Cryptocurrency analytics firm Santiment has released its latest report examining developer density in the decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem.
According to the report, developer activity among DeFi projects remains strongly divergent, with some projects maintaining their months-long momentum while others have slipped in the rankings. Santiment measures development activity through code updates, commit counts, and active developer engagement on GitHub. These metrics are considered reliable indicators of a project’s long-term sustainability.
The most striking aspect of the report was Chainlink’s (LINK) reaffirmed leadership in the DeFi development space. The project, which achieved stable code production throughout August, topped Santiment’s list of “DeFi altcoins most focused on by developers.” It was followed by DeepBook (DEEP), the Sui ecosystem’s rapidly growing order book protocol, and DeFiChain (DFI), which has maintained a high development pace for a long time.
According to developer activity published by Santiment, the top 10 DeFi projects and their developer activity scores are as follows:
- Chainlink (LINK) – 329
- DeepBook (DEEP) – 272
- DeFiChain (DFI) – 241
- FOX (FOX) – 198
- Lido DAO (LDO) – 183
- Injective (INJ) – 176
- Babylon (BABY) – 162
- dYdX (DYDX) – 154
- Centrifuge (CFG) – 147
- Curve Finance (CRV) – 132
*This is not investment advice.
