Which DeFi projects are included?

We analyzed builder activity across 40 top DeFi protocols on Ethereum and other major L1s.Select an ecosystem to explore:

EthereumSolanaOther EcosystemsSide-by-Side

Rank	Project	Category	Total TVL	ETH TVL Share (%)	Top Chain	Repos	Qualifying Builders
1	Aave	Ethereum	$10.3B	95	Mainnet	286	40
2	Lido	Ethereum	$7.8B	100	Mainnet	257	64
3	Binance	Other	$5.4B	54	Mainnet	45	14
4	EigenLayer	Ethereum	$3.8B	100	Mainnet	154	42
5	Ethena	Ethereum	$2.9B	100	Mainnet	14	2
6	Sky (prev. MakerDAO)	Ethereum	$2.7B	100	Mainnet	348	61
7	Morpho	Ethereum	$2.6B	91	Mainnet	107	16
8	Etherfi	Ethereum	$2.5B	100	Mainnet	23	3
9	Hyperliquid	Other	$2.0B	82	Arbitrum One	11	3
10	Babylon	Other	$1.3B	0	Bitcoin	60	19
11	Uniswap	Ethereum	$1.3B	95	Mainnet	86	46
12	Jupiter Exchange	Solana	$1.2B	0	Solana	191	12
13	Pendle	Other	$916M	56	Mainnet	41	10
14	Kamino Finance	Solana	$866M	0	Solana	43	2
15	Maple	Ethereum	$866M	100	Mainnet	81	10
16	PancakeSwap	Other	$840M	3	Binance	52	25
17	Curve	Ethereum	$821M	98	Mainnet	103	23
18	Compound	Ethereum	$598M	100	Mainnet	79	14
19	Wormhole Foundation	Ethereum	$557M	91	Mainnet	215	51
20	Sanctum	Solana	$547M	0	Solana	97	3
21	Venus Protocol	Other	$545M	1	Binance	40	10
22	obolnetwork	Ethereum	$523M	100	Mainnet	164	19
23	Kelp	Ethereum	$494M	100	Mainnet	14	2
24	Fluid	Ethereum	$492M	83	Mainnet	5	3
25	Veda	Ethereum	$491M	88	Mainnet	13	3
26	Rocket Pool	Ethereum	$484M	100	Mainnet	61	16
27	Spiko	Other	$470M	63	Stellar	10	1
28	Jito Network	Solana	$459M	0	Solana	85	10
29	Raydium Protocol	Solana	$428M	0	Solana	29	4
30	Convex Finance	Ethereum	$307M	100	Mainnet	10	2
31	Marinade	Solana	$258M	0	Solana	71	9
32	Solv Protocol	Other	$223M	1	Bitcoin	31	3
33	Euler Finance	Ethereum	$208M	85	Mainnet	83	12
34	Meteora	Solana	$175M	0	Solana	70	2
35	Threshold Network	Other	$164M	0	Bitcoin	32	24
36	BENQI	Other	$155M	0	Avalanche	17	1
37	Bedrock Technology	Other	$151M	58	Bitcoin	23	3
38	Yearn	Ethereum	$143M	100	Mainnet	194	45
39	B2 Buzz	Other	$134M	0	Bitcoin	41	3
40	Orca	Solana	$108M	0	Solana	29	7

How large is Ethereum DeFi's builder base?

Aggregate TVL and monthly active builders across Ethereum DeFi projects over time.
This is not a correlation chart --- TVL (background) and builder counts (foreground) are shown together to provide context on ecosystem-level trends, not to imply a causal relationship.

Where does Ethereum DeFi builder talent flow over time?

Each column is a year. Colored bands show where builders are active. Flows between columns trace how builders move between states year-over-year. Wider bands = more builders.

Most builders stay on their home project or within the same ecosystem year over year (478 builders across 20 projects, 2020–2025). The dominant outflow destination is inactivity, not competing ecosystems.■ Home projects ■ Ethereum ■ Other crypto ■ Non-crypto OSS ■ Inactive

Is Ethereum DeFi retaining builder talent over time?

