Maria Shen, General Partner at Electric Capital, dives into the shifting landscape of crypto development. For the first time in eight years, Solana has overtaken Ethereum in attracting new developers. The conversation highlights Asia's rise as the leading hub for crypto, with a notable developer migration trend. Shen discusses Ethereum's resilience amid high fees, the stability of the Bitcoin ecosystem, and the increasing fascination with zero-knowledge technologies. She also emphasizes the surprising surge in NFT minting and the differing usage of stablecoins across regions.
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insights INSIGHT
Solana's Developer Win
Solana beat Ethereum in attracting new developers in 2024, a first since 2016.
Ethereum maintains dominance through network effects and high-value use cases like restaking.
insights INSIGHT
Crypto's Global Shift
Crypto's growth fueled global developer dispersion, not just US regulatory pressure.
A friendlier US regulatory environment might slow the decline but not reverse it.
insights INSIGHT
Ethereum's Two-Pronged Strategy
Ethereum's Layer 2 solutions, like Base, are capturing low-fee use cases like NFT minting.
Ethereum mainnet continues to dominate high-value transactions and innovation, like EigenLayer's restaking.
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The 2024 Developer Report from Electric Capital reveals many shifting dynamics. For starters, for the first time in eight years, Ethereum was not the top chain for new developers—Solana was. Meanwhile, Asia has emerged as the leading hub for crypto development, taking the top spot from North America, which dropped to third.
In this episode, General Partner Maria Shen explores how Ethereum's Layer 2 solutions are bolstering its position despite fierce competition, why the Bitcoin developer ecosystem remains steadfast, and how emerging projects like EigenLayer are capturing builders’ attention.
She also delves into the top crypto technologies that are fascinating devs, and how their usage and development activity differ across the globe.
Show highlights:
Maria’s top takeaways from the report
Whether the developer migration from the U.S. will stop under a friendlier regulatory environment
How Ethereum has maintained its dominance despite its high fees and the rise of Solana
What the steadiness of the Bitcoin developer ecosystem shows
Which other smaller ecosystems are growing the most
How ZK contract usage has been increasing over time
Why, despite what one could think, NFT minting activity is higher than ever
How stablecoin usage differs from token to token and also across countries
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