According to Telstra’s most recent research, the continual increase in the number of active contributors across major ecosystems demonstrates the robustness of the Web3 community.

Telstra Ventures, the investment arm of Australian telecommunications behemoth Telstra, has produced a health report on three key blockchains, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana, based on a research of the level of engagement received from developers in each ecosystem. Ethereum has the “strongest and broadest community” of the three, according to Ventures, with the most monthly active contributors.

The survey also discovered that unfunded possibilities are still prevalent in the aforementioned ecosystems, with venture and corporate investors only spending on roughly half of the top ten initiatives in each.

Ethereum Is King

The number of active contributors is an important indicator of the strength of blockchain networks. They tend to draw more regular contributors as their popularity and use cases grow. According to Telstra Ventures, who examined the compound annual growth rate of unique active contributors across three main blockchains, Ethereum’s community has expanded 24.9% in the four years starting January 1st, 2018.

Despite the significant price decline since last November, its monthly contributors have only decreased by 9% as of July this year, demonstrating that the prolonged crypto winter has not dampened developers’ general trust in the network.

Furthermore, the impending Merge, which will complete the shift from PoW to PoS, has maintained overall interest, with the number of monthly active developers remaining above 2,500 each month since the first half of 2021.

In comparison to Ethereum, Solana has had tremendous growth during the same time span, with a yearly compound growth rate of 173%. However, it lacks the stability that Ethereum does. Since its native token SOL reached a high of $204 last November, the number of active contributors has decreased by 21%, with barely more than 250 by July.

In contrast to the two Layer 1 networks, the Bitcoin ecosystem has seen an 8% increase in monthly active contributors since the top of BTC in November. According to the research, it has shown consistent growth in terms of attracting new developers over the last eight years.

There are still opportunities available.

Even though the bear market has dampened enthusiasm among crypto VCs, as evidenced by Coinbase Ventures’ 34% drop in Q2 deal activity, Telstra Ventures believes numerous possibilities inside the top ecosystems remain open to institutional investors.

After researching over 30,000 open source Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana projects in the Web3 ecosystem, the venture discovered that 70% of the fastest growing projects are sponsored by venture capital or corporations.

Furthermore, just four to five of the top ten most active ventures in each ecosystem are sponsored by venture and corporate investors, implying that about half of the high-potential projects are still untapped by institutional investors.