Bars above zero = builders entering the ecosystem; below zero = leaving. The dark line tracks net flow. Categories: Other Crypto = non-Ethereum chains, Non-Crypto OSS = traditional open source, Inactive = no observable activity for 12+ months. 2025 data is partial.

Ethereum DeFi shifted from net inflows through 2022 to net outflows after 2023. This is driven primarily by a decline in newcomer and non-crypto builder inflows, not competitive displacement by other ecosystems.

How long do Ethereum DeFi builders stay active after onboarding?

Each line tracks a cohort of builders from their onboarding year. Retention = % still active on home project at each interval. Recent cohorts have shorter curves because less time has elapsed.

Average 2-year retention is ~74%. Cohorts are anchored to each builder's first quarter of home project contribution. These curves track builders who already cleared 12+ months of activity, so they represent committed contributors rather than casual participants.

Where do new Ethereum DeFi builders come from?

Breakdown of builder onboarding pipeline by year. Newcomers had less than 6 months of prior OSS activity before joining DeFi.

Newcomer inflow peaked in 2021 at 42 and has since declined ~21% to 33. Non-crypto OSS builder inflows have also dropped steeply.

Which projects seed the Ethereum DeFi builder pipeline?

Top feeder projects by number of builders who contributed before joining Ethereum DeFi. Includes both crypto and non-crypto open source projects.

73% of qualified builders had prior project engagement before joining DeFi. Developer tooling projects trained more future DeFi contributors than educational programs.

ContributingCode contributions pre-onboard

Starred / ForkedGitHub stars & forks pre-onboard

Ethereum DeFi builders

Crypto Ecosystems

Truffle44

Ethereum Core31

Foundry26

Metamask24

DefiLlama16

Polygon13

Solana13

web3.js13

ethers.js12

The Graph11

Show 20 more... (396 more not shown)

Gitcoin Grants11

Hardhat10

Solidity (and solc-js)10

Cosmos10

geth8

Parity Technologies8

Vyper8

Slither8

OpenZeppelin7

trustwallet7

Ethereum7

Snapshot6

OpenEthereum6

NEAR6

Brownie6

Ethereum Cat Herders6

Consensys6

Optimism6

Celo Labs5

Nethermind5

Other / Non-Crypto OSS

Rust17

Microsoft10

Meta OSS6

Buidl Guidl6

react-native-community5

angular5

Coinbase4

serverless4

flywithmemsl4

Deno4

Show 20 more... (1683 more not shown)

aws-amplify4

Go4

arenadata4

ca-bootcamp-s194

SporkDAO4

Vercel4

dgamingfoundation3

0xintuition3

software-mansion3

truffle-box3

elastic3

ethberlin-hackathon3

awslabs3

mui-org3

dev-bootcamp-20193

firebase3

HashiCorp3

storybookjs3

Docker3

DefinitelyTyped3

Ethereum DeFi builders

Crypto Ecosystems

Ethereum Core84

OpenZeppelin60

Consensys49

Foundry39

Ethereum37

Bitcoin35

Truffle31

Trail of Bits31

Ethereum Cat Herders26

Ethereum Dev Tools26

Show 20 more... (889 more not shown)

Trail of Bits Security Reviews24

Optimism23

Metamask22

Chai20

Flashbots20

geth19

IPFS19

Gnosis19

Solidity (and solc-js)19

Rari Capital19

Web3-react18

zkSync Era18

Slither17

Hardhat17

Polygon17

The Graph16

Gitcoin Grants16

Aragon16

web3.js16

Chainlink15

Other / Non-Crypto OSS

Rust57

Meta OSS43

Microsoft41

Google39

Buidl Guidl31

Deno28

Vercel24

github20

sindresorhus18

jwasham17

Show 20 more... (9523 more not shown)

