The United States is losing overall market share in terms of Web3 developers, according to data from crypto venture capital firm Electric Capital.
Since 2017, the absolute number of Web3 developers increased 200% in the U.S., while during that same period this figure increased 300% for the rest of the world, according to Electric Capitals 2021 Developer Report.
Using open-source data, analysts estimated that there were nearly 18,500 Web3 developers as of Dec 2021, up 75% from roughly 10,500 in Jan that year.
As the report drew exclusively from open sources, it acknowledged that it likely undercounted the total number.
Report methodology
The report used two methods to infer the location of developers, code submission timestamps during U.S. working hours, defined as 9 am EST to 10 pm EST, and social profiles linked with developer profiles on platforms like GitHub.
A plot of the historical share of code submissions that occurred during U.S. working hours showed that the U.S. share declined from 65% in 2012 to 55% in 2022 YTD.
For reference, the report noted that the historical U.S. market share in well-established open-source projects using the same time zone methodology remained relatively consistent over this same period.
Methodology limitations
However, the report also acknowledged that this method likely overcounted U.S. developers, as the timezones overlapped with Canada and Latin America. Additionally, many U.S.-based Web3 engineers also work outside standard working hours.
To cross-check, analysts consulted developers social profiles and found their self-reported locations to be consistent with code commit times for those locations.
Among the developers for whom the report had locations, the share of developers in the U.S. decreased from 47% in 2015, 39% in 2017, and 29% in 2021.
Web3 conclusions
The number of Web3 developers who reported their locations increased the most in India and Russia, rising to 5.3% and 4.3% of the market share respectively.
While the U.S. has lost nearly 20% market share since 2015, that of “Other,” the collective of developers who neglected to report their country of origin, rose to 17.5%.
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