Developer Report (Published: December 2020)

Developer Report
January - October 2020

The Developer Report is built on proprietary data from Electric Capital
Data Pipeline ContributorData Pipeline
2
Author

Why analyze developer activity?
3
1. new open platforms
2. early signal of adoption engagement from
developers
3. open source

a. New monthly crypto developers grew 15% in 2020, increasing for the first time since 2017
b. 80%+ of all active developers today came in the last two years
a. 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
b. The number of developers outside of the Top 200 decreased by 30% from December 2018
a. Bitcoin ecosystem has 70%+ more developers than it did 3 years ago
b. 300+ new developers per month commit to the Ethereum ecosystem
c. 67% increase in monthly active developers in Decentralized Finance since January 2020
Executive Summary
4

December 1 - 31, 2019:
1,277 New Developers
+15%
The last time new crypto
developers increased for more
than 3 months was December
2017 at peak Bitcoin prices...
...but new monthly developers
grew 15% since start of 2020
December 1 - 31, 2017:
October 1 - 31, 2020:
The number of new crypto developers is growing for the first time since 2017
6Overview

And monthly active developers seem to be flat/slightly up in 2020...
7
Jan 1, 2020
Developers: 8,212
October 31, 2020
Developers: 8,739
There is a slight 6% increase since Jan
2020, but falls within historical noise.
Overview

...Because developers are consolidating into high quality ecosystems in the top 200 by Network Value
8
...while Developers
outside of the Top 200
have decreased 30%
2018 Winter Developer High
December 15, 2018
Other Developers: 5,328
October 31, 2020
Top 200 Developers
increased by 13% since
December 2018...
October 31, 2020
Developers: 5,469
Overview

There are areas of strong developer growth...
9Overview

Bitcoin monthly active developers have grown 70%+ in 3 years
10
+71%
October 31, 2020
Developers: 361
October 31, 2017
Developers: 211
Overview

Ethereum monthly active developers have grown 215%+ in 3 years
11
October 31, 2020
Developers: 2,325
+215%
October 31, 2017
Developers: 738
Overview

Decentralized finance developers increased by 67% since January 2020
12
+67%
October 31, 2020
Developers: 925
January 1, 2020
Developers: 554
Overview

Who left crypto, who remains, and who joined?
13Table of contents

Developers
By Frequency of Contribution
14

Looking across all crypto developers...
15Developers | by frequency of contribution

October 31, 2018
Developers: 9,533
Jan 1, 2020
Developers: 8,212
October 31, 2020
Developers: 8,739
October 31, 2019
Developers: 9,083
There are 8,000+ monthly active developers in crypto Since early 2018
16
A developer is active if they
contribute a code commit to a
crypto ecosystem
Developers | by frequency of contribution

Most developers contribute fewer than 10 days in 1 month
17
75% of developers contributed fewer than 10 days in October 2020

We can categorize developers based on frequency of contribution
18
Infrequent Contributors
Active fewer than 10 days per month
Frequent Contributors
Active for 10 or more days per month

Year over Year, infrequent Contributors decreased by 13% while Frequent Contributors stayed relatively flat
19
October 31, 2020
Developers: 5,891
2,798
January 1, 2020
Developers: 5,573
2,840
Infrequent developers fell 13% since
October 2018, though it’s still within
normal fluctuations
October 31, 2019
Developers: 6,156
October 31, 2018
Developers: 6,767
2,976
2,848
Frequent developers numbers are
steady and stayed flat with slight 2%
gain since October 2018

We find each developer’s first commit date to pinpoint their start date
21
For example, 1,971 developers
committed code for the first time in a
crypto ecosystem in July 2019
Developers | by start date

1200+ new developers join crypto every month in 2020
22
2020 New Developers

December 1 - 31, 2019:
+15%
The last time new crypto
developers increased for more
than 3 months was December
2017...
...but new monthly developers
grew 15% since start of 2020
December 1 - 31, 2017:
October 1 - 31, 2020:
15% growth in monthly new developers in crypto since December 2019
23Developers | by start date

Yearly new developers in 2020 already exceeded new developers from 2017
24
Only through
October 2020
2020 New Developers already
exceeded 2017 New Developers

45% of new developers in 2020 were active in the last 90 days
25
45% of new developers in
2020 were active in the
last 90 days

