Ethereum Layer-2 Scaling Solutions Starknet and zkSync See Increase in Active Developer Counts

According to Cointelegraph, Ethereum layer-2 scaling solutions Starknet and zkSync have experienced an increase in their total monthly active developer counts over the last 12 months. Starknet recorded a 3% increase, while zkSync saw a 6% rise. In contrast, Ethereum, Polygon, and Solana experienced declines of 23%, 43%, and 57% respectively during the same period, as per an updated developer report by Electric Capital. The total number of monthly active developers fell 27.7% from 26,701 to 19,279, reflecting a broader downward trend in developers over the past year.Chainlink, Stellar, Aztec Protocol, and Ripple also increased their developer counts as of October 1, although their total monthly active developers were lower than those of zkSync and Starknet. StarkWare's Starknet and Matter Labs' zkSync are layer-2 solutions aimed at scaling Ethereum through zero-knowledge rollups, which have become a focal point in 2023. Starknet's recent focus has been on its "Quantum Leap" feature, which went live in July and can potentially increase Ethereum's transactions per second (TPS) from around 13-15 to 37 TPS consistently and up to 90 TPS in some cases.Starknet and zkSync have also been working on zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine (zkEVM) solutions to further scale Ethereum throughout 2023. Developers at zkSync have been building a network of "Hyperchains" to create an ecosystem of interoperable protocols and sovereign chains as part of its zero-knowledge tech stack. The company unveiled the solution in June and hopes to have a working version by the end of 2023. Electric Capital software engineer Enrique Herreros noted in a thread on October 18 that many of the departing active monthly developers were newcomers (less than one year), while more established (more than two years) and emerging (one to two years) developers have remained relatively steady over the last 12 months. Enrique stated that this is a cyclical trend where newcomers dominate the developer market during bull markets but then fall in numbers when prices begin to plummet. Electric Capital typically obtains its data from code repos and code commits on open-source developer platform GitHub.