The Most Active Layer 2 Networks in April
Despite the crypto market experiencing a downturn in April, layer-2 networks showed significant development activity, indicating strong confidence in these projects despite the decline in the value of their tokens.
According to a tweet from Santiment, a crypto data analytics platform, the top ten layer-2 networks were determined by calculating each project’s non-redundant GitHub activity and averaging their daily activity over the past 30 days.
Santiment ensured that only the teams’ efforts to improve and innovate were included by back-testing the projects’ GitHub activity. This methodology helps determine if a team is actively working on the protocol and can also reduce the risk of an exit scam.
Results showed that Optimism, an Ethereum-based scaling protocol, had the highest developer activity with 541.33 commits, 146% more than the next project. Interestingly, its native token, OP, experienced a decrease of over 17% in the last 30 days.
Starknet, a permissionless decentralized zero knowledge-rollup network, followed Optimism with a developer activity score of 220.23. However, its native token, STRK, suffered a decline of approximately 36% in April.
In third place was Arbitrum, with a developer activity score of 110.77, while its native asset, ARB, recorded a 32% decrease within the same period. Cartesi, Immutable X, and Skale Network secured fourth, fifth, and sixth positions, respectively, with developer activities of 56.97, 49.07, and 28.07. Their native tokens also experienced substantial losses, reaching double digits.
The last four projects on the list were Bitcoin layer-2 sidechain MintLayer, and Ethereum-based networks Polygon, MetisDAO, and Mantle, with developer activities of 23.53, 20.43, 7.87, and 5.33. These projects also suffered notable token value losses in April.