Telstra’s VC arm, Telstra Ventures, has dived deeper into the Web3 and blockchain worlds amid the crypto crash that cost investors $1.3 trillion, with the market down 60% since January, to see who survived and thrived.
The 12-page report, titled Blockchain Open-Source Developers Signal Strength of Web3 Community, shows that web3-developer interest remains strong despite the terraUSD (UST) stablecoin implode, crypto-lender Celsius filing for bankruptcy and a crypto bear market that has seen it. After passing the loan, hedge fund Three Arrows put capital in liquid form.
In that climate, VC investment in the space fell by a quarter (25.6%) to $9.3 billion in the first six months of 2022, compared to $12.5 billion in the same period last year.
The Telstra Ventures data science team, led by Dr Donghai He, conducted a health check by analyzing 1,000 active organizations contributing to more than 30,000 open source Web3 projects across three major blockchain ecosystems – Ethereum, Solana and Bitcoin.
Their main findings:
- Blockchain developers’ participation in Web3 communities remains strong, with overall annual growth rates measured in project-specific active contributors and monthly per ecosystem.
- Venture and corporate investors are well connected to 7 of the 10 most active projects in the key ecosystem.
- Only 4 to 5 of the top 10 active projects in each ecosystem are funded by venture and corporate investors, suggesting that unfunded opportunities remain.
Telstra Ventures General Partner Yash Patel said blockchain developers’ commitment to the Web3 ecosystem, despite short-term price fluctuations, is the foundation for medium- and long-term viability for the sector, adding that decisions about which protocols to use will be driven by the use case. .
To be considered in the study, projects have at least 100 stars in their respective GitHub repositories and have actively contributed between January and April 2022.
Key points of the Telstra Ventures blockchain report:
Ethereum remains the largest and strongest developer community
- The Ethereum contributing community has grown at a compound annual rate of 24.9% over the past 4 years as of January 1, 2018.
- Since Ethereum’s price peak in Nov-2021, the number of monthly active contributors has decreased by 9.0%.
Solana is growing fast and is on the heels of Ethereum
- Solana’s contributors have grown at a compound annual growth rate of 173.0% over the past 4 years since January 1, 2018.
- Since Solana’s peak price of $204.35 in November 2021, the number of active contributors has decreased by 21%.
Bitcoin continues its slow and steady growth in price volatility.
- Bitcoin has seen a compound annual growth rate of 17.1% in the number of contributors over the past 4 years since January 1, 2018.
- Since the crypto Bitcoin peaked in October 2021, the number of active contributors has grown by 8.2 percent.
Institutional investors are strongly aligned with blockchain development. In each of the three primary ecosystemsAnd investment opportunities remain
- 7 out of 10 fastest growing projects are backed by VCs or corporations.
- 4 or more of the 10 fastest-growing stores in each ecosystem are backed by VCs or corporate investors.
Ethereum is the strongest and largest community.
- Ethereum’s upcoming integration will move from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake, which means the network will be able to process more than 100,000 transactions per second, much faster and more scalable than it currently is. Developer excitement is helping to fuel the recent price rally, and we expect more innovations to come as different chains try to outdo each other.
- The Ethereum contributing community has grown at a compound annual rate of 24.9% over the past 4 years as of January 1, 2018.
- If Ethereum peaks above $4,800 in Nov-2021, the number of active contributors for the month will decrease by 9%. This is compared to x% discount rate over the same period.
Solana’s developer community is growing rapidly.
- Solana’s developer community began to take shape in late 2017, with the first block created in 2020.
- During the last 4 years of volatility since January 1, 2018, Solana has been growing at a 173.0% compound annual growth rate in contributors. .
Constant growth for the Bitcoin developer community
- Bitcoin has seen steady growth in the number of active developers over the past eight years. The Bitcoin contributing community has seen a compound annual growth of 17.1% over the past four years as of January 1, 2018.
- Since the crypto Bitcoin peaked in October 2021, the number of active contributors has grown by 8.2 percent.
You can download the report here.
