One of the things that I’ve begun to appreciate since starting at Radix is that one of the biggest problems, if not the biggest, in DeFi isn’t the availability of capital. The fact is that money moves around the cryptoverse relatively quickly and as more and more people outside of crypto see the upside, more and more capital will come in.

No, the problem is developers.

According to the Electric Capital report on ecosystem health and developers, there are fewer than 20k developers working in all of DeFi.

Meanwhile, there are over 25 million developers who are NOT in crypto/DeFi.

Now, there are probably a slew of reasons for that, but one of them is that the tools which developers use to create applications are relatively rudimentary.

It’s like the difference between an axe and a chainsaw.

Today, most developers in the EVM-oriented world are using axes and the thought is (“we need more axes and we need to spend a lot of time working out where the tree will fall to minimize collateral damage.”)

Meanwhile, the Radix team says “hmmm, no I think you need chainsaws and a lumber mill,” which may take longer to build, but, well, you get it.

Now, I’m not saying Radix solves everything, but I am saying that I am now realizing that the challenge in getting more people to use DeFi may involve things like on-ramps and bridges, but what really needs to change is the overall experience for software developers who are going to innovate on DeFi platforms.

The tools will get better. The devs will come.

Non-Sequitur

As an aside, I was looking at DeFipulse website for the TVL (total value locked) numbers for leading DeFi protocols and I came across this one with Olympus DAO on Feb 25.

I’m not saying it’s over for them, but it’s a great chart to show how quickly things can change in DeFi and how, instead of lauding a project that has a big bang right out of the gate, it may be worth it to take a “wait-and-see approach” on their ability to create long-term value.