April 2021 Updates: We’ve updated our previous numbers for Blockstack & Cosmos based on new repositories that were added to our mapping. Slides 44–57 and 89–101 are now updated from the December 2020 version.
Executive Summary
The number of new crypto developers is growing for the first time since 2017
- New monthly crypto developers grew 15% in 2020, increasing for the first time since 2017
- 80%+ of all active developers today came in the last two years
There is a flight to quality: high quality ecosystems are growing while others are shrinking
- Monthly active crypto developers have stayed flat even as new developers joined due to developer loss outside of the Top 200 ecosystems by network value
- The number of developers outside of the Top 200 decreased by 30% from December 2018
Developer activity is particularly strong across Bitcoin, Ethereum, some Layer 1s, and Decentralized Finance
- Bitcoin ecosystem has 70%+ more developers than it did 3 years ago
- 300+ new developers per month commit to the Ethereum ecosystem
- 67% increase in monthly active developers in Decentralized Finance since January 2020
Full Report
We fingerprinted 276,000+ code repositories and 89 million code commits to create this 2020 Developer Report.
This work requires mapping many thousands of project repositories. We’ve opened our ecosystem map on GitHub so that anyone can contribute:
We welcome any feedback or comments on this report. Please do let us know how we can improve our data and analysis.
You can email info@electriccapital.com with any questions or comments. This email goes to all of our team members.
The Content is for informational purposes only, you should not construe any such information or other material as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice. Nothing contained in this report constitutes a solicitation, recommendation, endorsement, or offer by Electric Capital or any third party service provider to buy or sell any securities or other financial instruments in this or in in any other jurisdiction in which such solicitation or offer would be unlawful under the securities laws of such jurisdiction.
Electric Capital has positions in some of the projects mentioned in this report. For a list of past and present investments, please visit electriccapital.com.