Cardano Dominates Development Activity Amid Decline In DeFi Interest

Cardano may not yet be on the same level as the likes of Ethereum and Solana when it comes to decentralized finance (DeFi) activity, but that doesn’t mean the network is giving up. When it comes to development activity, Cardano continues to dominate all of the other networks, showing continued interest from developers on the network.

Cardano Is King Of Development Activity

A recent report has shown that the Cardano network development activity has far outpaced that of other networks, despite their dominance in the space. According to the report posted by Crypto Differ. On X (formerly Twitter), Cardano outranks development activity among the top networks by at least 150.

The report takes into account the amount of Github commits made by a project in a 30-day period and uses that to gauge their development activity. This way, it is able to figure out which network has the most development activity and Cardano came out in the lead with 449.

This number puts the network way ahead of the likes of Ethereum and Avalanche, both of which continue to be some of the most used smart contracts networks around. It also outpaces the Hedera (HBAR) network which came in second place with 282 commits, by a total of 167.

Next on the list is the Polkadot (DOT) network which came out to 281, followed closely by the Cosmos (ATOM) network with 280. Optimism (OP), a Layer 2 network built atop the Ethereum blockchain, snagged the fifth spot with 273 commits, and Avalanche (AVAX), another Ethereum Layer 2 network, came in sixth place with 260 commits.

Top Projects by average daily development activity on #Github in the last 30 days$ADA $HBAR $DOT $ATOM $OP $AVAX $SNT $ICP $LINK $APT $ETH $SUI $MANA $EGLD $OSMO pic.twitter.com/7MHNy5thKx

— CryptoDiffer – StandWithUkraine (@CryptoDiffer) January 5, 2024

Ethereum Doesn’t Make The Top 10

Despite Ethereum being far ahead of Cardano when it comes to DeFi activity on the network, it still did not make the top 10 networks in terms of development activity. Besides the six networks already listed above, Ethereum also fell behind the likes of the Status (SNT) network which came in at seventh position with 257 commits.

Next on the list was Internet Computer (ICP) which has been seeing a flurry of activity recently. It came in at eighth position with 216 commits. Then the Chainlink (LINK) and Aptos (APT) networks both claimed the ninth and tenth spot with 202 and 201 commits, respectively. Ethereum finally comes in at 11th position with 183, putting it ahead of the likes of Sui (SUI) and Osmosis (OSMO).

Cardano’s outperformance of these other networks also comes at a time when DeFi activity on the blockchain is declining. According to data from on-chain tracker DeFiLlama, the volume on the Cardano blockchain is down 35% in the last 30 days.

Likewise, there has also been a decline in its Total Value Locked (TVL), going from its December all-time high of $560 million to $411 million at the time of writing. Its native token, ADA, has also followed the same path, falling 17.5% in the last seven days.