Opinion: Layer-2 network development activity remains high despite falling token values

As reported by CryptoPotato, despite the sharp decline in the crypto market in April, there has been a significant increase in development activity on Layer-2 networks, indicating that there is still strong confidence in these projects. A tweet from crypto data analytics platform Santiment showed that they selected the top ten Layer-2 networks by calculating each project’s non-duplicate activity on GitHub and averaging the daily activity over the past 30 days. Santiment’s analysts sourced activity data from each project’s GitHub repository and went through a backtesting process to ensure that only the team’s efforts to improve and innovate were included. A project's GitHub activity can be used to determine whether the team is actively developing the protocol. High development activity may also reduce the likelihood that a project is an export scam. Using Santiment’s methodology, analysts found that Ethereum scaling protocol Optimism topped the list with 541.33 development activities, 146% more than the next project. However, its native token OP has fallen by more than 17% in the past 30 days. Following closely behind is the permissionless decentralized zero-knowledge volume network Starknet with 220.23 development activities. Despite Starknet’s high activity, its native token STRK lost approximately 36% of its value in April. Arbitrum ranked third with 110.77 development activity, while its homegrown asset ARB fell 32% over the same period. Next are the modular expansion protocols Cartesi, Immutable X and Skale Network, which ranked fourth, fifth and sixth respectively, with development activities of 56.97, 49.07 and 28.07 respectively. Their local assets also experienced significant declines, both by double digits. The last four projects on the list are Bitcoin Layer-2 sidechain MintLayer, and Ethereum networks Polygon, MetisDAO, and Mantle, with development activity volumes of 23.53, 20.43, 7.87, and 5.33 respectively. Like other projects, their native token also saw significant losses in April.