Total number The number of monthly active cryptocurrency developers fell by 25% year-over-year in 2023, but those who have been in the industry over the long term are showing greater resilience than before, according to a new developer report from Electric Capital.
According to the report, developers with more than two years of experience in the cryptocurrency space reached an all-time high after reaching 51% annual growth over the past five years. Developers who have been in the cryptocurrency space for at least one year have grown 15% year over year and make up 63% of all monthly active developers.
“Very quantitatively [long-term developers] “This is important because about 75% of code implementations are written by developers who have been working in the cryptocurrency space for more than a year,” Maria Chen, general partner at Electric Capital, told TechCrunch+. “But there's a clear qualitative reason as well. You want people in the industry to stay around. When you see developers moving away from pricing, there's something fundamental that keeps them in the industry.”
The number of developers working in crypto has matched what Sheen has seen since entering the space in 2018. “You go through periods of churn and craziness, and a lot of people come and leave, but through it all there is a core group of people who survive through the mania.
Meanwhile, so-called new entrants — developers who have been in the cryptocurrency ecosystem for less than 12 months — fell 53% year-on-year in 2023. “New entrants are highly price-related,” Shen said. “Prices go up, more developers come in, prices go down, more developers leave.”
The reason cryptocurrencies are able to grow, scale and move forward is “a dedicated segment of committed developers, completely disconnected from the volatility of cryptocurrencies,” Shen said.
