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The Almighty Buck

Survey Finds Highest Developer Interest in Blockchain Apps, Cryptocurrencies, and NFTs (zdnet.com) 62

Posted by EditorDavid from the survey-says dept.
Charlotte Web writes: A recent survey of 20,000 developers found a third (34%) were learning about cryptocurrencies, ZDNet reports — and 16% even said they were actively working on crypto-related projects. (And 11% said they were actively working on NFT technology, while 32% said they were learning more about NFTs.)

30% also said they were learning about blockchain technologies other than cryptocurrencies (with just 12% currently working on blockchain projects — just 1% higher than in a 2021 survey).

Citing the survey, ZDNet adds that "The next most popular technologies were the metaverse and AI-assisted software development: 28% of developers are learning about these technologies."
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Survey Finds Highest Developer Interest in Blockchain Apps, Cryptocurrencies, and NFTs More

Survey Finds Highest Developer Interest in Blockchain Apps, Cryptocurrencies, and NFTs

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  • To what end? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Dan East ( 318230 ) on Monday May 23, 2022 @06:56AM (#62558098) Journal

    A recent survey of 20,000 developers found a third (34%) were learning about cryptocurrencies

    Well I guess I'm in the other 2/3 of developers then. What exactly is the point in this? Are there really that many developers out still there thinking they will "invent" the next big crypto currency so they can cash out bigtime on those first low-hanging, easy-to-mine coins?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Ecuador ( 740021 )

      I guess it's about getting on the gravy train while it's still running? If I cared more about making a quick buck, I'd consider getting into NFTs as well. But as I am not a sell-out I guess I'm also in the other 2/3rds :D

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by GoTeam ( 5042081 )

      Well I guess I'm in the other 2/3 of developers then. What exactly is the point in this?

      Read the bios of the authors and "researchers" of this study. None of them seem qualified to conduct this type of research (although, am I really qualified to determine that? ;). Their mantra alone is worrisome:

      We help the world understand developers - and developers understand the world.

      My uneducated guess this that you're in the majority, not the crypto-devs.

      • They used to be called VisionMobile. I don't know if they're qualified or not, but they've been doing this survey for quite a while now. That's worth something at least.

        I'm as disappointed by these results as everyone else, but they do seem at least plausible. Devs tend to go where the money is, and they want to be early adopters for that first-mover advantage. I don't know if I'm more disappointed by the attention going to blockchain or to metaverse, but I'm going to pretend that there is complete overl
        • Bleh, now it's up to 34%. I shouldn't have read the summary again, I could have kept pretending it was the lower number.

      • Well guess I'm in the other 2/3 of developers then.

        My uneducated guess this that you're in the majority, not the crypto-devs.

        Are you sure that's not an educated guess? I figure it would take a pretty fancy education to be able to figure out the guy who says he is in the 2/3 group is in the majority.

    • Re:To what end? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Kisai ( 213879 ) on Monday May 23, 2022 @08:13AM (#62558258)

      Damn near every content creator I know hates NFT's. Basically these companies who are getting into cryptocoins and NFT's are going to be sadly mistaken when they lose substantial amounts of money developing stuff that they no longer "own", and can no longer control.

      Like there is some utility in NFT's if you detach them from cryptocurrencies (or at least ones that have a "cost to transact") and instead make it as a way to pay and credit creators when you do some manner of asset assembly for a game, film, tv-show or music mashup. The reason NFT's are a disaster right now is because the input costs are astronomical compared to the outputs, basically burning a car's fuel tank worth of energy to sell a ugly ape jpeg nobody actually attaches a value to.

      Blockchain itself has some utility, but nobody wants to actually adopt a block chain for physical goods because that means they have to standardize, so they won't. Logistics all want to sell you on "their product", not some standard.

      Which leaves crypto currencies itself, which are completely worthless in practice. The right thing to have done in the first place would have been to simply generate the equivalent of X many serial numbers, and then expire them at the end of the month or 1 year, or however long you feel the need to prevent people using it as a speculative play, and when they expire, you the creator of the coins have to buy them back.