offciercia15

donnemartin15

danistefanovic15

airbnb14

ccxt14

mui-org13

tensorflow13

Next.js13

aws-samples12

arachnid12

trekhleb12

patrickalphac12

OpenAI12

gakonst11

goldbergyoni11

netflix11

ossu10

miguelmota10

googlecloudplatform10

Rank	Project	Category	Total TVL	ETH TVL Share (%)	Top Chain	Repos	Qualifying Builders
1	Aave	Ethereum	$10.3B	95	Mainnet	286	40
2	Lido	Ethereum	$7.8B	100	Mainnet	257	64
3	Binance	Other	$5.4B	54	Mainnet	45	14
4	EigenLayer	Ethereum	$3.8B	100	Mainnet	154	42
5	Ethena	Ethereum	$2.9B	100	Mainnet	14	2
6	Sky (prev. MakerDAO)	Ethereum	$2.7B	100	Mainnet	348	61
7	Morpho	Ethereum	$2.6B	91	Mainnet	107	16
8	Etherfi	Ethereum	$2.5B	100	Mainnet	23	3
9	Hyperliquid	Other	$2.0B	82	Arbitrum One	11	3
10	Babylon	Other	$1.3B	0	Bitcoin	60	19
11	Uniswap	Ethereum	$1.3B	95	Mainnet	86	46
12	Jupiter Exchange	Solana	$1.2B	0	Solana	191	12
13	Pendle	Other	$916M	56	Mainnet	41	10
14	Kamino Finance	Solana	$866M	0	Solana	43	2
15	Maple	Ethereum	$866M	100	Mainnet	81	10
16	PancakeSwap	Other	$840M	3	Binance	52	25
17	Curve	Ethereum	$821M	98	Mainnet	103	23
18	Compound	Ethereum	$598M	100	Mainnet	79	14
19	Wormhole Foundation	Ethereum	$557M	91	Mainnet	215	51
20	Sanctum	Solana	$547M	0	Solana	97	3
21	Venus Protocol	Other	$545M	1	Binance	40	10
22	obolnetwork	Ethereum	$523M	100	Mainnet	164	19
23	Kelp	Ethereum	$494M	100	Mainnet	14	2
24	Fluid	Ethereum	$492M	83	Mainnet	5	3
25	Veda	Ethereum	$491M	88	Mainnet	13	3
26	Rocket Pool	Ethereum	$484M	100	Mainnet	61	16
27	Spiko	Other	$470M	63	Stellar	10	1
28	Jito Network	Solana	$459M	0	Solana	85	10
29	Raydium Protocol	Solana	$428M	0	Solana	29	4
30	Convex Finance	Ethereum	$307M	100	Mainnet	10	2
31	Marinade	Solana	$258M	0	Solana	71	9
32	Solv Protocol	Other	$223M	1	Bitcoin	31	3
33	Euler Finance	Ethereum	$208M	85	Mainnet	83	12
34	Meteora	Solana	$175M	0	Solana	70	2
35	Threshold Network	Other	$164M	0	Bitcoin	32	24
36	BENQI	Other	$155M	0	Avalanche	17	1
37	Bedrock Technology	Other	$151M	58	Bitcoin	23	3
38	Yearn	Ethereum	$143M	100	Mainnet	194	45
39	B2 Buzz	Other	$134M	0	Bitcoin	41	3
40	Orca	Solana	$108M	0	Solana	29	7

How large is Solana DeFi's builder base?

Aggregate TVL and monthly active builders across Solana DeFi projects over time.
This is not a correlation chart --- TVL (background) and builder counts (foreground) are shown together to provide context on ecosystem-level trends, not to imply a causal relationship.

Where does Solana DeFi builder talent flow over time?

Each column is a year. Colored bands show where builders are active. Flows between columns trace how builders move between states year-over-year. Wider bands = more builders.

Most builders stay on their home project or within the same ecosystem year over year (52 builders across 8 projects, 2020–2025). The dominant outflow destination is inactivity, not competing ecosystems.■ Home projects ■ Ethereum ■ Other crypto ■ Non-crypto OSS ■ Inactive

Is Solana DeFi retaining builder talent over time?

Bars above zero = builders entering the ecosystem; below zero = leaving. The dark line tracks net flow. Categories: Ethereum = Ethereum L1+L2 projects, Non-Crypto OSS = traditional open source, Inactive = no observable activity for 12+ months. 2025 data is partial.

