Solana overthrows Ethereum’s 8-year reign as top ecosystem for new devs

New developers flocked to the Solana ecosystem this year, overthrowing Ethereum’s eight-year reign as the top ecosystem for new developers.

However, Ethereum is still number one globally in total developer activity.

According to a Dec. 12 report from Electric Capital, the Solana ecosystem onboarded more new devs in July than the Ethereum ecosystem for the first time since 2016. 

That momentum continued throughout the rest of the year, with current totals showing 7,625 new developers have joined Solana, led by developer growth in Asia, compared to Ethereum’s 6,456. 

The report also noted that the Solana ecosystem had experienced an 83% jump in activity since last year. 

Solana managed to briefly flip Ethereum on several fronts this year. On March. 18, Solana network activity surpassed Ethereum amid a scramble for Solana-based memecoins, while Oct. 28 saw it surpass Ethereum in daily network fee generation over 24 hours. 

In total, the report found that 39,148 new developers began exploring crypto this year, down 7% from last year and roughly half the all-time high of over 77,000 in 2022. 

Ethereum number one ecosystem for total developer activity

Despite the number of monthly Ethereum developers shrinking by 17% over the last year to 6,244, it’s still the biggest ecosystem for total developer activity.

According to Electric Capital’s data, Ethereum has the most active developers across Asia, Europe, North America, Africa and South America.  

Ethereum’s layer-2 networks have also seen growth of 64% since 2021, while 26% of all monthly crypto developers are working on L2s and the mainnet.

Eigenlayer, the primary restaking protocol on Ethereum, was the fastest-growing developer ecosystem in 2024, with a 167% increase in monthly overall developers. 

Crypto spreading around the world 

Electric Capital’s report found that crypto has grown globally as well, with developer numbers increasing in Africa, South America and Asia. 

In particular, Asia, Europe, and North America are flagged as the most prominent crypto hubs in 2024. 

Asia leads the pack with 1 in 3 developers worldwide living on the continent, thanks partly to India onboarding the most new crypto developers in 2024.

Related: Crypto market matured ‘dramatically’ in 2024: Coinbase

According to Electric Capital, crypto activity now spans all time zones as well, with different parts of the globe gravitating toward different use cases.

Stablecoin transactions are consistently active, rising 3% during Asian, European, and African daylight hours. 

Meanwhile, non-fungible token (NFT) trading peaks are during America’s work day, and minting peaks are during Asia’s work hours.

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