The number of developers in the digital assets industry decreased by 22% over the last year. Despite the fact that experienced programmers continue to actively contribute to the development of Web3 projects, about 7,000 IT specialists left the industry.
According to Electric Capital’s research, ~7,730 developers with less than a year in the industry left crypto projects in the last 12 months. On the other hand, during the same period, about 1,800 IT specialists with more than a year of experience in Web3 projects joined the industry.
Thus, the study says that approximately 21,300 developers in the cryptocurrency ecosystem work with open source code on a monthly basis. Since June 2022, the number has decreased by 22%. The study, however, showed that programmers who have been in the industry for over a year write more code and work more days per year than less experienced developers. So, specialists who left the industry were responsible for less than 20% of all commits.
The report also noted a decline in the number of novice developers wanting to work in open source. Overall, 48% fewer new programmers came in over the past year. Analysts attribute this trend to a decrease in the number of IT professionals interested in working in the cryptocurrency sector due to the ongoing bear market. Newcomers usually enter the sector during the upturn of the crypto market. For example, after peaking in January 2018, the share of newcomers was 70%, and six months after the market’s all-time high in November 2021, their share was 60%.
It’s worth noting that the cryptocurrency industry has gone through some major upheavals over the past year, as a result of which some crypto companies were forced to cut their staff. According to the K33 research, cryptocurrency companies have generally laid off about 10% of their employees in the last 12 months.
In 2022, the number of new Web3 specialists increased by 25%, although development activity in the sector fell by about a quarter.