      Ultimately, the "metaverse" will not work, and what's been shown thus far, content creators are like "That's just shitty VRChat."

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Even worse is that some courts consider NFTs superseding actual copyright ownership. There are cases where NFT owners have successfully done DMCA takedowns versus artists. It is just like owning mineral rights compared to just surface rights.

        As for cryptocurrencies, they have an intrinsic value; their energy spent in making them. So, they are not going anywhere anytime soon, especially with governments like El Salvador going full hodl mode, because they know they are going to be far better off in a few m

        • Re:To what end? (Score:4, Interesting)

          by splutty ( 43475 ) on Monday May 23, 2022 @09:34AM (#62558452)

          Citation needed. NFTs holding up in court as 'ownership' is quite a statement, and a quick Google doesn't show any actual court cases.

        • > As for cryptocurrencies, they have an intrinsic value; their energy spent in making them.

          A battery has value - the energy you can get out of it.
          The energy spent mine Bitcoin is just a COST. There's no value you there - you can't get that energy back out and use it to do something useful.

        • Smoke another one you anonymous bastard, saying things does not make them true, especially in this case!
      • Ok but have fun explaining to your great grandkids that the reason they are renting property in the metaverse is that their pop-pop thought it was a hustle.

        Look kids, you still have these thrift store VR goggles and sure the straps don't work but pop-pop has a big roll of duct tape and nothing but time on his hands... Let's go back into Metaverse Appalachia and hope nobody throws digital rocks at us this time...

        • My kids won't be renting anything in the meta verse, they will be too busy trying to survive in the real world because people where to busy creating global warming through profit making schemes that destroyed the planet.

        • Also it amazes me in the dream meta verse where there is naturally no scarcity people are trying so hard to introduce it. Seriously in the meta-verse if owning a property was something someone needed wanted to do, why would the rules stop you? Perhaps we need to call it the meta greed verse.

      • There's a long standing tax dodge where you buy some art, declare the value has skyrocketed because "there's a market for it now", donate it to an "non-profit" and write it off your taxes for the inflated amount.

        These tax dodges were eliminated in 2020, with the laws going into effect in 2022. The 1% that used these dodges were hoping to use NFTs to replace art. It looks like the gov't just ruled NFTs fall under the same rules (no surprise) which is why the market crashed.

        That said, the video game c

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Rei ( 128717 )

        A lot of people talk about how NFTs are a scam for buyers, but not nearly enough people talking about how they're a scam for artists as well. Artists have to pay to mint NFTs, and the vast majority will never sell, or will sell for less than the gas cost.

        The winner? Ethereum investors and esp. miners. Artists are just their latest marks.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by DarkOx ( 621550 )

      No but there are plenty of people who love to connect with rich kid they went to school with who is prepared to stake a few hundred k of dady's money on his dumb crypto-coin-pool-algo scheme he came up with working with some of his MBA-Program Bro's for a class assignment.

      Look all these things, you spend a few months implementing the guys 'almost always faulty business logic' in python. He awards you some nice pile of coins for being a 'founder' and does some marketing. A bunch of other idiots with more mo

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by XXongo ( 3986865 )

      What exactly is the point in this? Are there really that many developers out still there thinking they will "invent" the next big crypto currency so they can cash out bigtime on those first low-hanging, easy-to-mine coins?

      It's the cool new thing.

      If you're a student, you need something to focus on; blockchain is as good as anything; you'll learn about cryptography and security (also lack of security) and networks of trust.

      And, pretty much everybody thinks that blockchain is so cool it has to be good for something. They just haven't figured out what yet.

