a16z’s crypto report anticipates developer growth as blockchain scaling solutions expand

As the crypto market continues to find its footing in an ever-shaky climate, Andreessen Horowtiz, which launched a $4.5 billion web3 fund last year, released its second State of Crypto report. It dives into everything from blockchain activity to new technologies, but one theme that stands out is that blockchains are scaling.

The scaling momentum is up from a few years ago when tons of people were using blockchain networks, said Eddy Lazzarin, chief technology officer for a16z crypto. As a result, there was a lot of congestion, mainly on Ethereum, and gas fees were expensive.

That time period convinced a lot of people that blockchain growth will come via scalability, Lazzarin noted, resulting in developers being excited to experiment and create new products. “So the effort over the past two years or more is to get scaling solutions off the ground, and now they’re actually working and live. There’s still more to be built, but they’re much cheaper, secure and they work. The momentum is now that developers can use them.”

It’s really time to build

There are roughly 30,000 active developers in the crypto industry today, which is down from early 2022 peaks, but up “well above” early 2021, according to the report.