40%+ of currently active monthly developers started in 2020
26
40%+ of all
developers
started in 2020
Proportion of Monthly Active Developers by Start Date

80%+ of all active
developers came in
after Bitcoin prices
peaked in
December 2017
80%+ of currently active developers started after Bitcoin’s all time high in 2017
27Developers | by start date
Proportion of Monthly Active Developers by Start Date

Switching to looking at ecosystems...
28

Ecosystems
By ecosystem Size
29

Community Developers
Protocol Developers
Ecosystems are comprised of community and protocol level developers
30Ecosystems | by ecosystem size

We can count the number of crypto ecosystems that are active per month
31
An ecosystem is active if there was
a code commit in one of its
repositories
Ecosystems | by ecosystem size

Active ecosystems crossed over 800 in 2018 and have stayed above this level
32
October 31, 2020
Active Ecosystems: 816
Ecosystem All Time High
March 31, 2019
January 1, 2018

October 31, 2020
March 31, 2019
Active ecosystems decreased by 18% since the all time high Ecosystem Count
33
-18%

October 31, 2020
The number of crypto ecosystems have grown 143% since 2017
34
Ecosystems have
grown 143% since
Jan 2017Jan 2017

Let’s segment ecosystems by number of developers...

Ecosystems with 2-10 developers are the source of the overall drop
36
October 2020
March 31, 2019
-24%
221
160
17
16
200
182
23
14 9
Small Ecosystems: 2-10 developers
Single Developer Ecosystems: 1 developer
Medium Ecosystems: 11-50 developers
Large Ecosystems: 51-100 developers
Mature Ecosystems: 100+ developers

Ecosystems with 1 developer have stayed flat around 200 since 2018
37
160
17
16
200
14
There have been around
200 ecosystems with 1
developer since 2018
October 2020
Small Ecosystems: 2-10 developers
Single Developer Ecosystems: 1 developer
Medium Ecosystems: 11-50 developers
Large Ecosystems: 51-100 developers
Mature Ecosystems: 100+ developers

We can track how ecosystems changed size categories from 2019 q3 to 2020 q3
38
...and break down how these
ecosystems changed team sizes
in 2020 Q3
We can look at the size of
ecosystems in 2019 Q3...

Ecosystems with 100+ developers did not fall below that level by 2020 q3
39
100% of ecosystems with
100+ devs stayed within
the same category

Ecosystems with 31-50 developers in q3 2019 were the most prone to losing developers
40
70%+ of developers who
had 31-50 developers in
Q3 2019 decreased team
size by Q3 2020

Ecosystems with fewer than 10 developers are likelier to be abandoned
41
25% of ecosystems with fewer
than 10 devs and 56% of
ecosystems with 1 dev are
dead one year later

We can take a snapshot of ecosystems in 2019 & 2020
to see how developer numbers changed

2019 q3 vs 2020 q3

We can benchmark 2020 q3 team size against 2019 q3 to assess Developer growth
44
The indicates
the average monthly
developers in 2020 Q3
The indicates
the average monthly
developers in 2019 Q3

Most ecosystems with more than 100+ devs today grew or stayed the same Size
45
Polkadot, Cosmos, Bitcoin,
and others grew across
2019 Q3 and 2020 Q3
same size
gained developers
lost developers

same size
gained developers
lost developers
Ethereum gained 300+ average monthly developers since q3 2019
46
Ethereum:
2019 Q3: 1,985
2020 Q3: 2,296

Zooming in...Polkadot, Tezos, Cardano had 100+ devs in Q3 2019 and gained more developers by Q3 2020
47
Had 100+ developers in
2019 Q3 and gained more
developers 2020 Q3
Ecosystems with 100
developers in Q3 2019
same size
gained developers
lost developers

same size (1x)
gained developers
lost developers
Polkadot doubled their developer Count
48
Polkadot:
2019 Q3: 189
2020 Q3: 384
gained 100%
m
ore developers
(2x)

same size (1x)
gained developers
lost developers
gained 100%
m
ore developers (2x)
Filecoin broke into the 100+ category by growing devs 3x
49
gained200%
m
oredevelopers(3x)
Filecoin:
2019 Q3: 37
2020 Q3: 113

same size
gained developers
lost developers
Bitcoin, cosmos, Lightning, and Hyperledger all stayed the same size

same size
gained developers
lost developers
Eos lost an average of 88 monthly active developers
51
EOS:
2019 Q3: 195
2020 Q3: 107

gained developers
lost developers
Zooming in further to ecosystems with 20+ developers...

