Report on developer activity and contribution in the encryption field in 2023

executive Summary:

• As of June 1, 2023, there are 21,300 monthly active open source developers. *Developers decreased by -22% year-on-year (from June 1, 2022). *Developers who have recently left the crypto space are new to the crypto space for less than 12 months and are responsible for less than 20% of all code commits.
• In contrast, developers who have been in the crypto space for 12 months or more continue to develop. They contribute more than 80% of the commits.

As of June 1, 2023, the number of monthly active open source developers is 21,300. There are more monthly active developers today than before the cryptocurrency market hit an all-time high in November 2021. However, the number of developers has declined over the past year.

• From June 1, 2022 (1 year ago) - 22%
• From June 1, 2021 (2 years ago) +25%
• From June 1, 2020 (3 years ago) +92%

*Despite secular growth, what has happened since June 2022? ] *Developers with more than 1 year in the crypto field continue to contribute, while many newcomers have left

By comparing the time between first and last commit, we can segment monthly active developers by how long they have been working in the crypto space.

• Newcomers: Developers who have been in the crypto industry for less than a year
• Emerging developers: developers who have worked in the crypto field for 1 to 2 years
• Mature developers: developers who have worked in the encryption field for more than 2 years

Emerging developers are growing and established developers are holding steady. The drop in monthly active developers last year was largely due to the departure of newcomers.

June 2022 to June 2023:

• Newcomers -48% (7.73K fewer)
• Emerging developers +44% (+1.65K names)
• Mature developers +2% (increased by 0.15K names)

*Why are there fewer newcomers? *

Fewer new developers exploring crypto space

First, the number of new developers has decreased, as fewer new developers are experimenting with crypto.

Let’s look at new developers by month. In May 2023, 2.9k new developers tried the crypto space:

• From February 2023 (3 months ago) - 20%
• From November 2022 (6 months ago) -42%
• From May 2022 (12 months ago) - 50%

Developer retention has historically been lower in bear markets

Second, the decrease in new developers is because the newly joined developers in 2023 do not stay for long.

We can plot the monthly group retention for developers from January 2021.

For how many months do most new developers in this group stay (<20% retention rate) before leaving?

• 2021: 6 to 10 months
• 2022: 3 to 6 months
• 2023 (present): 3 to 4 months

The retention rate in 2023 is worse than in 2022 or 2021. But if we zoom out, the 2023 retention rate is not out of the ordinary.

If we do a cohort retention analysis from 2015, we see that developers who joined during the bear market leave faster.

New developers are leaving faster in 2023 than in 2022 or 2021, typical of a bear market.

** Newcomers tend to dominate at market peaks **

Market cycles also explain the dominance between newcomers, emerging and established developers in the crypto space.

Newcomers dominate at market peak:

• 6 months after market peak in January 2018 (June 2018): 70% dominance
• Market ATH after 7 months of November 2021 (June 2022): 60% dominance

Once we are in a bear market, developers (emerging and established) who have been in the crypto space for more than a year will dominate:

• 24 months after market peak in January 2018 (January 2020): 60% dominance
• 18 months after November 2021 ATH (June 2023): 60% dominance

*However, despite the overall decline in monthly active developers, how important are departing developers? *

Developers who stay in crypto commit more code, push code for longer days, and work in crypto longer than devs who leave

If a developer doesn’t contribute code within two months, we can say they “gone”.

Developers who stopped contributing after March 2023 accounted for less than 20% of historical commits!

**What are the characteristics of developers who continue to contribute code? **

Let’s zoom in to see developers who have contributed recently. Developers contributing in April and May 2023:

• Contribute most of the code
• more active days
• Longer time in the crypto industry

Let’s look at the specifics…

First, developers who contributed most recently in April 2023 and May 2023 have historically contributed the majority of code commits (over 80%).

Second, developers who contributed code in April and May 2023 will have more days to push code.

We can separate the developers who left recently from those who stayed and plot the number of days they were actively pushing code.

Median number of days developers actively pushed code:

• Continuously working developers: 13 active weeks *Departed developers: active for 2 weeks

Third, developers contributing in April and May 2023 have been in the crypto space longer.

We can separate the developers who left recently from those who stayed, and then plot how long they worked in crypto.

Median number of days developers work in crypto:

• Continuously working developers: 19 weeks *Developers who leave: 8 weeks

**From a developer perspective, which ecosystems are growing so far in 2023? **

Osmosis, Sui, Aptos, TON, Optimism and Aztec Protocol grew year over year

Fastest Growing Ecosystems by Monthly Developers (June 2023 vs. June 2022):

• Osmosis: +56%
• Sui: +159%
• Apts: +90%
• TON: +102%
• Optimism: +27%
• Aztec Protocol: +267%

Thanks to community contributors

Thanks as always to all of our community contributors. The developer report now covers more than 215,000 encrypted repositories. To contribute to new open source cryptographic repositories, visit