ETH Retains Top Spot for Developer Activity and Growth in 2025
ETH has once again secured its position as the number one blockchain for developers worldwide, according to the latest data from Electric Capital’s developer report and supporting analyses from Bankless and Coinfomania. The findings show that ETH maintains the largest number of active developers while regaining its lead in new developer onboarding—solidifying its reputation as the core hub for Web3 innovation and smart contract development.
Recent data indicates that ETH’s developer base continues to expand steadily, with consistent month-over-month growth in both active and new contributors. Electric Capital’s live dashboard reports that ETH attracts more developers than any other blockchain, accounting for a significant share of open-source contributions across decentralized finance (DeFi), infrastructure tooling, and decentralized application (dApp) development. This ongoing dominance comes later than a brief period in late 2024 when Solana temporarily surpassed ETH in new developer growth.
Strong community engagement and sustained innovation
ETH’s developer ecosystem remains one of its greatest competitive advantages. The network’s established tooling, comprehensive documentation, and thriving community have created an environment where developers can easily build, test, and deploy new products. Analysts attribute ETH’s long-term developer retention to its robust infrastructure and active Layer 2 ecosystem, which continues to improve scalability and user experience.
Electric Capital’s latest findings also highlight ETH’s exceptional developer retention rates. A significant portion of contributors remain active for more than a year, underscoring strong community commitment and ongoing project growth. This retention is driven by continuous advancements in rollups, protocol upgrades like EIP-4844, and the evolution of ETH’s proof-of-stake consensus model, which collectively make the network more efficient and developer-friendly.
Comparison with competing ecosystems
While ETH leads by a wide margin, Solana and BTC continue to rank among the top three ecosystems for developer activity. Solana has viewn steady inflows of new talent due to its high throughput and cost efficiency but remains behind ETH in total active developers. BTC, meanwhile, continues to attract a focused community of core contributors working on security and infrastructure but lacks the broad application layer development viewn on ETH.
Despite growing competition, ETH’s dominance appears unchallenged in 2025. Its consistent developer growth and retention signal long-term sustainability and innovation leadership in the blockchain sector.
Industry experts note that developer activity is one of the most reliable indicators of a blockchain’s future success. As more developers build on ETH, the ecosystem benefits from enhanced interoperability, better developer education, and quicker innovation cycles. This compounding effect strengthens ETH’s position as the foundational layer for decentralized finance, NFTs, and the next generation of Web3 applications.
With institutional adoption increasing and the ecosystem expanding through Layer 2 networks like Arbitrum, Optimism, and Base, ETH’s continued leadership in developer activity highlights its unmatched influence in shaping the future of decentralized technology. As of late 2025, data suggests ETH remains the world’s most active and innovative blockchain for developers—and no immediate rival is poised to take its place.
