Since its inception, 829 people have worked on the sixth annual ElectricCapital Developer Report, and we have analyzed a record 902 million code submissions, covering 1.7 million code libraries.
How will the crypto industry data perform in 2024?
Key points summary:
· The crypto industry is global, and developer momentum has shifted from North America to other regions.
· Developers and use cases are diversifying across different ecosystems.
· Applications cover all time zones, showing a wide range of applications worldwide.
We underestimate the number of developers in the crypto space because our statistics only focus on open source development activity.
Our methodology includes:
· Consolidate developer profiles into a single, standard identity.
· Identify and eliminate bot accounts.
· Remove code libraries such as data lists that do not reflect development activity.
Since the launch of Ethereum in 2015, the crypto industry has grown at an average annual rate of 39%. In 2015, there were approximately 1,000 monthly active developers. Today: The number of monthly active developers has grown to 23,613.
The number of monthly active developers has declined slightly by 7% over the past year.
However, the number of developers who have been in the crypto industry for more than two years increased by 27%.
These experienced developers drive industry growth, as they account for 70% of all code submissions.
How has the crypto industry changed since 2015? Let’s take a look at the global diversity of crypto developers.
The center of gravity of developer distribution has shifted from the United States and Europe, which account for 82%, to other regions of the world.
Asia is now the continent with the highest developer share, with one out of every three crypto developers living in Asia. Europe ranks second. Since 2015, North America has dropped from first to third place.
We can identify the top ecosystems in these continents through the proportion of developers.
Ethereum is the number one ecosystem in every major continent based on the proportion of developers.
· Solana ranked 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 United States, India, United Kingdom, China, and Canada account for the largest share of global crypto developers.
The United States still has the highest share of crypto developers, but it has continued to decline since 2015. India moved up from 10th to second place.
The proportion of developers in the top three ecosystems calculated by country:
· Ethereum ranks first in the United States, the United Kingdom, China and Canada, and second in India.
· Solana ranks #1 in India and #2 elsewhere.
· Base ranks third in the US and India.
· Polygon is ranked third in the UK.
· NEAR Protocol ranks third in Canada.
· Polkadot ranks third in China.
India will welcome the highest number of new crypto developers in 2024. 17% of new crypto developers come from India.
Let’s focus on new developers – a total of 39,148 new developers explored the crypto space in 2024. We can segment these new developers by ecosystem.
Solana became the ecosystem with the largest number of new monthly developers joining in July 2024.
Overall status of new developers in 2024:
Solana ranks first as the ecosystem with the most new developers.
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 is growing the fastest in total number of developers? The total number of developers reflects interest from new developers and hackathon participants.
Based on data from the third quarter of 2023 and the fourth quarter of 2024, the top ten ecosystems with the fastest growing total number of developers are:
Who is growing the fastest in terms of full-time developers? Full-time developers commit code more than 10 days a month, so they contribute steady work to the ecosystem.
Based on data from Q3 2023 and Q4 2024, the top ten fastest growing ecosystems for full-time developers are:
Many developers are active on multiple chains – one out of every three crypto developers now works on multiple chains, and this trend continues to grow. Monthly active multi-chain developers increased from less than 10% in 2015 to 34% in 2024.
The chain with the most multi-chain developers shares developer resources with Ethereum.
The EVM chain shares the most developers and has significant network effects: 74% of multi-chain developers work on the EVM chain.
Since 2021, the proportion of EVM cross-chain deployers has increased 4 times.
Base is the most popular chain among EVM multi-chain deployers in 2024, but Base deployers 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 of the original on-chain code logic on EVM was on Ethereum.
Currently, no EVM chain has more than 30% code innovation.
Base now accounts for 25% of all original on-chain code logic on the EVM chain, the most of all major EVM chains.
This is how the Ethereum ecosystem remains at the forefront of coding innovation - through L2 chains. 65% of innovation occurs on the mainnet and ETH L2 chain.
The Ethereum ecosystem has demonstrated strong network effects through its dominance among EVM and multi-chain developers. How is this ecosystem performing?
Ethereum has 6,244 monthly active developers, down 17% from the same period last year.
Most of the losses come from developers who joined after 2021. Among developers who have been working on Ethereum for more than 2 years, there has been a 21% increase.
More than half of Ethereum developers now work on the Ethereum L2 chain, while this proportion will be 25% in 2022.
The Ethereum L2 chain has experienced significant developer growth over the past 4 years. The total number of monthly active developers on the Ethereum L2 chain is 3,592, an average annual growth rate of 67% since arbitrum was launched in 2021.
Base is the largest Ethereum L2 chain.
arbitrum, Starknet, and Optimism all have more than 2,000 developers in 2024.
In 2024, Bitcoin’s monthly active developers will be 1,200, remaining stable.
The number of experienced Bitcoin developers (those who have been engaged in Bitcoin development for more than 2 years) is growing steadily. Currently, the number of active monthly experienced Bitcoin developers reaches 672, a new high.
42% of Bitcoin developers – almost half – are working on Bitcoin scaling solutions.
Zero-knowledge proofs (ZK) are a developer-centric, research-derived field. How is it developing?
More than 2,000 monthly active developers work in the ZK ecosystem, 823 of whom are full-time developers and commit code more than 10 days a month.
The on-chain deployment of zero-knowledge proofs (ZK) has also grown from 40 in 2020 to 639 in 2024.