Solana DeFi shows a net flow of +50 builders (2019–2025). Year-over-year changes reflect shifts in builder inflows and outflows across ecosystem boundaries.

How long do Solana DeFi builders stay active after onboarding?

Each line tracks a cohort of builders from their onboarding year. Retention = % still active on home project at each interval. Recent cohorts have shorter curves because less time has elapsed.

Average 2-year retention is ~88%. Cohorts are anchored to each builder's first quarter of home project contribution. These curves track builders who already cleared 12+ months of activity, so they represent committed contributors rather than casual participants.

Where do new Solana DeFi builders come from?

Breakdown of builder onboarding pipeline by year. Newcomers had less than 6 months of prior OSS activity before joining DeFi.

Newcomer inflow peaked in 2021 at 5 and has since declined ~40% to 3. Non-crypto OSS builder inflows have also dropped steeply.

Which projects seed the Solana DeFi builder pipeline?

Top feeder projects by number of builders who contributed before joining Solana DeFi. Includes both crypto and non-crypto open source projects.

73% of qualified builders had prior project engagement before joining DeFi. Developer tooling projects trained more future DeFi contributors than educational programs.

ContributingCode contributions pre-onboard

Starred / ForkedGitHub stars & forks pre-onboard

Solana DeFi builders

Crypto Ecosystems

Solana17

Ethereum Core4

Blockworks Foundation3

Anchor Framework2

NEAR2

geth2

Saber2

teamraccoons2

Hubble2

Aztec Protocol1

Show 20 more... (4 more not shown)

ethers.js1

dYdX1

Hardhat1

Gitcoin Grants1

Jupiter Exchange1

Dogecoin1

Dune Spellbook1

coral xyz1

Offchain Labs1

Metapool1

Lighthouse by Sigma Prime1

Osmosis1

Prysm Ethereum Client1

Raydium1

Project Serum1

phantom1

rotki1

Ready (Formerly Argent)1

Snapshot1

scrtlabs1

Other / Non-Crypto OSS

Rust4

chainkeepers2

jito-network2

jito-labs2

xcarpentier2

flochip2

apollographql2

ebatsell2

0xspaceshard1

butonium1

Show 20 more... (115 more not shown)

cert-manager1

alpha-fi1

acruzshia1

bettercloud1

Bloomberg1

bountysource1

AMP1

denysof1

dbader1

datadog1

colinricardo1

cloudinary1

cfenollosa1

diegoveloper1

dirkluijk1

eclipse1

egansoft1

equipouccuyo1

element-plus1

fatchord1

Solana DeFi builders

Crypto Ecosystems

Solana11

Ethereum Core5

geth4

Anchor Framework4

Bitcoin3

coral xyz3

Gitcoin Grants3

Raydium Protocol3

Metaplex2

Lightning2

Show 20 more... (56 more not shown)

Jupiter Exchange2

Flashbots2

Trail of Bits Security Reviews2

Solidity (and solc-js)2

Triton One RPC2

MEV Tools2

Blockworks Foundation2

OpenZeppelin2

Ethereum Cat Herders2

Aurora1

Arweave1

Audius1

Diem1

Drift Protocol1

DEXON1

Dialect Labs1

Consensys1

BNB Chain1

Brownie1

Bytom1

Other / Non-Crypto OSS

Google9

Meta OSS8

Microsoft7

Rust7

Vercel7

Next.js3

yangshun3

airbnb3

donnemartin3

tensorflow3

Show 20 more... (1091 more not shown)