gained200%
m
oredevelopers(3x)
Celo, Nervos, Algorand, Gnosis, Solana now have close to 2x their developers in 2019 q3
53
gained 100%
m
ore developers (2x)
gained developers
lost developers

gained200%
m
oredevelopers(3x)
The graph, oasis, Chainlink, and others now have more than 2x their developers in 2019 q3
54
gained 100%
m
ore developers (2x)
gained developers
lost developers

gained200%
m
oredevelopers(3x)
gained 100%
m
ore developers (2x)
gained developers
lost developers
Near, Flow, Avalanche, Uniswap, Balancer, Arweave, & others now havemore than 3x their developers in 2019 Q3

Zooming into Ecosystems with <50 developers &
filtering out small network value ecosystems...

Holo, Omisego, Zilliqa, Ark, SKALE, & Others roughly stayed the same size
57
gained 100%
m
ore developers (2x)
gained200%
m
oredevelopers(3x)
Roughly
stayed the
same size
same size

gained 100%
m
ore developers (2x)
gained200%
m
oredevelopers(3x)
same size
Algorand, Solana, Thorchain, Synthetix, & others have close to 2x their developers in 2019 q3

Chainlink, Avalanche, Uniswap, Arweave, Crypto.com, Balancer, Matic & others havemore than 2x developers
59
gained 100%
m
ore developers (2x)
gained200%
m
oredevelopers(3x)
same size

Ecosystems
By Top 200 in network value
60

14% more developers working in the top 200 since January 2020
61
October 31, 2020
Developers: 5,469
Jan 1, 2020
Developers: 4,810
+14%
Ecosystems | by Top 200 in Network Value

Most developers have consolidated into the top 200 ecosystems
62
...while Developers
outside of the Top 200
have decreased 30%
December 15, 2018
October 31, 2020
Top 200 Developers
increased by 13% since
December 2018...
October 31, 2020
Developers: 5,469

December 15, 2018
October 31, 2020
October 31, 2020
Developers: 5,469
Developers in the Top 200 ecosystems are at all time highs
63
Top 200 Developers in 2020
Q3 are at all time highs

Even excluding Bitcoin and Ethereum, top 200 ecosystems are still growing
64
Even excluding Bitcoin and
Ethereum, the Top 200
Ecosystems are still growing
October 31, 2020
2,325

Frequent and infrequent contributors both increased in the top 200 ecosystems
65
+18%
October 31, 2020
Developers: 3,588
Jan 1, 2020
Developers: 3,038
+6%
1,881
1,772

Looking at Top 10 Gainers across all Top 200 ecosystems… Ethereum gained the most developers
66

Excluding ethereum from the top 10 gainers, we see...
67

Filtering to Top 10 gainers in ecosystems with 100 devs or fewer...
68

Filtering to Top 10 gainers in ecosystems with 30 devs or fewer...
69

12% more developers working in layer 1 Ecosystems since January 2020
71
+12%
October 31, 2020
Developers: 5,027
January 1, 2020
Developers: 4,472
Ecosystems | by Layer 1

Since April 2020, more developers work in layer 1 Ecosystems than other crypto ecosystems
72
Winter 2018 Developer High
December 15, 2018
October 31, 2020
Since April 2020, more
developers work in Layer 1
ecosystems than other crypto
ecosystems

January 1, 2020
Removing Ethereum & Bitcoin, layer 1 ecosystems are still gaining developers
73
October 31, 2020

January 1, 2020
There are now almost as many developers working in Ethereum as other Layer 1 ecosystems combined
74
October 31, 2020
There are now almost as many
developers working in Ethereum as
other Layer 1 ecosystems combined,
excluding Bitcoin

Both frequent and infrequent contributors are increasing for layer 1 ecosystems
75
+14%
+9%
January 1, 2020
Developers: 2,836
October 31, 2020
Developers: 3,243

The number of Bitcoin developers have stayed around the same since 2019
77
January 1, 2020
Developers: 402
October 31, 2020
Developers: 361
Bitcoin developers have
commonly fluctuated between
350 - 450 since 2018
Ecosystems | by Layer 1 | Bitcoin

