Electric Capital’s 2024 Developer Report has revealed that for the first time since 2016, Solana outpaced Ethereum as the leading blockchain ecosystem for attracting new developers.
The breakthrough highlights Solana’s rapid growth, with 7,625 new devs joining the network in the last 12 months, representing an 83% year-over-year increase.
Rise in Developer Activity
The report, released on December 12, looked at more than 902 million code commits across 1.7 million repositories, showing that Solana’s developer community is the fastest-growing among large blockchain networks.
This surge was fueled by strong participation from builders in Asia, where the network ranked as the number one platform for new programmers in India and number two in other major markets like the United States, the UK, Canada, and China.
Reacting to the news, Solana credited its community-driven ethos and focus on scalability for playing major roles in its expansion. In 2024, it captured more than 81% of all decentralized exchange (DEX) trades, as well as 64% of NFT mint transactions across all chains.
Additionally, its wallet activity reached 1.7 million users, a figure that is seven times higher than the next largest chain.
However, Solana’s new-found status notwithstanding, Ethereum still remains the dominant blockchain for total developer activity. While it onboarded 1,169 fewer coders than its rival, globally, Ethereum continues to lead in metrics such as monthly active developers and code commits.
Additionally, established builders with more than two years under their belts as contributors are at an all-time high on the Vitalik Buterin-fronted blockchain, with 70% of commits coming from them.
Solana Making Small Strides
Nonetheless, Solana’s growth reflects broader diversification trends within the crypto industry. Per Electric Capital’s study, one in three devs now work on several chains, up from less than 10% in 2015. The platform took advantage of this trend, positioning itself as an alternative for low-fee use cases, decentralized finance (DeFi), and NFTs.
To highlight the progress, the chain overturned Ethereum across several measures this year, albeit momentarily, including beating its total weekly transaction fees and maximum extractable value (MEV) tips in July.
Furthermore, in November, the platform’s DEXs hit a milestone with one-day trading numbers going past $5 billion for three consecutive days for the first time in its history. The activity peaked days later, leading to the network breaking another record when its monthly decentralized exchange volumes hit the $70 billion mark.
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