Ethereum Attracts Over 16,000 New Developers in 2025 While Solana Surges in Growth and Bitcoin Lags Behind

Ethereum Leads Blockchain Development As Solana Sees Rapid Growth

Ethereum continues to attract the largest pool of blockchain developers, drawing more than 16,000 new contributors between January and September 2025, according to data from Electric Capital shared by the Ethereum Foundation.

The network now hosts 31,869 active developers across its ecosystem, including layer-2 solutions such as Arbitrum, Optimism, and Unichain, without double-counting those working across multiple networks.

Why Developers Prefer Ethereum

Ethereum’s lead reflects its status as the most actively developed blockchain globally.

While newer networks are growing fast, developers remain drawn to Ethereum for its transparency, regulatory clarity, and the maturity of its ecosystem.

Across Latin America, for example, a recent report by Sherlock Communications found that over 75% of blockchain transactions occurred on Ethereum, with Polygon capturing nearly 20% of regional activity.

Developers cited ease of use and the ability to focus on practical applications as key factors in choosing established chains over building new base-layer protocols.

Solana Surges But Faces Reporting Gaps

Solana ranked second, attracting around 11,500 new developers this year, though the Solana Foundation has said Electric Capital’s data may be outdated.

Jacob Creech, head of developer relations at the foundation, noted that approximately 7,800 developers are unaccounted for and encouraged contributors to submit their GitHub repositories.

This would allow Solana’s internal tools to capture a more accurate picture of activity.

Despite this, Solana’s developer base has grown sharply, recording a 29.1% increase over the past year and a 61.7% rise over two years.

Bitcoin And Other Networks Lag Behind

Bitcoin added roughly 7,500 new developers over the same period, bringing its active base to 11,036.

Other blockchain ecosystems, including Polygon, Stacks, Sui, Internet Computer, BNB Chain, Stellar, and Aptos, each host fewer than 7,000 developers.

Analysts have questioned the methodology of aggregating developer activity, noting that ecosystems using the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), such as Polygon and BNB, share tools and programming skills and could be considered collectively.

Tomasz K. Stańczak, co-executive director of the Ethereum Foundation, said,

“EVM chains should be grouped together. Developers on Polygon and BNB clearly can reuse the majority of skills and EVM tooling.”

Is Developer Growth Slowing Or Inflated?

While Ethereum maintains the largest developer base, its growth rate has cooled.

Full-time developers increased by only 5.8% in the past year and 6.3% over two years.

By contrast, Solana has expanded rapidly, though some experts caution that AI-assisted code and hackathon projects could inflate reported numbers.

Jarrod Watts, head of Australia for the layer-2 network Abstract, said,

“IMO this data likely includes a tonne of vibe coding slop and hackathon repos that are never touched again… I don’t think I can name one new crypto dev that started this year.”

Developer Compensation Remains A Challenge

Beyond growth metrics, the Ethereum ecosystem faces concerns over compensation.

According to the Protocol Guild, the median salary for a core Ethereum developer is around $140,000, substantially below comparable private-sector blockchain roles averaging $359,000.

This pay gap has prompted some contributors to consider leaving for commercial opportunities, though others remain committed to Ethereum’s open-source infrastructure.

Ethereum Foundation Invests In DeFi And Open-Source Tools

In line with its open-source ethos, the Ethereum Foundation recently deployed 2,400 ETH, valued at roughly $9.6 million, along with about $6 million in stablecoins into the yield-bearing Morpho vault.

The foundation noted that Morpho Vault v2 and Morpho Blue v1 are released under the GPL2.0 license, supporting permissionless DeFi protocols and open-source development.

As blockchain ecosystems evolve, Ethereum remains the anchor for developers, while Solana and other networks grow quickly, navigating both reporting gaps and debates over the accuracy of developer statistics.

The competition highlights the broader challenge of measuring real developer engagement in an industry rapidly experimenting with new technologies and tools.