Bitcoin monthly active developers have grown 70%+ in 3 years
78
+71%
October 31, 2020
Developers: 361
October 31, 2017
Developers: 211

Bitcoin has maintained above 100 monthly active frequent contributors
79
Bitcoin has mostly
maintained above 100
monthly active frequent
contributors
Dec 6, 2018
Developers: 100

Between 45 - 120 new developers contribute to bitcoin per month since 2017
80Ecosystems | by Layer 1 | Bitcoin

The number of new developers That join Bitcoin increased after 2017 Bull Run
81
Post 2017: 45-120 new developers join per month
Pre 2017: 20-60 new developers

Bitcoin ecosystem BUIDL* WAVEs
82*This naming is a nod to the original hodl waves visualization Ecosystems | by Layer 1 | Bitcoin
We can color code the age distribution
developers that contribute commits in
Bitcoin…
...spikes in warmer colors (red, yellow)
indicate increased commits from newer
developers

Looking only at bitcoin core, 50% of the monthly commits are from DEVS INVOLVED for 5 years or more
83Ecosystems | by Layer 1 | Bitcoin
~20% of developers in 2020 have been
developing in Bitcoin Core for 5+ years...
...and they contribute 50% of monthly
commits

Ethereum has consistently increased monthly active developers
85
October 31, 2020
Developers: 2,325
+16%
+19%
January 1, 2020
Developers: 1,961
January 1, 2019
Developers: 1,651
Ecosystems | by Layer 1 | Ethereum

Ecosystems outside of ethereum have lost developers since Oct 2019
86
2,325
October 31, 2020
Developers: 6,732
-11%
October 31, 2019
Developers: 7,595
2,053
+13%

infrequent contributors increased 22% while frequent contributors increased 13% in ethereum since jan 2020
87
October 31, 2020
Developers: 1,507
January 1, 2020
Developers: 1,234
818
727
+22%
+13%

Since 2018, 300+ new developers commit to the Ethereum ecosystem each month
88
Since 2018, 300+ new
developers join Ethereum each
month

Roughly a quarter of new developers in crypto contribute to the ethereum ecosystem
89
26% of new
developers
from October
2020 were in
the Ethereum
ecosystem

Layer 1 Ecosystems
All Layer 1 Ecosystems
90

Ethereum, Bitcoin, Polkadot, Cosmos, Tezos, Cardano, EOS are the biggest Layer 1 ecosystems
91
same size (1x)
gained developers
lost developers
gained 100%
m
ore developers
(2x)
Ecosystems | by Layer 1 | All

Holo, zcash, harmony, zilliqa, Fetch, Ark, Spacemesh, & others have maintained roughly the same number of developers
92
same size (1x)
gained developers
lost developers
gained 100%
m
ore developers
(2x)
Roughly
stayed the
same size

Near, Oasis, Flow, Avalanche, Dfinity, & Mobilecoin increased average monthly developers by 100%
93
gained 100%
m
ore developers
(2x)
same size (1x)
gained developers
lost developers

Monero, Tron, Stellar, & Diem (Libra) maintained 51-100 developers between 2019 q3 and 2020 q3
94Ecosystems | by Layer 1 | All

Celo, nervos, Near, Oasis Labs, & Algorand grew into the 51-100 developer category in 2020 q3

Bitcoin Cash, NEO, XRP, Waves, & Ethereum Classic dropped out of the 51-100 developer category in 2020 q3

Let’s filter to Ecosystems with more than 60
developers in the last month....
97

We can compare growth by looking at Developers from the day of the first commit
98
The day of the first commit in
each ecosystem
Ecosystems | by Layer 1 | 60+ Devs

Ethereum, Polkadot, and Cosmos outpace other layer 1 platforms in growth
99Ecosystems | by Layer 1 | 60+ Devs

at 3 years since first commit….polkadot has more developers than ethereum at the same point in time
100Ecosystems | by Layer 1 | 60+ Devs

Filtering to new Smart Contract Platforms launched
less than 3 years ago
101

Binance smart contract platform outpaces other layer 1 ecosystems at the same point of
development
102Ecosystems | by Layer 1 | New Smart Contract Platforms

Near is within 20 devs of ethereum at the 2 year mark, can it keep growing in year 3?
103Ecosystems | by Layer 1 | New Smart Contract Platforms

