The number of monthly active developers in the web3 ecosystem in 2024 was 23,613, says a new report by Electric Capital.
According to the report, the number represents 39% growth when annualized since 2015 the year when Ethereum launched with 1,085 devs. On a Year-on-Year basis, the contributing developers have dropped marginally by 7%.
Despite a slight drop, the number of established developers (those who have contributed 2 or more years) increased by 27%, while newcomers and emerging developers fell. Notably, established developers contribute 70% of code commits.
The adoption by developers has become more globally distributed in 2024. Asia is the #1 continent by developer share; North America dropped from #1 to #3.
The U.S is the #1 country with 19% developer share but is down from 38% in 2015, and notably lost developer count every year since. India onboarded the most new crypto developers in 2024, while Africa saw a 6% increase.
Another statistic is that 39,148 new developers explored crypto in 2024. Solana is the most attractive ecosystem to new developers with this the first year since 2016, when a chain other than Ethereum was preferred by new developers.
Internet Computer
Aptos
Base
Bitcoin
Sui
NEAR
Polkadot
Polygon, and
Starknet
all had more than 1,000 new developers in 2024.
BNB
Optimism
Stellar
Scroll, and
TON
had more than 500.
Crypto activity spans all time zones, the report added.
“Stablecoin transactions are consistently active, rising 2-3% during Asian, European, and African work hours. NFT trading peaks during American work hours, while minting peaks during Asian work hours, indicating how different parts of the globe gravitate toward different use cases.”
Ethereum is the # 1 ecosystem by developer share on every top continent, with
Solana 2nd across all continents having grown 83% YoY in developer count.
However, the third position is taken by different chains:
Polygon is 3rd in Asia and South America
Internet Computer (ICP) is 3rd in Africa
Polkadot in Europe
Base in North America
Many of these devs are on multiple chains – 1 in 3 crypto developers now work on multiple chains, & growing. Monthly multi-chain developers increased from less than 10% in 2015 to 34% in 2024. The chains with the biggest share of multi-chain developers share devs with Ethereum.
When looking at the specialties for different chains, Base and Solana have emerged as leaders in low-fee NFT use cases.
Base dominates NFT minting, accounting for 97% of minting volume, while
Solana leads in NFT transactions, owning 64% of the total.
In decentralized exchange (DEX) activity,
Solana stands out, capturing 81% of DEX transactions and boasting the highest number of unique trading wallets.
Base secures the second spot in terms of unique trading wallets.
A new sector of Liquid Restaking Tokens (LRTs) has brought over $30 billion in Total Value Locked (TVL) to Ethereum’s mainnet, the report said. Here, EigenLayer, which pioneered the re-staking sector, has driven significant growth, with full-time developers increasing by 130% as the Adoption Value Stack (AVS) gains traction.
Consistent with several analyses during the year, the report found that stablecoin usage has reached unprecedented levels, with a circulating supply of $196 billion and daily transaction volumes of $81 billion. Transaction sizes vary widely across different blockchain networks, reflecting the diverse use cases for stablecoins.
You can click here for the full report.
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