The world of blockchain development has seen some shifts in the past year, and recent data indicates that Ethereum layer 2 scaling solutions, Starknet and zkSync, have shown growth by adding developers. In contrast, major platforms like Ethereum, Polygon, and Solana have seen a decline in the number of active developers over the same period. These insights were derived from Electric Capital's latest developer report, which tracks data up to October 1. 2023.
While Starknet experienced a modest growth of 3%, and zkSync saw a 6% increase in active developers, Ethereum, Polygon, and Solana reported drops of 23%, 43%, and 57%, respectively. The broader trend among developers over the last year reflected a decrease of 27.7%, with the total number of monthly active developers declining from 26.701 to 19.279.
The report also revealed that other blockchain platforms like Chainlink, Stellar, Aztec Protocol, and Ripple had increased their developer numbers as of October 1. However, their total monthly active developer figures remained lower than those of zkSync and Starknet.
StarkWare's Starknet and Matter Labs' zkSync are layer 2 scaling solutions that aim to boost Ethereum's capacity with zero-knowledge rollup technology. The primary focus of Starknet has been the Quantum Leap, launched in July. This feature theoretically elevates Ethereum's transactions per second (TPS) from approximately 13-15 to 37 TPS, and in some cases, even up to 90 TPS. Furthermore, both Starknet and zkSync have been developing a zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine (zkEVM) solution to further enhance Ethereum's scalability in 2023.
zkSync is working on a "hyperchain" network designed to create an ecosystem of interoperable protocols and sovereign chains, as part of their zero-knowledge technology stack. The project was launched in June, and they aim to have a functioning version available by the end of 2023.
The report's findings also revealed that the number of "new" developers (less than one year of experience) decreased by 58%, while "emerging" developers (with one to two years of experience) saw an 11% increase, and "established" developers (over two years of experience) increased by 5%. This fluctuation in developer numbers is noted as a cyclical trend, with newcomers dominating the market during bullish periods, only to decline when market prices drop. Electric Capital typically compiles its data from code repositories and code commits on the open-source developer platform, GitHub.