While the numbers are still relatively flat, they show clear growth. The number of deployers has also increased.
ZK is also gaining use - the number of contracts precompiled with ZK has grown from 47 in 2020 to 680 this year.
When are Zero-Knowledge Proof (ZK) developers and users active?
Deployers of the ZK Rollup contract are active during business hours in the Eastern Hemisphere, as are ZK users.
ZK users and deployers appear to be concentrated in the Eastern Hemisphere, particularly in Eastern Europe, Africa, and Asia.
NFTs and DeFi are established use cases in the crypto space - most of the top smart contracts are related to NFTs or DeFi. How do these application scenarios develop? Let’s start with NFTs.
On all major NFT active chains (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Polygon, Solana, Zora, Base), the deployment of NFT has grown more than 3 times compared with the same period last year.
NFT deployments have reached an all-time high. 87% of new deployments occur on Base and zora.
NFT activity has shifted significantly towards minting.
In 2024, NFT minting reached an all-time high, with 97% of minting taking place on Base.
Solana holds 57% of minting wallets and captures 64% of minting transactions.
The increase in minting activity is because NFTs have expanded beyond art in 2024 to cover more application scenarios.
NFT trading remains an important basic application and has expanded from OpenSea to platforms such as Magic Eden and Tensor.
Volume for NFT minting and trading peaks in different regions – suggesting the presence of different user groups.
3,532 monthly active developers are engaged in DeFi development. DeFi developers have rich experience - 2,097 of them (59%) have been working in DeFi for more than 2 years.
53% of DeFi developers work on Ethereum and its L2 chain.
In 2024, DeFi’s total value locked (TVL) increased by 89%.
Ethereum’s TVL dominates, 7 times that of the second largest chain.
Most TVL has been focused on Ethereum.
Non-Ethereum TVL has grown from 3% to 36% in 3 years.
The biggest jump in TVL share occurred at Solana
What's driving all this TVL growth? We can classify DeFi developers by developer type.
In the past year, restaking has grown USD 29 billion in TVL.
LRTs grew to over 3.5 million ETH.
46% of LRTs are used in DeFi.
Most LRTs are deposited into money market, yield, interest rate derivatives and bridging platforms.
Eigenlayer contributed to the creation of LRTs as a field. So, how is Eigenlayer’s developer ecosystem developing?
There are 252 monthly active developers working in the Eigenlayer ecosystem. Eigenlayer's developers are very engaged: 39% are full-time developers, and more than half have been working in the ecosystem for more than 2 years.
TVL is not the only metric we use to understand DeFi usage. Although the TVL of the lending platform is 3 times that of DEX, DEX has more unique address transaction volume. For example - comparison of DEX and lending platforms: In 2024, Uniswap's unique address interaction is 72 times that of AAVE. 
In 2024, DEX trading volume will almost double, reaching $209 billion per month.
Solana and Ethereum settled the most transactions – more than twice as much as the next largest chain.
Solana settled the most transactions in 2024, reaching $574 billion. The total DEX trading volume of the Ethereum mainnet and its L2 chain is $931 billion.
Solana dominates the application scenario of low-fee DEX. In 2024, its transaction volume will more than triple, reaching 646 million transactions in a single month.
81% of DEX transactions come from Solana.
Looking at the number of transaction wallets, wallets with only 1 transaction and an amount less than 1 USD were excluded. Solana has the largest number of independent transaction wallets, 7 times the number of the second largest chain.
Base has the second largest number of independent transaction wallets after Solana.
Base and Solana are very popular for small value transfers. Wallet transactions on these chains have the smallest average amount.
Ethereum is most popular for high-value transfers. Wallet transactions on Ethereum have the largest average amount.
Where are these DEX users? We can understand the usage of DeFi through DEX, because financial activities often start or end with DEX.
Global activity is distributed differently across different chains - the more evenly distributed the activity, the more global the usage. Ethereum and Solana have the most even distribution of usage.
Stablecoins are one of the largest crypto use cases in the world. How are stablecoins performing? The use of stablecoins has reached an all-time high: there are currently $196 billion of stablecoins in circulation, and daily transaction volume is $81 billion—both of which are record highs for stablecoins.
USDC and USDT account for 95% of trading volume.
Ethereum is the first ecosystem for stablecoins – 59% of stablecoins issued on Ethereum
What is the global activity like for stablecoins?
Stablecoins are always active, but during business hours in Asia, Europe and Africa, trading volumes increase by 2-3%.
Although stablecoin trading peaks during working hours in the Eastern Hemisphere, trading volume is more skewed towards the Western Hemisphere.
Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs were launched this year, providing a convenient way for OTC capital to access on-chain assets. The Bitcoin ETF attracted more than $50 billion in net inflows, making it one of the most successful ETFs in history.
Most of the Bitcoin ETF's trading volume comes from retail investors.
Although Bitcoin ETFs are still in their infancy, institutional investors are buying spot Bitcoin ETFs at a record rate.
The Ethereum ETF was launched in July this year. Currently, the Ethereum ETF has assets under management (AUM) of $13 billion and has attracted $3.5 billion in net inflows. This performance is on par with the most successful ETF launches since 2022 (excluding Bitcoin ETFs). This is also largely driven by retail investors.
Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs set all-time records. In their first year, cumulative inflows were more than twice that of the most successful ETFs in history.
