Internet Computer Breaks Dev Activity Top 5, What It Means

• Teresa Bach
• May 5, 2023

Data shows Internet Computer (ICP) has recently managed to break into the top 5 of the development activity list. Here’s what this may mean.
Internet Computer Development Activity Has Surged Recently
According to data from the on-chain analytics firm Santiment, Hedera (HBR) has also entered into the top 5 during the same period. The “development activity” is a measure of the total amount of work that the developers of a cryptocurrency project are doing on the public GitHub page of said project.
This indicator keeps track of this work using units of “events,” where an event corresponds to any action made on the GitHub page, like pushing a commit or creating an issue.
The approach of using this method to gauge development activity is unique to Santiment’s metric, and the benefit of it is that it provides a more accurate representation of the actual work that the developers are getting done. If, for example, the indicator would simply use the total number of commits for this purpose, a true picture may not be obtained.
The reason behind that is any commits made on a project carry over to all its forks (clones) as well, meaning that if a developer who wasn’t on the original project forks it, all the work done there will also be counted under this new developer’s name, despite not being responsible for it. In Santiment’s development activity indicator, this is no longer a problem, as the entire action of forking counts as just one event.

Now, here is a table that shows the top 10 ranking of cryptocurrencies based on their development activity over the last 30 days:

Looks like Ethereum (ETH) is only at the ninth place on this list | Source: Santiment on Twitter
As you can see above, the top 3 in this list is made up of Polkadot (DOT), Kusama (KSM), and Cardano (ADA). These three assets have been at the top for quite a while now, so it seems like their developers are continuing to put in the hard work.
There have been some changes down the list, however, as Hedera and Internet Computer are new entrants to the top 5, suggesting that their development activity has ramped up during the past month.
The significance of the development activity indicator is that it can provide hints about whether a project is being developed or not. If the developers of a coin are showing high commitment to it (by putting in the work on the GitHub page), it means that there is a lesser chance of the project being a short-term rug pull.

Obviously, the development activity isn’t the final authority on the topic or anything like that, but nonetheless, it can be one of the factors to take into consideration.
Internet Computer has registered some gains recently (ICP is up more than 18% during the past month), so its development activity ramping up along with the rise can be a positive sign for the long-term potential of this growth.
ICP Price
At the time of writing, Internet Computer is trading around $5.859, down 2% in the last week.

Internet Computer has come down from its recent high | Source: ICPUSD on TradingView
Featured image from iStock.com, charts from TradingView.com, Santiment.net