freqtrade3

atomiks3

fast.ai3

Salesforce2

commaai2

apache2

joshwcomeau2

thedaviddias2

framer2

pmndrs2

dr4972

rob--w2

Docker2

goldbergyoni2

tldraw2

isaachinman2

jaredpalmer2

trekhleb2

ossu2

Rank	Project	Category	Total TVL	ETH TVL Share (%)	Top Chain	Repos	Qualifying Builders
1	Aave	Ethereum	$10.3B	95	Mainnet	286	40
2	Lido	Ethereum	$7.8B	100	Mainnet	257	64
3	Binance	Other	$5.4B	54	Mainnet	45	14
4	EigenLayer	Ethereum	$3.8B	100	Mainnet	154	42
5	Ethena	Ethereum	$2.9B	100	Mainnet	14	2
6	Sky (prev. MakerDAO)	Ethereum	$2.7B	100	Mainnet	348	61
7	Morpho	Ethereum	$2.6B	91	Mainnet	107	16
8	Etherfi	Ethereum	$2.5B	100	Mainnet	23	3
9	Hyperliquid	Other	$2.0B	82	Arbitrum One	11	3
10	Babylon	Other	$1.3B	0	Bitcoin	60	19
11	Uniswap	Ethereum	$1.3B	95	Mainnet	86	46
12	Jupiter Exchange	Solana	$1.2B	0	Solana	191	12
13	Pendle	Other	$916M	56	Mainnet	41	10
14	Kamino Finance	Solana	$866M	0	Solana	43	2
15	Maple	Ethereum	$866M	100	Mainnet	81	10
16	PancakeSwap	Other	$840M	3	Binance	52	25
17	Curve	Ethereum	$821M	98	Mainnet	103	23
18	Compound	Ethereum	$598M	100	Mainnet	79	14
19	Wormhole Foundation	Ethereum	$557M	91	Mainnet	215	51
20	Sanctum	Solana	$547M	0	Solana	97	3
21	Venus Protocol	Other	$545M	1	Binance	40	10
22	obolnetwork	Ethereum	$523M	100	Mainnet	164	19
23	Kelp	Ethereum	$494M	100	Mainnet	14	2
24	Fluid	Ethereum	$492M	83	Mainnet	5	3
25	Veda	Ethereum	$491M	88	Mainnet	13	3
26	Rocket Pool	Ethereum	$484M	100	Mainnet	61	16
27	Spiko	Other	$470M	63	Stellar	10	1
28	Jito Network	Solana	$459M	0	Solana	85	10
29	Raydium Protocol	Solana	$428M	0	Solana	29	4
30	Convex Finance	Ethereum	$307M	100	Mainnet	10	2
31	Marinade	Solana	$258M	0	Solana	71	9
32	Solv Protocol	Other	$223M	1	Bitcoin	31	3
33	Euler Finance	Ethereum	$208M	85	Mainnet	83	12
34	Meteora	Solana	$175M	0	Solana	70	2
35	Threshold Network	Other	$164M	0	Bitcoin	32	24
36	BENQI	Other	$155M	0	Avalanche	17	1
37	Bedrock Technology	Other	$151M	58	Bitcoin	23	3
38	Yearn	Ethereum	$143M	100	Mainnet	194	45
39	B2 Buzz	Other	$134M	0	Bitcoin	41	3
40	Orca	Solana	$108M	0	Solana	29	7

How large is other DeFi's builder base?

Aggregate TVL and monthly active builders across other DeFi projects over time.
This is not a correlation chart --- TVL (background) and builder counts (foreground) are shown together to provide context on ecosystem-level trends, not to imply a causal relationship.

Where does other DeFi builder talent flow over time?

Each column is a year. Colored bands show where builders are active. Flows between columns trace how builders move between states year-over-year. Wider bands = more builders.

Most builders stay on their home project or within the same ecosystem year over year (116 builders across 12 projects, 2020–2025). The dominant outflow destination is inactivity, not competing ecosystems.■ Home projects ■ Ethereum ■ Other crypto ■ Non-crypto OSS ■ Inactive

Is other DeFi retaining builder talent over time?

Bars above zero = builders entering the ecosystem; below zero = leaving. The dark line tracks net flow. Categories: Ethereum = Ethereum L1+L2 projects, Non-Crypto OSS = traditional open source, Inactive = no observable activity for 12+ months. 2025 data is partial.

Other Crypto shows a net flow of +78 builders (2019–2025). Year-over-year changes reflect shifts in builder inflows and outflows across ecosystem boundaries.