      • This is why you use the -S option with your Git commits. By signing commits, you are effectively a blockchain developer. It doesn't mean that much in the real world, but it sounds good.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Hadlock ( 143607 )

      I think blockchain companies are really struggling to hire with the market in turmoil and blockchain values down more than 50% since last summer. A lot of people with mortgages, or just enjoy stability, look at a company who is 100% invested in a concept that's lost over half it's value in the last year, and won't even sign up to talk to a recruiter for double the money they're making right now. Buying a study that says "hey, look, people like YOU are still interested in blockchain!" might help move the rec

    • Early retirement, isn't it obvious? There is more in crytpocurrency development than creating a new shitcoin

    • IKR! As of today there are 19,500+ shitcoins. [coinmarketcap.com]

      Because the world "needs" yet-another shitcoin to pump and dump. /s

    • LOL, I had a similar reaction from a completely different angle:

      So 1/3rd of developers are training or actively working on apps for a technology that has no core application, thus suggesting they're building experience in skills with that will have little to no market value? And i mean that with both crypto and metaverse.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jythie ( 914043 )
      I suspect a lot of that number comes from entry level developers looking at job postings and picking up skills that cater to them. Right now, or at least up until the NFT crash, there was a lot of money floating around the crypto space with the hiring sprees and paychecks that go with it.
    • The point is:

      1. Astroturfing. Big Business Execs / Shareholders and other WallStreet types love the idea of selling you absolutely nothing of value for a ridiculously high price. The more headlines about it, the more they can push how great it is, and the more they can insist on developers implementing it everywhere.

      2. Yes there are quite a few idiots out there that think they will be the next one driving a lambo minted off of worthless ones and zeros. That's the problem with gamblers. They always ne
  • These technologies have very limited use outside of specific industries, and are likely to cause financial ruin to millions. If an executive in your organization asks you to âoelook intoâ these, âoejust say noâ.

    • The skills involved in writing secure cryptography code for NFT and blockchains are the same skills as for any other area of writing secure cryptography code. There's a lot more of the latter than the former.

  • NFTs? I hope they put this on their resumes. It's a good indicator on who NOT to hire.

  • "Learning about" blockchain (Score:5, Informative)

    by Tony Isaac ( 1301187 ) on Monday May 23, 2022 @07:40AM (#62558182) Homepage

    I'm "learning" about blockchain. I read articles about it on Slashdot and elsewhere. But I'm certainly not interested in developing blockchain technologies, especially not cryptocurrencies. My opinion is that cryptocurrencies are the latest kind of swindle.

    So I would have answered the question about "learning" with "yes"...I am learning about it. But am I "interested" in it personally? Not at all.

    • I am very curious about how the poll's questions were worded - no words about that either in ZDNet or even on the poll's results itself, which makes it dubious at best.

    • I'm "learning" about blockchain. I read articles about it on Slashdot and elsewhere. But I'm certainly not interested in developing blockchain technologies, especially not cryptocurrencies. My opinion is that cryptocurrencies are the latest kind of swindle.

      So I would have answered the question about "learning" with "yes"...I am learning about it. But am I "interested" in it personally? Not at all.

      There's no way that this was a *representative* sample. TFA (or the TFS) claims that one out of every six developers is "actively working on crypto-related projects" and that one out of every nine developers is "actively working on NFT technology". I call bull.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by splutty ( 43475 )

      The underlying technology for blockchain is really cool.

      All the current implementations are absolute garbage.

      This is the problem with the technology, unfortunately. Almost all implementations are some sort of scam/pyramid scheme/ponzi scheme/whatever.

      And the ones that aren't, are implementations by people that have no idea about how things work, and it inevitable blows up in their faces.

  • And there are those, including programmers, who would like to relieve those "suckers" of their hard-earned money. This group undoubtedly accounts for some percentage of those who say they are interested in developing blockchain or NFT technology.

  • Meaningless Title. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by splutty ( 43475 ) on Monday May 23, 2022 @07:48AM (#62558210)

    What's with all this clickbait bullshit?

    Of course developers are learning about the new stuff. That infers exactly nothing.

    It's not a popularity contest. And blockchain is NOT crypto/NFT/nonsense.

