It is undeniable that Bitcoin and Ethereum are the two largest cryptocurrencies in the world today and the competition between these two coins has been going on for years. However now, another silent competition is emerging in the cryptocurrency space – the battle between altcoins.
Is ETH Lagging?
The crypto universe has expanded to another level. Various tokens are introduced under the family tree. But not all will survive the storm. The largest ecosystems are Ethereum, Bitcoin, Polkadot, Cosmos, Solana, BSC, NEAR, Avalanche, Polygon and Cardano, each with 250+ monthly active developers.
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let’s dig
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But there is a tussle going on. Crypto research firm Electric Capital published a report on the blockchain development ecosystem. Several protocol ecosystems are overtaking the largest developer ecosystem, Ethereum. The report mentioned,
“Polkadot, Solana, NEAR, Binance Smart Chain, Avalanche and Terra have faster initial ecosystem development than Ethereum.”
Here is a graph to support this claim.
In fact the protocol mentioned above has seen a significant jump over the years.
Comparing the average monthly active developers between December 2020 and December 2021 for the larger ecosystem (with more than 300 developers). Solana grew 4.9x+ in 2021. NEAR is now the 6th largest ecosystem with 4x+ growth in 2021.
Polygon’s monthly developers increased by over 2x, while Cardano was +90%, BSC +80%, Cosmos +70% and Bitcoin +70%. Similarly, medium-sized and small ecosystems (less than 300 developers) – Terra, ICP, Phantom and Harmony all quadrupled the number of developers in 2021. Avalanche and Algorand both increased their developers by 3 times.
The metrics it uses to reach this conclusion are the length of days since the first “commit” or code change, and the total number of developers since launch. When measured against Ethereum at a similar level, those six layer-1 ecosystems tend to have more active developers.
down but not out
Having said that, it does not exclude ETH from the race. The report noted that over 4,000 monthly active open-source developers work on Ethereum. Much more than 680 working on the bitcoin network. Polkadot has about 1,500 developers in total, while Cosmos and Solana have about 1,000 developers each.
Ethereum remains the largest number of developments done within this vast ETH ecosystem. It’s still in effect – more than 20% of new Web3 developers have joined its ecosystem. The ecosystem continues to maintain the largest network of tools, dApps and protocols and is 2.8x larger than its nearest rival, Polkadot.
That said, given the current potential of the aforementioned altcoins except ETH- anything can happen. In fact, analysts at JP Morgan recently published a report that sheds light on the same.
“Ethereum’s dominance in one of the hottest corners of the cryptocurrency is at risk of further undermining as competitors delve deeper into decentralized finance (DeFi),” the report said. Ahead,
“In other words, Ethereum is currently in an intense race to maintain its dominance in the application space with the outcome of that race, in our opinion.”
Here’s another reference to support it. The price of Ether is up about 220% over the past year, while Solana is up 7,000% and Avalanche is up 2,200%.
Still, it’s not all that dark as it looks. Ether still comfortably overtook bitcoin as the largest cryptocurrency. Meanwhile, the anticipated upgrade could boost morale as well.