No this is not clickbait nor it is speculation. It is the result of analysis of 22M commits.
Last night I came across this article by 
Personally, I'm a bit biased when it comes to Steem, because I have a developer's background. I don't see any of the devs whining about price action and how Steem is "going to zero". What I do see are a bunch of diehards grinding out code no matter what happens, and that's inspiring.
https://steempeak.com/bitcoin/@edicted/the-market-has-spoken
Before getting into it, there is something which, if understood, will make the rest of the article a lot clearer.
We are dealing with technology here. Many want to turn it into financial which is natural. However, the essence of what is taking place is technological meaning that we see certain parameters coming into play.
The genius of Bitcoin is that it provided the ability to monetize peer-to-peer transactions without the need for a centralized third party verifying of said transactions. In other words, it provided the capability to move value across a decentralized system. This is something we really did not have before.
Even today, Bitcoin is on that same path. It holds the threat of disrupting the present financial system since it is faster, cheaper, and in most instances, more secure than what is used now. It was not long ago that Jamie Dimon was blasting it and, now, he is singing a different tune.
We enjoy the Internet because people developed web sites, servers using Linux, apache, java, protocols that enabled email and a host of other things. This is what we saw as we moved through the 1990s.
A decade later, the creation of Facebook, Line, Viber, Skype, WhatApp, and Snapchat all brought a new level of interaction. We also saw the move from static web pages to those dynamic, enabling two-way communication.
All this required development. This is what ushered in the first two iterations of the Internet.
Now we are at the beginning of yet another one.
So the question is how is Steem doing?
Steem comes in at #7 with around 80 average monthly developers.
I know it says 5 but the chart omits Ethereum (about 1150) and Bitcoin (roughly 330) to provide a log scale.
Hence, there are only 6 blockchains with more average developers than Steem.
More developers = more stuff down the road.
Less developers = less stuff down the road.
It is really that simple.
Steem also holds its own when broken down into part-time developers.
Here we see it come in at #6 slightly ahead of Monero.
The year did see some change in the developers throughout the industry and Steem was no exception. It lost about 16% from the end of H2 2018 through H1 2019. Once again, it was very close to Monero.
In terms of raw numbers, here is the change.
This is how the blockchains with more than 40 full time developers stack up through the two halves.
We see that Steem is in line with the overall results. All this is taking place during the "Crypto Winter" when prices across the board are falling.
Of course, there is a change in trend when prices pick up.
So what is all this and where did it come from?
This was the result of a report released by Electric Capital, which is a digital asset management firm.
They looked at over 3,400 crypto ecosystems going back to 2010. This is not a small sample size. According to their analysis of over 22M commits, Steem ranked 7th overall.
There was also a summary of the findings of the industry.
Looking back on
The projects that are being worked on today will be what is used down the road. The entire premise of this study is to determine what is going to happen. This firm believes this is a leading indicator of where we will see value created.
Some like to call me a cheerleader or fan boy as a means to discredit. Well, as it turns out, a very important criteria puts Steem in the top 10. This is something that could be derived intuitively by watching what is happening. However, there are now the numbers which show what is truly taking place.
I presume many will still proclaim that STEEM is going to zero. Of course, that is always possible as it is with something like Bitcoin. But in light of all the development we see, especially compared to other blockchains that are supposedly "better" than Steem, the idea seems a bit preposterous.
So am I a cheerleader?
Let me see. The people (developers) that will have an impact on creating value for the ecosystem in the future earn Steem a Top 10 ranking yet the market prices it at #80 something.
Hell yeah I am a cheerleader. This is an exciting opportunity.
To view the entire slideshow along with the summary:
https://medium.com/@ElectricCapital/electric-capital-developer-report-h1-2019-7d836d68fecb
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