Admittedly, the fact that the Ethereum (ETH) project has been relatively established in the cryptosphere for some time – July 2015 – has no doubt helped its dominance. But its secret lies elsewhere. Indeed, the network founded by Vitalik Buterin has, by far, the most developers…
An army of 4000 developers at the service of Ethereum
The blockchain analysis company Electric Capital recently published a report studying the development within the cryptocurrency sector, which will form the future Web 3.0.
As a result, the number of developers working on blockchains exploded again during the year 2021. This number had not grown so strongly since the previous crypto bull run of late 2017/early 2018. According to the latest figures from Electric Capital, there are 18,416 developers working on what is considered the future of the internet.
Of these developers, more than 4,000 (nearly 22%) are working in the Ethereum network environment. To give a first order of comparison, the Bitcoin (BTC) ecosystem has only 680 monthly contributors to its code.
Competing networks off to a strong start
But the two most capitalized cryptos on the market are seeing strong competition lately from sometimes much younger blockchain projects.
Thus, we learn that Polkadot (DOT) would have more than 1,500 active developers in its ecosystem, and that the Cosmos (ATOM) and Solana (SOL) projects would reach 1,000 contributors for their part.
As one might expect, decentralized finance (DeFi) is one of the most popular sectors for developers. In 2021, those working in it full time grew by +64%, to exceed 1,000 developers in this area alone.
And if we look at all developers, including those who are only partially working on DeFi, the numbers are even larger: +76%, which today represents 2,571 monthly active contributors, spread across the different smart contract blockchains.
Despite the strong competition from its rivals, Ethereum is still clearly ahead in terms of developing its network. If the transition of its blockchain to Proof of Stake (PoS) does happen this year 2022, the project led by Vitalik Buterin has a good chance to stay ahead for a long time.
