Crypto Project Code Commits Drop 75%, Developers Shift to AI Field

Odaily The blockchain ecosystem is losing developers, while AI projects are dominating growth on GitHub. Data from Artemis shows that since the beginning of 2025, weekly code commits for crypto projects have dropped from approximately 850,000 to 210,000, a decrease of about 75%. The number of active developers has fallen by 56% to around 4,600.

Meanwhile, GitHub added about 36 million new developers in 2025, with global users exceeding 180 million. Overall platform commits grew by approximately 25% year-over-year. Among these, AI-related repositories exceeded 4.3 million. The number of repositories importing large language model SDKs grew by about 178% to over 1.1 million. Generative AI projects have over 1 million monthly active contributors. Jupyter Notebook repositories grew by about 75%, Dockerfile repositories grew by about 120%, and TypeScript surpassed Python and JavaScript to become the most used programming language on GitHub.

Within the crypto space, Ethereum's weekly active developers dropped 34% to 2,811 over three months, Solana dropped 40% to 942, and Base dropped 52% to 378. Aptos lost about 60% of its developers, BNB Chain commits fell 85%, and Celo dropped 52%. The only category still growing is wallet infrastructure, with active developers increasing about 6% to 308.

Electric Capital's annual report indicates that the industry's monthly active developers peaked at around 31,000 in 2022 and declined to about 23,600 in 2024. Among retained developers, those with over two years of experience contributed about 70% of commits, while newcomers with less than 12 months of experience declined by 58%.