Ethereum Leads as Layer 1 Networks Outpace L2 For Active Developers

Developers are still flocking to layer-1 blockchain networks despite accelerated growth in the layer-2 ecosystem. Ethereum remains the network of choice for active developers.

According to the Token Terminal weekly fundamentals report on March 30, the top 25 projects in terms of active developers are dominated by layer-1 blockchains.

The blockchain analytics company classifies active developers as the number of distinct GitHub users that made more than one commit to the project’s public repositories during the past 30 days.

Unsurprisingly, Ethereum remains at the top, with 186 active daily developers over the past month. Polkadot and Kusama are in second place with 171 daily developers.

However, the Ethereum active developer count has actually declined 5% over the past month. Conversely, those working in the Polkadot ecosystem have increased by 5.6% over the same period.

Active developers over the past 30 days | Token Terminal

VC Projects Attracting Active Developers

There has been strong developer momentum for the Sui and Aptos (APT) blockchains. Additionally, according to Token Terminal, both have seen a 20% increase in active daily developers over the past month.

However, it did note that these two are heavily venture capital-backed, so they can afford more developers.

“Many alt L1s have raised large amounts of VC funding to build out their teams. Most recently, SUI raised $300M and Aptos $150M.”

Although layer-1 blockchains have the lion’s share of developers, the layer-2 ecosystem has also been growing.

The report noted that Polygon was the L2 leader with 46 daily active developers over the past 30 days. Optimism and Arbitrum followed with 40 and 29 daily developers for the same period, respectively.

“The L2 market sector has been gaining momentum for some time now thanks to new launches and airdrops,” it noted.

dApp Developers Increasing

Chainlink (LINK) leads the dApp category in active developer terms with 77 over the past month. Additionally, it has seen a 7% increase over the past month and a 20% gain over the past three months.

Osmosis was the second most popular dApp for developers, according to the research. Lido’s active developer count has been trending over the past year. This has most likely been driven by the team working on developing Lido V2, according to Token Terminal.

Finally, active developers are an important metric to study for investors. The research concluded:

“If a protocol generates $50M in revenue, it’s really valuable to know if it’s being developed by 20 or 200 people.”

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