Developer Activity on Bitcoin and Ethereum Plummeted in 2022

Blockchain developers have slowed down their contributions to top crypto projects amid the lingering market downturn, with Bitcoin and Ethereum experiencing a decline of over 30% in developer activity over the past three months. 

According to dev activity tracker platform GokuStats, developers made a total of 12,200 commits, which is the smallest unit of work for developers, to the Ethereum network during the last week of August, nearly flat in one month and down by over 30% in three months. 

Furthermore, as the leading and strongest crypto community, Ethereum had 1,850 weekly developers for the week ending August 27. This figure is down by 11% in one month and down by more than 30% over the past three months. 

Likewise, the leading cryptocurrency has seen a decline in the number of developer contributions. During the last week of August, devs made 1,600 commits to the Bitcoin blockchain and its sub-ecosystem, which is down by more than 35% in one month and 38% in three months. 

Furthermore, Bitcoin had a total of 293 active weekly developers for the week ending August 27. This tally represents a decline of around 13% in Bitcoin’s active weekly developers over one month and a drop of around 33% over three months. 

Aside from Bitcoin and Ethereum, other blockchains and crypto projects have also seen a plunge in developer activity. Polkadot, Solana, and Cosmos have been hit the most, losing around 50% of their weekly developers over the past three months.

Crypto Winter Continues to Rage On

The decline in developer activity comes amid the lingering crypto winter, characterized by depressed cryptocurrency asset prices. The current crypto winter arguably started in early May, when the collapse of Terra‘s algorithmic stablecoin UST exacerbated the market crash. 

Terra’s implosion sent ripple effects across the entire crypto industry, leading to the failure of some prominent crypto firms like Celsius and Three Arrows Capital, which wiped off around USD 2trn from the overall crypto market capitalization.

Nevertheless, major cryptocurrencies have since failed to recover. For instance, Bitcoin has been trading around the USD 20,000 mark for the last three months. The leading cryptocurrency is currently trading at over USD 21,500, up by more than 6% over the past 24 hours.

Ethereum, on the other hand, has performed much better, largely thanks to the hype and chatter around the upcoming Merge. The second-largest cryptocurrency is currently trading around USD 1,700, up by around 3% over the past day.