The widely used smart contract platform Cardano ($ADA) has retained its leading position in cryptocurrency development, surpassing the “blockchain of blockchains” Polkadot ($DOT) and its public pre-production environment Kusama ($KSM). This information is based on data provided by the on-chain analytics firm Santiment, which also highlights Avalanche ($AVAX) securing the fourth spot, outpacing other prominent digital assets. Noteworthy is the inclusion of Optimism ($OP) in the top 10 cryptocurrencies by development activity, as reported by the firm.
The term “development activity” denotes the volume of work completed by developers of a cryptocurrency project within the past 30 days, specifically on the project’s public GitHub repositories.
In contrast to other metrics, Santiment’s measurement focuses on “events” rather than the total count of commits. Events encompass various actions on GitHub repositories, such as committing changes, forking a repository, or creating an issue.
This methodology ensures a more precise representation of developers’ actual work by avoiding duplication or inaccuracies that may arise when relying solely on commit-based measurements. For example, forking generates a duplicate repository, including all prior commits. By treating forking as a single event, Santiment prevents the misattribution of older commits to new developers.
Santiment’s data coincides with a period where the total value locked in Cardano’s decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols has surpassed $400 million, with the price of the network’s native token, ADA, experiencing over a 9% surge in the past seven days and more than a 150% increase year-to-date.
Cardano’s network has witnessed exponential growth in the current year, as evidenced by IOG’s weekly development report revealing the launch of 152 projects and 1,307 projects actively building on the platform. The network has facilitated 79.7 million transactions, underscoring the growing adoption and utilization of the Cardano network.
In terms of token metrics, the report discloses that 9.1 million native tokens circulate within the ecosystem, governed by 81,621 token policies. Furthermore, the deployment of Plutus scripts—a suite of tools for smart contract development—has reached 6,260 for version 1 and 4,981 for version 2, demonstrating Cardano’s steady progress in smart contract deployment and execution.