Electric Capital Annual Developer Report: 39,000 new developers joined, more than half of Ethereum developers are committed to L2

Author: Electric Capital

Compiled by Felix, PANews

Key points:

• Cryptocurrencies are global, and the development momentum has shifted beyond North America
• Developers and use cases present diverse in the ecosystem
• Covers all time zones, indicating global usage

This article analyzes a record-breaking 902 million code commits in 1.7 million repositories.

Overall Trend

Since the launch of Ethereum in 2015, the number of crypto developers has grown at an annual rate of 39%. In 2015, there were about 1,000 monthly active developers. Today, there are 23,613 active developers dedicated to cryptocurrencies.

The number of active developers decreased slightly last year, down 7%. The number of developers in the crypto industry for more than 2 years has increased by 27%. These senior developers have driven the industry’s development, as they have contributed 70% of the code commits.

In 2015, 81% of cryptographic developers were in North America and Europe, dropping to 55% by 2024.

Asia is now the continent with the largest share of developers. One-third of crypto developers live in Asia, with Europe ranking second. Since 2015, North America has dropped from first to third.

Ethereum is the ecosystem with the highest developer share in all continents, Solana is ranked second, Polygon is ranked third in Asia and South America, Polkadot is ranked third in Europe, Base is ranked third in North America, and DFINITY is ranked third in Africa.

The United States, India, the United Kingdom, China, and Canada have the largest community of cryptocurrency developers in the world.

The United States still ranks first in the share of cryptographic developers, but has continued to decline since 2015. India has jumped from 10th to second place.

The top 3 ecosystems ranked by national/regional developer share:

• Ethereum ranks first in the United States, United Kingdom, China, and Canada, and second in India
• Solana ranks first in India and second elsewhere
• Base ranks third in the United States and India
• Polygon ranks third in the UK
• NEAR Protocol ranks third in Canada
• Polkadot ranks third in China

In 2024, India will surpass the United States as the country with the most new developers, with 17% of new developers coming from India.

In 2024, 39,148 new developers entered the cryptocurrency field.

By ecosystem segmentation, Solana became the top ecosystem for new developers every month in July 2024.

Overall situation of new developers in 2024:

• Solana is the ecosystem ranked number one for new developers
• Ethereum ranks second
• Dfinity, Aptos, Bitcoin, Base, Sui, NEAR, Polkadot, Polygon, and Starknet will each have 1K+ new developers in 2024
• Arbitrum, BNB Chain, Optimism, Stellar, and TON will have 500+ new developers in 2024.

Which ecosystem has the fastest growing number of developers? The total number of developers reflects the interest of new developers and hackathon participants. Based on the total number of developers, the top 10 ecosystems with the fastest monthly growth rate from Q3 2023 to Q4 2024 are: EigenLayer, Aptos, Solana, Dfinity, Base, Aztec, Stacks, TON, Stellar, and Sui.

Which ecosystem has the fastest growing full-time developers? Full-time developers who commit code for more than 10 days a month have made stable contributions to the ecosystem. The top 10 ecosystems with the fastest growing full-time developers from Q3 2023 to Q4 2024 are: EigenLayer, Dfinity, Sei, Aztec, Chainlink, Base, Celestia, Mina, Polygon, Starknet.

Many developers are working on multiple chains. Today, one-third of crypto developers are working on multiple chains, and this number continues to grow.

The proportion of multi-chain developers has increased from less than 10% in 2015 to 34% in 2024. The chain with the largest share of multi-chain developers is shared with Ethereum developers.

The EVM chain has the largest number of developers and significant network effects: 74% of multi-chain developers work on the EVM chain. Since 2021, the proportion of EVM cross-chain deployments has increased fourfold.

In 2024, Base is the most popular chain for EVM multi-chain deployers, but Base deployers tend to stay in Base.

Before 2020, almost all the original on-chain code logic in the EVM was on Ethereum. And now no EVM chain has more than 30% of all code innovations.

Base accounts for 25% of all original on-chain code logic in EVM, which is the highest among mainstream EVM chains.

This is how the Ethereum ecosystem maintains its leading position in code innovation through L2s. 65% of the innovation occurs on the mainnet and ETH L2s.

Ethereum

The Ethereum ecosystem demonstrates a strong network effect driven by the dominance of the EVM and multi-chain developers. The number of monthly active Ethereum developers is 6,244, a 17% decrease year-on-year. Most of the attrition comes from developers who joined after 2021. The number of Ethereum developers with more than 2 years of experience has increased by 21%.

Currently, over half of Ethereum developers are dedicated to L2s, higher than 25% in 2022.

The number of Ethereum L2 developers has grown rapidly in the past four years, with 3,592 active developers per month. Since the launch of Arbitrum in 2021, the annual growth rate has been 67%.

Base is the largest Ethereum L2. Arbitrum, Starknet, and Optimism will have 2000+ developers in 2024.

Bitcoin

Bitcoin has 1,200 active developers per month, remaining unchanged in 2024.