Ecosystems
Decentralized Finance
104

67% increase in monthly active Defi developers since January 2020
105
+67%
October 31, 2020
Developers: 925
January 1, 2020
Developers: 554
Ecosystems | Decentralized Finance

Defi developers increased +110% since 2019 while other developers decreased -8%
106
-8%
+110%
925
441
January 1, 2019
Developers: 8,163
October 31, 2020
Developers: 7,542

Frequent and infrequent developers in defi have both increased since beginning of 2020
107
+81%
+45%
January 1, 2020
Developers: 334
October 31, 2020
Developers: 606

We can take a snapshot of defi ecosystems in 2019 &
2020 to see how developer numbers changed
108

Lightning, Maker, Gnosis, Chainlink, Keep, Synthetix, Uniswap, Balancer, & more gained developers
109
same size
gained developers
lost developers

Kyber, Augur, Ren, Akropolis, Band, Connext, loopring all roughly stayed the same size
110
gained developers
lost developers
gained
100%
m
oredevelopers
(2x)gained200%
moredevelopers(3x)

Uniswap, balancer, Yearn, MCDEX, Acala, & more gained 200%+ developers
111
gained developers
lost developers
gained
100%
m
oredevelopers
(2x)gained200%
moredevelopers(3x)

Yearn & acala are the biggest new Defi ecosystems in q3 2020
112
UMA

Looking at the top 5 Biggest gainers in Decentralized Finance...
113Ecosystems | Decentralized Finance

Most defi ecosystems have small teams of fewer than 25 monthly developers

Filtering to just Ecosystems with 25+ monthly developers...

116
We can index monthly active developers to the day of the first commit in each ecosystem
The day of the first commit in
each ecosystem

Yearn.finance is one of the fastest growing defi ecosystems
Yearn.finance has 42 monthly active
developers <1 year after first public commit
Recent increase driven by community
contributions in documentation in
iearn-finance/docs

a. New monthly crypto developers grew 15% in 2020, increasing for the first time since 2017
b. 80%+ of all active developers today came in the last two years
a. 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
b. The number of developers outside of the Top 200 decreased by 30% from December 2018
a. Bitcoin ecosystem has 70%+ more developers than it did 3 years ago
b. 300+ new developers per month commit to the Ethereum ecosystem
c. 67% increase in monthly active developers in Decentralized Finance since January 2020
Executive Summary
118

Thank you to everyone who gave feedback on early drafts
119
Anatoly Yakovenko
@aeyakovenko
Aliaksandr [Sasha] Hudzilin
@AliaksandrH
Anne Fauvre
@AnnieFauv
Austin Virts
@austinvirts
Ben Sparango
@bennybitcoins
Bruno Skvorc
@bitfalls
Casey Caruso
@caseykcaruso
Corey Soreff
@csoreff
Dawn Song
@dawnsongtweets
Dmitriy Berenzon
@dberenzon
Eddy Lazzarin
@eddylazzarin
Evan Mair
@ETM612
Rene Reinsberg
@followrene
Ian Lee
@ianjohnlee
Jane Lippencott
@janehk
Katherine Wu
@katherineykwu
Linda Xie
@ljxie
Marek Olszewski
@marek_
Matt Taylor
@mattytay
Meltem Demirors
@Melt_Dem
Mildred Idada
@MI_Idada
Steve Lee
@moneyball
Muneeb Ali
@muneeb
Siddhartha Dutta
@NihilistSid
Scott Moore
@notscottmoore
Kevin Owocki
@owocki
Raj Gokal
@RajGokal
Ryan Shea
@ryaneshea
Eric Williams
@sciencethedata
Tiffany Gao
@TiffanyYijiaGao
Yulian Lavysh
@yulianNEAR
Dominic Tsang Praneeth Srikanti
@bees_neeth

Layer 1 Ecosystems
121Appendix & Methodology

Decentralized Finance Ecosystems

Help map the crypto ecosystem
123

Commit Counting Methodology: Not all code commits are created equal.

How are developers counted?

What is an ecosystem?
Maker Community
○
○
○
○
○
Maker Protocol
○
○

127
Caveats
Appendix & Methodology

Disclaimer & Disclosure
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 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.

Developer Report (Published: December 2020)

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