Eastern Hemisphere, the trading volume tends to favor the Western Hemisphere.
Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs launched this year, providing an easy way for off-chain capital to enter on-chain assets. Bitcoin ETF attracted over $50 billion in net inflows, making it one of the most successful ETFs in history.
Most of the trading volume for Bitcoin ETFs comes from retail investors.
Although Bitcoin ETFs are still in their early stages, institutional investors are buying spot Bitcoin ETFs at a record pace.
Ethereum ETFs were launched in July this year. Currently, the assets under management (AUM) for Ethereum ETFs are $13 billion, attracting $3.5 billion in net inflows. This performance is comparable to the most successful ETF launch since 2022 (excluding Bitcoin ETFs), primarily driven by retail investors.
Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs have set historical records. In their first year, the cumulative inflow of funds is over twice that of the most successful ETF in history.