The number of senior Bitcoin developers (with more than 2 years of work experience) has been steadily increasing. At its peak, the monthly active number of senior Bitcoin developers reached 672 people.

42% of Bitcoin developers (almost half) are working on Bitcoin scaling solutions.

ZK

ZK is a developer-centric research area. There are over 2,000 active developers working on ZK every month. 823 active developers work full-time, investing more than 10 days per month.

The number of ZK rollups deployed on-chain has also grown from 40 in 2020 to 639 in 2024. The quantity is not large, but the growth is significant. The number of deployers is also increasing.

The utilization rate of ZK is also increasing, with the number of contracts compiled with ZK increasing from 47 in 2020 to 680 this year.

ZK rollup deployers are active during working hours in the Eastern Hemisphere. ZK users are also the same. ZK users and deployers seem to be concentrated in Eastern Europe, Africa, and Asia.

NFT

Among all the chains with NFT activities (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Polygon, Solana, Zora, Base), the number of NFT deployers has more than tripled. NFT deployers hit a record high. 87% of new deployers occurred on Base and Zora.

NFT activities are clearly shifting towards minting activities.

NFT minting reached a record high in 2024, with 97% of it happening on Base. Solana owns 57% of the minting wallets and accounts for 64% of the minting transactions. Due to NFTs surpassing the realm of art in 2024, there has been an increase in minting activity.

NFT trading remains an important field, and has diversified from OpenSea to Magic Eden and Tensor.

The NFT minting and trading volumes have reached peak levels in different regions, indicating diverse user groups.

DeFi

3,532 active developers are developing on DeFi every month. Experienced DeFi developers, 2,097 (59%), have been working on DeFi for more than 2 years. 53% of DeFi developers work on Ethereum and its L2.

In 2024, DeFi TVL grew by 89%. Ethereum TVL dominates, being 7 times that of the second largest chain. Most TVL has always existed on Ethereum.

The TVL of non-Ethereum has risen from 3% to 36% in 3 years, with Solana seeing the largest increase in TVL share.

What is driving the growth of TVL? DeFi developers can be classified by type.

Last year, the TVL pledged again increased by $29 billion. LRT increased to more than 3.5 million ETH. 46% of LRT is effectively utilized in DeFi. Most LRT is deposited in currency markets, returns, interest rate derivatives, and bridges.

EigenLayer has brought about the birth of the LRT industry. The Eigenlayer ecosystem developers perform as follows:

There are 252 active developers in the EigenLayer ecosystem every month. EigenLayer developers are very dedicated: 39% are full-time developers, and more than half of the developers have been working in the ecosystem for over 2 years.

DEX

TVL is not the only indicator to understand the usage of DeFi. Despite the TVL of lending being three times higher, DEX has more unique addresses for trading.

In 2024, the DEX trading volume nearly doubled to reach $209 billion per month. Solana and Ethereum have the highest settlement volumes, more than twice that of the blockchain ranked second in DEX trading volume.

Solana settled the highest volume of transactions in 2024, reaching $574 billion. The Ethereum mainnet and its L2 settled a total of $931 billion in DEX transaction volume.

Solana dominates in low-cost DEX use cases. The trading volume more than doubled in 2024, reaching 646 million transactions in a single month. 81% of DEX trades come from Solana.

You can use DEX to understand the usage of DeFi, as financial activities often start or end with DEX.

Global activities vary by chain, the flatter the activity, the wider the range of use. Ethereum and Solana have the most evenly distributed usage.

Stablecoin

Stablecoins are one of the largest use cases for cryptocurrencies globally. The usage of stablecoins has reached a historic high: the circulating value of stablecoins is 196 billion US dollars, with a daily trading volume of 810 billion US dollars, both of which are historic highs for stablecoins. USDC and USDT account for 95% of the trading volume.

Ethereum is the largest stablecoin ecosystem, with 59% of stablecoins issued on Ethereum.

Stablecoins are always active, but their active time increases by 2-3% in Asia, Europe, and Africa.

Although stablecoin trading peaks in Eastern time, the volume of trading is more biased towards the West.

ETF

Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs, launched this year, allow off-chain capital to easily access on-chain assets. Bitcoin ETF attracted over $50 billion in net inflows, becoming one of the most successful ETFs in history.

The trading volume of Bitcoin ETF is mainly driven by retail investors. Given that the spot Bitcoin ETF is still in its infancy, institutional investors are still adopting the ETF at a record pace.

Ethereum ETF launched in July this year.

The Ethereum ETF currently has $13 billion in assets under management, attracting a net inflow of $3.5 billion. This is consistent with the most successful ETF issuance pace in 2022 (excluding Bitcoin ETF), mainly driven by retail investors.

Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs set records. Currently, their first-year cumulative inflow is more than twice that of the best ETF in history.

Related reading: Electric Capital 2023 Developer Report: 30% choose multi-chain development, Scroll and ICP grow rapidly