Over the past five years, the number of established developers with more than 2 years experience of working in crypto grew at an annualized rate of 52%. According to the findings of a study, established developers (2+ years) together with emerging developers make an average of three times more code commits than newcomers.
Experienced Developers’ Contributions
“According to Electric Capital’s 2023 Crypto Developer report, the number of established active developers, or those with 2+ years of experience working on crypto-related projects, has grown by an annualized rate of 52% over the past 5 years. This annualized growth rate was achieved despite the 24% drop in the overall number of active developers from 29,611 in December 2022 to 22,411 by December 2023.
The report data also shows that the number of experienced developers (1+ years) grew by 16% from 12,158 in December 2022 to 14,083 by December 2023. This saw them account for 63% of all monthly active developers. In contrast, the number of developers who worked on crypto-related projects for less than a year fell by 52% year-on-year.
Meanwhile, in the study report, the Electric Capital team also highlighted the significance of experienced developers’ contributions by revealing their disproportionate share of code created.
“75% of code is created by developers in crypto [with] 1+ years. Devs working in crypto for more than a year commit more consistently than newcomers,” the report revealed.
The report also added that established developers (2+ years) together with emerging developers make an average of three times more code commits than newcomers.
Concerning the fluctuating number of developers, the Crypto Developer report attributes these changes to newcomers who are drawn by the rise of crypto asset prices. This assertion is backed by data suggesting that more than 6,500 newcomers joined crypto every month in 2022. This phenomenon only happened after the crypto network value touched a historical high in November 2021.
Regarding the geographical distribution of developers, the report shows that the United States “has lost 14% of developer share since 2018 and is now only 26% of crypto developers.” Overall, North America now only accounts for 28% of developers. By contrast, South Asia, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Western Africa, and Southern Europe have seen their developer share grow by more than 20% since 2018.
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