Solana (SOL) ends 2024 as the network with the largest number of new developers working on it. It thus becomes the first network to surpass the main network of Ethereum (ETH) in this statistic since 2016. Despite the data, Ethereum continues to be the network that hosts the most developers in total, according to data from a report dated December 12 from Electric Capital, a venture capital firm.
Throughout the year, Solana received 7,625 new developersleaving Ethereum in second place, with 6,456. This data reflected a year-on-year growth of 83% for Solana.
This preference on the part of new developers, according to the report, dates back to July 2024, when for the first time Solana managed to surpass the network co-founded by Vitalik Buterin in the number of new developers.
In the following image you can see the constant growth that Solana (light blue line) had throughout 2024 in the number of developers:
More developers mean more people are working on the network and driving adoption and development of new use cases. More active programmers also increase the quantity, and possibly the quality and intooperability of DApps or DeFi solutions. This makes Solana now more capable of responding to market demands.
However, the number of developers should be evaluated alongside other factors such as the quality of contributions, ecosystem growth, and community support.
Solana overtook the Ethereum mainnet, but not its ecosystem
Electric Capital did not count in the statistics of new Ethereum developers those who worked this year on the second layer networks (L2) of ETH, and was limited to those on its main network. He did not number, for example, the recruitment of workers in Base, Arbitrum (ARB) and others. Given this circumstance, some developers and members of the Ethereum ecosystem expressed their opinions.
Such is the case of Josh Stark, who works for the Ethereum Foundation and stated that the report expresses “the dominance of Ethereum in developer data.” Stark based his statements on the fact that Ethereum’s L2s are being “adopted quickly” by the builders of the Ethereum ecosystem due to the low commissions they offer.
Likewise, based on data from the Electric Capital report, Stark highlighted that the Ethereum ecosystem as a whole, including its layer 2 (L2) solutions, is consolidating itself as “the home of decentralized finance developers (DeFi)”.
As detailed in the report, 56% of total developers work on Ethereum and its second layer solutions. Additionally, in order to demonstrate what he called “the dominance of Ethereum,” Stark explained that this network not only leads in terms of development within the sector. DeFi. It also does so in other narratives, being the network with the highest total value locked (TVL), highest transaction volume in exchanges decentralized (DEX) and with more circulation of stablecoins.
However, to end his response, Stark showed a self-critical approach towards Ethereum.
“What can the Ethereum ecosystem learn from this? If nothing else, it’s a reminder that we can’t be complacent. “Ethereum will always have competitors, and we will always have to work to continue improving Ethereum as a platform for developers, increasing its presence and advocating for its distinctive value as a decentralized and credibly neutral chain.”
Josh Stark, de Ethereum Foundation.
For his part, X user Redwan, Program Director of ChainSefth, a Web3 application, expressed himself along the same lines as Stark. He responded that the Electric Capital report omitted that accounting for all Ethereum L2s, this ecosystem surpassed Solana with almost 12 thousand new developers.
Redwan closed his comment by explaining that decentralized applications (dapps) Built on L2, they can be easily integrated into Ethereum, allowing access to liquidity throughout the entire ecosystem.
NoticiasVE recently reported the statements of another Ethereum developer such as Justin Drake, who assured that “Solana’s golden era is over”
On that occasion, Drake argued his statement by saying that in the future the L2s of this network would surpass Solana in performance. on-chain. Two ways to measure this performance are through latency and throughput of the network.