Cardano ahead of Ethereum and Polkadot
No other blockchain project had more developer activity in 2022 than Cardano.
No other blockchain project had more developer activity in 2022 than Cardano. Polkadot and Cosmos also performed exceptionally last year. Despite the bearish price action, developers didn’t slow down. Important updates happened, improvements were made, and new development goals were set. The analytics platform Santiment evaluated the blockchain projects with the most Github contributions for 2022. At the top, we find the usual suspects.
Cardano takes gold
With a final score of nearly 2,500, Cardano represents the highest developer activity according to Santiment. That reinforces its reputation as the blockchain’s academic flagship. Earlier in 2021, the smart-contract platform was also number 1 for Github entries.
The high participation from developers is visible in the many updates on the ambitious roadmap. One of the key events on the Cardano network in 2022 was the Vasil hard fork, which upgraded the blockchain in terms of scalability. Several innovations are planned for 2023, including its own stablecoin and the privacy solution called "Midnight".
Polkadot takes silver
Second place goes to Polkadot, where the dev-community is quite active. The Web3 project doesn’t like to stand still; in 2023, several updates are expected to boost interoperability and scalability.
The focus is on the "Asynchronous Backing" upgrade, which aims to raise blockchain throughput to one million transactions per second. In addition to parachains, parathreads will be rolled out in the first half of 2023, a smaller variant.
Cosmos takes bronze
Third place goes to the Cosmos blockchain network (Atom), the "Internet of Blockchains," known for interoperability. The rapid rise in dev activity in 2023 is likely driven in part by the security upgrade planned for January.
The Interchain Security Upgrade will better secure other projects in the Cosmos ecosystem, which will in turn lower costs. The revised security model is meant to simplify running application-specific blockchains. However, there’s another reason Cosmos will be interesting in 2023.
Steady growth for Cosmos
How active a developer community is only partially indicative of a project’s success. In market-cap terms, Cosmos is only the 24th largest crypto project. Ethereum, which likely underwent the biggest update of the past year with The Merge, sits fourth in Santiment’s rankings. Bitcoin doesn’t crack the top ten.
The assessment can serve as a rough indicator of activity, i.e., the ongoing development of projects. The more innovative the projects, the greater the chance they prove themselves in the long run. On the other hand, projects with fewer developers are somewhat less hopeful for the future.