How long do other DeFi builders stay active after onboarding?

Each line tracks a cohort of builders from their onboarding year. Retention = % still active on home project at each interval. Recent cohorts have shorter curves because less time has elapsed.

Average 2-year retention is ~66%. Cohorts are anchored to each builder's first quarter of home project contribution. These curves track builders who already cleared 12+ months of activity, so they represent committed contributors rather than casual participants.

Where do new other DeFi builders come from?

Breakdown of builder onboarding pipeline by year. Newcomers had less than 6 months of prior OSS activity before joining DeFi.

Newcomer inflow peaked in 2021 at 11 and has since declined ~-27% to 14. Non-crypto OSS builder inflows have also dropped steeply.

Which projects seed the other DeFi builder pipeline?

Top feeder projects by number of builders who contributed before joining other DeFi ecosystems. Includes both crypto and non-crypto open source projects.

73% of qualified builders had prior project engagement before joining DeFi. Developer tooling projects trained more future DeFi contributors than educational programs.

ContributingCode contributions pre-onboard

Starred / ForkedGitHub stars & forks pre-onboard

Other DeFi builders

Crypto Ecosystems

Keep Network11

Cosmos7

Metamask6

NuCypher5

geth5

Truffle4

Filecoin (Misc)3

web3.py3

libp2p3

Brownie2

Show 20 more... (76 more not shown)

informalsystems2

Osmosis2

Solidity (and solc-js)2

Strangelove Ventures2

Thesis2

trustwallet2

Summa2

Zcash2

BNB Chain2

IPFS2

Ethereum Project Management2

Ethereum Cat Herders2

Bitcoin2

Consensys2

Bitcoin in Go1

Cardano1

Dero1

Binance Exchange1

Babylon1

Aztec Protocol1

Other / Non-Crypto OSS

Rust6

kprasch5

cygnusv3

apache3

Microsoft3

Deno2

jmyles2

scala2

didiercrunch2

vnoi-admin2

Show 20 more... (286 more not shown)

solv-finance-dev2

vepkenez2

vzotova2

Meta OSS2

b2network2

binance-exchange2

hacklanta2

shadowsocks2

racehub-io1

race-hub1

qubelabsio1

qase-tms1

pythagore11231

pydiff1

pyca1

racerole1

pubnub1

projecteuanthe1

sanniassin1

satoshilabs1

Other DeFi builders

Crypto Ecosystems

Consensys10

Ethereum9

Ethereum Core9

Bitcoin8

Truffle8

Polkadot7

OpenZeppelin6

Lightning6

ZoKrates5

Polygon5

Show 20 more... (518 more not shown)

Optimism5

POA Network5

arkworks4

Solana4

Slither4

ZenGo4

A16Z Crypto4

Parity Technologies4

Chainlink4

Nethermind4

Foundry4

Chia4

Mina Protocol4

Dedis4

0x Protocol4

Akula4

wevm4

Deth and TypeChain3

MyEtherWallet3

CosmWasm3

Other / Non-Crypto OSS

Google11

Rust8

Meta OSS8

Go7

Microsoft7

theanalyst5

plotly5

trekhleb5

apache5

netflix5

Show 20 more... (4564 more not shown)

cloudflare4

danistefanovic4

github4

quii4

Kubernetes4

Tencent4

Alibaba4

jwasham4

kamranahmedse4

filosottile4

apple4

golang-standards4

Tokio3

toeverything3

googlecloudplatform3

googlecontainertools3

spacejam3

miguelmota3

ciphey3

axios3

Monthly active builders over time

Aggregate monthly active builder count across all projects in each group.

Cross-ecosystem flows: tug of war

Direct builder movement between Ethereum and non-Ethereum DeFi. Counts builders whose primary ecosystem changed year-over-year.

Retention: who sticks around longer?

Average retention across all year cohorts (2020–2024). Each curve averages the % still active at each quarter interval.

Newcomer pipeline: who attracts more fresh talent?

Newcomers = builders with less than 6 months of prior OSS activity before their DeFi onboarding.