Layer-2 Networks Witness High Developer Activity Amid Crypto Market Slump

According to CryptoPotato, despite the significant downturn in the crypto market in April, layer-2 networks experienced considerable developer activity. This suggests a robust faith in these projects, even as their native tokens' value plummeted. The top ten layer-2 networks were identified by crypto data analytics platform Santiment, which calculated each project's non-redundant GitHub activity and averaged their daily activity over the past 30 days. The data was obtained from the projects' GitHub repositories through a back-tested process to ensure that only the teams' efforts to innovate and improve were considered.

Ethereum-based scaling protocol Optimism emerged as the top network with the highest developer activity of 541.33 commits, 146% more than the next project. However, its native token, OP, saw a decline of more than 17% in the last 30 days. Following Optimism was the permissionless decentralized zero knowledge-rollup network Starknet, which recorded a developer activity of 220.23. Despite Starknet's high activity, its native token, STRK, lost approximately 36% of its value in April.

Arbitrum ranked third with a developer activity of 110.77, while its native asset, ARB, fell 32% within the same period. The modular scaling protocol Cartesi, Immutable X, and Skale Network came fourth, fifth, and sixth, with developer activities of 56.97, 49.07, and 28.07, respectively. Their native assets also experienced significant declines, running into double digits. The last four projects on the list were Bitcoin layer-2 sidechain MintLayer, and Ethereum-based networks Polygon, MetisDAO, and Mantle, with developer activities of 23.53, 20.43, 7.87, and 5.33. Like other projects, their native tokens also recorded substantial losses in April.