Although the army of open-source developers fueling the nearly $2 trillion crypto ecosystem every month has declined by roughly a fourth over the past year, those committed to the cause aren’t going anywhere.
By the end of 2023, the number of monthly active open-source crypto developers had fallen to 22,266 from about 29,600 a year earlier, according to a report published Wednesday by Electric Capital. Still, the number of dedicated coders, monthly active developers who’ve been in crypto at least two years, rose by almost one-third over that same period.
Maria Shen, a partner at Electric Capital, said the jump in long-standing open-source developers bodes well for the crypto industry, and that the true number of developers, including non-open-source coders, could be much higher.
“The tourists have left, predictably, and the people who are left are the people who are very committed and dedicated—and committing most of the code to crypto,” she told Fortune.
Despite a massive head start, the U.S.’s share of global crypto developers has fallen to about 26% from an earlier figure of 40% in 2018, Shen added. Much of the decline has to do with regulatory uncertainty in the U.S. fueled by the Securities and Exchange Commission, although some of it is also due to crypto expanding and globalizing, she said.
“Anecdotally, just speaking to developers and founders, there’s very widespread concern around regulatory uncertainty,” Shen continued. “That pushes everyone to think about what is their strategy outside the U.S.”
About 34% of open-source crypto developers are in Europe, and an increasing number are now in countries that include India and Nigeria, which saw some of the biggest growth in 2023.
As for the blockchains, Bitcoin and Ethereum have traditionally been the two biggest destinations for open-source developers, yet the space is increasingly expanding, with the report showing that Polygon, Solana, and BNB Chain are gaining steam.
More than a third of all developers supported multiple layer-1 and layer-2 chains over the course of 2023, compared with just 3% in January 2015. The number of developers working on three or more chains also hit an all-time-high in 2023, according to the report.
“I think the biggest takeaway for me,” Shen told Fortune, “is that crypto is not going anywhere.”
