The collapse of the cryptocurrency market doesn’t seem to have deterred Web3 developers, as one Web3 platform claims that they are “more active than ever” – particularly on the Ethereum network. 2022 may be the “largest year yet” for Web3 developers, according to a new Q3 2022 study published on October 13 by Web3 development platform Alchemy.
According to the research, out of the roughly 323,700 smart contracts that have been implemented, almost 118,000—or more than 36%—were confirmed and deployed in 2022. This was the case despite the fact that the price of Ether has fallen by around 66% since the year’s beginning and that, according to DappRadar, the total value locked in decentralized finance (Defi) protocols has fallen by almost 70% so far. Trading volumes for nonfungible tokens (NFT) have also declined, falling by 98% since late January. According to Alchemy, the number of smart contracts deployed increased by 40% from the first quarter of the year, reaching successive all-time highs every month during the third quarter, with a peak of 17,376 in only September.
The data also shows that smart contract deployments increased by 143% from the third quarter of 2021 to the third quarter of 2022, reaching over 48,500. Alchemy notes that smart contract deployment increased by 14% in the two weeks after Ethereum’s Merge when the blockchain switched from a proof-of-work to a proof-of-stake consensus. This suggests that some Web3 developers may have been waiting for the event to launch their applications. Ethers.js and Web3.js, two Web3 script libraries that let programmers access blockchain data and create Web3 applications, were also examined by the business. The team discovered that, on average, approximately 1.5 million downloads of each library were made each week by Web3 developers, a threefold increase from Q3 2021.
Even if there are many arguments that the current crypto bear market is a favorable moment to develop Web3 goods, this hasn’t always been the case in prior cycles. As shown by Alchemy’s (Web3 platform) statistics, the midst of the 2017–2020 bear market saw a 45% decline in smart contract installations, from 2018 to 2019. However, up until this point, that measure has increased by 50% this year from 2021.
