The annual report on crypto developers for 2023 provides a detailed insight into the ever-evolving dynamics of this sector. Based on the analysis of 485 million code commits from 818,000 open-source repositories, this report underscores the significance of developers as key indicators of value creation in the crypto industry.
Overall, there is a 24% decrease observed in the total number of devs. However, it is noteworthy that the most valuable segment of developers, those with over 2 years of experience contributing the most code, continues to grow steadily. This group experienced an annualized growth of 52% over the last 5 years.
0/ We are delighted to release the 5th annual @ElectricCapital Developer Report
We analyzed a record 485 million code commits across 818k repositories—20x more code than our first report from 2019!
356+ people across the community contributed to making this report.
Long,… pic.twitter.com/e5fs6hDmvP
— maria (@MariaShen) January 17, 2024
The report reveals that developers with over 2 years in the crypto space are at their all-time high. Additionally, those with over 1 year in crypto grew by 16% YoY, representing 63% of all monthly active devs. In contrast, newcomers with less than 12 months of experience decreased by -52% YoY.
The Industry Developers Progressively Became Multi-Chain
The crypto industry proves to be multi-chain, with 30% of devs admitting to supporting more than one chain, a significant increase from 3% in 2015. Those supporting 3 or more chains represent 17% of all developers in 2023, reaching another all-time high.
Devs’ growth does not uniformly correlate across projects. While some projects gained developers, others lost them, indicating that developers are making informed decisions about which projects they believe offer real utility.
In terms of geographical distribution, it details that 72% of developers are outside of North America. The U.S. lost a 14% developer share since 2018, now representing only 26% of total crypto developers. In contrast, regions like South Asia, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Western Africa, and Southern Europe collectively achieved a 20% growth in developer share since 2018.
This report is crucial for understanding how the industry is evolving over the years. It is very positive that those who build code day by day decide to stay and continue participating in the development and growth of the industry. On the other hand, it is essential to track their activity and the projects they focus on, as it often serves as an indicator of project strength and ecosystem health.
