2018’s Top Cryptocurrencies Ranked by Github Activity

Over the past 12 months, digital asset values have dropped considerably, but behind the scenes cryptocurrency development has increased. Research from data collection websites that track the amount of Github activity taking place in cryptocurrency repositories shows blockchain development is continuing to grow.

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Cryptocurrency Github Activity in 2018

Even though crypto markets saw prices slashed by more than two thirds last year, project development did not follow the same trend. Many projects that have lost more than 90 percent of value since their all-time highs in 2017 still see considerable development. Last January, news.Bitcoin.com reported on the website Cryptomiso, which measures Github activity so cryptocurrency supporters can rank and observe their favorite project’s development.

During the first month of 2018, the blockchain project Cardano (ADA) led the pack as far as total repository commits. According to Cryptomiso this year, the top project with the most commits is the blockchain platform Insolar (INS) with 7,289 commits in 2018. This is followed by 0x (7,098), Rchain (5,584), Tron (5,399), Eos (4,823), Zuesshield (4,362), Nuls (4,258), Republic (4,321), Zilliqa (4027), and Lisk (3,981).

A visual of cryptocurrency commits on Github according to the Cryptomiso tracker. Cryptomiso’s data is far less refined than Coincodecap. Out of all the coins mentioned on this graph, only eos and tron are top 10 contenders by market capitalization. Another metric to consider is that the projects with tons of commits are not very old, so a large amount of initial development is normal. 

Among the top currencies by market capitalization, each project has a different ranking according to Github activity. BTC, or the reference client known as Bitcoin Core, had roughly 1,815 commits last year. The Go version of Ethereum (ETH) had roughly 989 commits according to Cryptomiso data. However, that doesn’t include commits from Solidity, Mist, Ethereumj, and many others that would bring that number much higher. The Bitcoin Cash (BCH) client ABC had 786 commits last year but that metric also doesn’t include commits from Bitprim, Unlimited, XT, BCHd, Copernicus and others.

Coincodecap’s top 10 cryptocurrency projects by Github commits is entirely different, but keep in mind the website tracks all infrastructure code improvements including website changes. In Coincodecap’s top 10 list only ethereum and tron are top 10 contenders by market capitalization.  

 A More Refined Github Activity Rankings List

A data website called Coincodecap tracks all of the implementations per project. This way of looking at Github activity is much larger in scope. For instance, Cardano (ADA) has over 45,000 commits throughout all of its repositories consisting of 16 different programming languages. The Augur, 0x, Ethereum, and Lisk networks follow behind Cardano among the top five most actively developed blockchains in 2018. BTC has roughly 3,269 commits among all implementations, while BCH has a total of 988. Of course, one issue with Coincodecap’s data is some of the commits are not protocol enhancements and may apply to things like website improvements and other types of infrastructure-related code changes. The project BSV, the fork that was created on Nov. 15 due to the BCH blockchain split, has seen very little development since it was forked six weeks ago with only two commits.  

A glimpse at four coins with large cryptocurrency market capitalizations but ranked by using Coincodecap’s collected data on Jan. 2, 2019. BTC holds the highest market capitalization amongst the bunch followed by ETH (2), BCH (4), and ADA (11).

The number of commits per project on an annual basis doesn’t mean one coin is better than the other, but enthusiasts supporting certain crypto projects nevertheless like to track all the development that takes place throughout the year. Cryptocurrency repositories with very little work added may be worrisome to supporters, because the platform may no longer be actively developed and could suffer from code rot. It should be noted that some of the information from Cryptomiso and Coincodecap shows a number of contributors for each project and many of the contributors overlap because of forked repositories.

Even though the data is somewhat skewed, the rankings from these data sites can help investors and enthusiasts draw useful insights. Followers who are tech savvy can even review the code changes being recorded in real-time. A crypto project tracking page is simply another tool, much like analysis sites that show metrics like price, trade volume, market capitalization, and transactions per day. 

What do you think about the statistics from Cryptomiso and Coincodecap? Do you think the amount of contributors and commits is a good resource for judging a blockchain project? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

Images via Shutterstock, Cryptomiso, and Coincodecap.

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