Last year we hosted the inaugural pythonic-blockchain event, PyChain 2022. PyChain was a highly successful event for blockchain enthusiasts, developers, and traders. The conference provided an opportunity for attendees to learn about the latest trends and advancements in blockchain technology, connect with like-minded professionals, and share their knowledge and experiences. In hosting this event, we surveyed PyChain attendees to get a better understanding of Python's place within blockchain and what the consensus is amongst developers. Let’s take a deep dive into the relationship between Python developers and blockchain technology.
Where are the majority of Pythonic-blockchain developers from?
The event attracted a truly global audience, with attendees from various countries worldwide. This shows the global awareness of python developers interested in blockchain, as well as the demand for online education/learning. According to the data provided, the largest of Python developers came from the US, followed by other countries such as India, Canada, France, Turkey and the UK.
What is the average age of a Pythonic-blockchain developer?
We wanted to analyse the age trend of those who are either a Pythonic-blockchain developer or looking to get into building blockchain technology using Python.
Our study shows that the majority of respondents are aged 35+ and popularity slowly decreases with age. 43.9% are aged 35+, 34.8% are within the 25-35 age bracket and with the smallest group being the 18-25 which is 21.2% of viewership.
This is an interesting analysis as the statistics show pythonic-blockchain developers are at an older age as opposed to the most popular age bracket for professional developers being 25-34 (39.62%).
What kind of developers are getting into blockchain?
Python is one of the most popular programming languages used in the world due to its versatility, readability, and extensive set of libraries and frameworks. With that means there are many different Python developers having unique journeys in their career or hobby.
We wanted to take a look at what point in their career are Python developers exposed to blockchain development. We asked attendees “What describes your software development career the best?”
We can see the majority (41.8%) of attendees are Senior developers. Student, junior and hobbyist developers represent 56.7% of the share whilst 1.5% would class themselves as “Not a developer”
How familiar are Python developers with using cryptocurrencies?
We wanted to find out how familiar are Python developers with cryptocurrencies and trading, not just developing on blockchain but how many have been exposed to digital currency.
Here are the results:
We found that the majority have “... done some hobby trading” before with 38.2% of respondents doing so. Whilst 25% of the audience had “done a lot of trading”.
19.1% have “bought little cryptocurrencies”, there is an equal split of the remaining responses having 8.8% share each for “I am a professional in the trading industry” and “Never bought cryptocurrencies”
How experienced are Python developers in blockchain?
Our research conducted showed that 41.2% of respondents are Junior Python developers, whilst 32.4% are Senior Python developers. There was also a strong interest in attendees wanting to learn more about Python or develop in their early stage of the Python journey, equating to around 16.2% of respondents. Only 1.5% have never programmed before.
How much do Python developers know about blockchain?
In contrast to looking at the level of Python programming for the PyChain audiences, we wanted to find out more about the level of blockchain understanding as well.
It shows that the level of blockchain understand seems to be set quite high with a total of 47.8% having “been developer for blockchain technology” or a “Senior or very experienced blockchain developer”.
At the other end, 14.9% “Know nothing about blockchains, but want to learn”. And 37.3% have “been using blockchains (wallets, NFTs, etc.), most likely at the surface level of interaction.
What blockchains are Python developers familiar with?
We asked attendees on their experience using blockchain technology, here are the results.
83.82% of respondents have developed on the Ethereum blockchain, with both Bitcoin and Polygon blockchains coming in second most popular with 47% of respondents having previous experience. BNB Smart Chain closely followed, coming in third with 39.70%.
What are the most in-demand blockchains to learn for Python developers?
As we have seen there is a deep understanding of blockchain technology amongst our audience of Python developers, we wanted to find out what the learning trend is amongst the available blockchains out there. We have ranked the top 10 most in-demand blockchains PyChain attendees would like to learn more about.
*percentages note the number of respondents interested in learning more.
1st - Ethereum - (42.64%)
2nd - Polygon - (35.29%)
T3rd - Bitcoin - (20%) & Solana - (20%)
5th - NEAR - (19.11%)
T6th - Cosmos - (17.64%) & Polkadot (17.64%)
T8th - Avalanche (16.17%) & Tezos (16.17%)
T10th - BNB Chain (14.7%) & Cardano (14.7%)
A couple of honourable mentions include Chia with 11.76% and DeFi purest Algorand with 8.82% of developers wanting to learn more.
What are Python developers interested in using blockchain technology for?
When asked “What are your main interest areas in blockchain development?” PyChain developers had a general consensus of wanting to learn all aspects of blockchain, from tokens, to NFTs to research. However, Tokens (fungible) and cryptocurrencies were the ones of main interest with 23.56% of respondents classifying this as their main interest area. Data research (not related to trading) was the second most popular with 20.41% of respondents noting this as their main interest area. Social, political and communities (such as DAOs), NFTs and Trading were also areas of interest for their preferred blockchain development.
Based on the option for open ended responses, some common areas of interest included; DeFi, wallets, cryptography, cross-chain bridges, oracles and ML development.
Pythonic-blockchain developers interest in trading or quantitative finance
Here at Trading Strategy, we focus on algorithmic trading for decentralised cryptocurrency markets using a Python-based framework, so it is natural for us to research the relationship between these developers and trading.
We asked the question “Have you done any trading or quant finance work outside of cryptocurrencies?”. Majority of the respondents (32.35%) have previously done some work within equity markets , whilst the second most popular market to have experience in is the FX markets, where 13.23% of respondents mentioned this.
51.47% of respondents noted that they did not have any experience with trading or did not respond with an answer to this specific question.
What do Python developers think about blockchain?
The majority (70.6%) of PyChain respondents believe “It will run some of the core interest services in the future”, whereas 11.8% believe “it has a lot of issues, but there are potential for use cases”. 17.6% believe it has more positive than negative use cases.
What PyChain attendees had to say about the event
PyChain 2022 was an excellent opportunity for attendees to learn about Python’s role within blockchain technology, network with professionals in different sectors, and gain insights into different blockchain projects and technologies.
Finally, it is worth mentioning that the vast majority of attendees (98.4%) expressed an interest in attending PyChain 2023, which is a testament to the success of the event and is an indication of the growing interest in both Python and blockchain technology. The team at Trading Strategy and PyChain are excited to see the Python-blockchain ecosystem develop with more experienced developers and exciting projects.
We asked PyChain attendees if they will attend the next instalment of PyChain 2023 and a whopping 98.4% stated they would.
- “I think you guys did a great job and i'm happy to see events like this being organized and executed.”
- “Amazing and insightful event. Thank you for organizing this and all I would say is to do these more often. One more thing was, there were a few glitches which were problematic especially for smaller 5 min speeches that happened towards the closing. I would've loved if these were a little bit longer - say 15 mins, that way developers and presenters would be able to convey their ideas in better form and with more details. Apart of that, amazing event. I am waiting for all the videos.”
- “Thank you for organizing it! We were lacking of a conference like this in the Python world. It really helped me to understand as a python web/backend developer that the blockchain / web3 universe also has a lot of opportunities for people like me. I'm happy to discover that companies like Curve are using python and Vyper. I feel that this conference is a big step for a lot of people like me to dive in this universe, so thanks again!”
- “I really enjoyed the event and would love to be notified of PyChain 2023”