    This whole 'summary' tries to shoehorn some kind of "Look! Crypto is big!" into what is what *every* developer does.

    The real question: Of those that 'are learning about', how many think it's worthwhile actually pursuing.

    • It's not a popularity contest. And blockchain is NOT crypto/NFT/nonsense.

      This. It's going to be criminal to throw the blockchain baby out with the shitcoin bathwater, but that's exactly what we're poised to potentially do here once people get burned and burned hard when the shitcoin hits the NFT fan.

      Imagine if MFA was born from porn sites. And then we had an overdose of morality and made MFA illegal as a way to ban and control porn, no matter who else was legitimately using MFA. Is that what we'll end up doing with blockchain once enough harm is done with shitcoin manipulatio

  • Databases (Score:5, Funny)

    by Rei ( 128717 ) on Monday May 23, 2022 @07:50AM (#62558216) Homepage

    Teacher: "Hey, how interested are you in learning about RIDICULOUSLY-INEFFICIENT PUBLIC APPEND-ONLY DATABASES?"

    Students: "Ugh, do I have to?"

    Teacher: "Okay, what about learning about BLOCKCHAIN instead?"

    Students: "Awesome!!!!"

  • The top level is a total scam. But someone who is serious can learn about distributed hash tables or consensus protocols like Raft or any number of underlying componets. Then use that knowledge to create something new an innovative, hopefully not another scam.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by f00zbll ( 526151 )
      if a person really wants to learn concensus protocols, study paxos instead. That's the proven protocol that every mature distributed system uses for ACID compliant systems. If you want to relax ACID, study convergent replicated datasets.

      • There are lots of choices for acquiring real lasting knowledge instead of swindling in in a get rich quick scheme.

  • Bitches you need catch up. I'm already working on Web4 projects...
  • Being a developer makes you more susceptible to bullshit ponzi schemes than non-devs. In 20 years, I've met all sorts of developers and one thing is clear. A lot of devs thing they are smarter than average person and believe they don't fall for dumb ponzi schemes. Their believe they're smarter, better and more deserving. Then there are those who only care about money, don't care it's a ponzi scheme and feel justified "if I didn't do it, someone else would."

  • this just in: developers haven't read ziff davis in decades

    dewey did not win

  • Let it die already (Score:3)

    by Malays2 bowman ( 6656916 ) on Monday May 23, 2022 @10:06AM (#62558528)

    "Crypto" looked real good on paper, but in practice it's a never ending shitshow full of waste, extortion, criminal activity, countries seizing and flattening "mining rigs" with steam rollers, moronic shit like "Bored Apes Yacht Club", cloak and daggar theft of other people's CPU time and electricity, and on and on and on.

      The world is not ready for crypto. Maybe in 100, or perhaps 1,000 years it will be but not now. It needs to die.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by vrt3 ( 62368 )

      > The world is not ready for crypto.

      Crypto is not ready for the world, is my take on the matter.

      > It needs to die.

      Yes.

      • "Crypto is not ready for the world, is my take on the matter"

          People will take anything these days and turn it into dog shit.

          Dare I say that we are in a period of regression in the general population, and releasing something on it like "crypto" is a bad idea for this time period?

    • Blockchai, as a widely applicable technology, looked really good on paper only to those (95+%) without the willingness to think one (1) application through to the end and compare to if anything was gained (or indeed lost) over classical implementations if the same use case.

  • Survey finds highest developer interest in making stupid amounts of money by doing as little work as possible.

  • Or are we talking about scammers pretending to be developers? Definition Crypto developer, an individual that has not disappeared with the customers/investors assets yet!

  • Do they really write their own encryption/blockchain tools from scratch? Or are they just downloading some canned apps, wrapping HTML/Javascript/whatever around it and calling it theirs?

    It seems to have devolved to the level of script kiddies.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by darenw ( 74015 )

      I've already seen too many how-to tutorial articles an YT videos on "How to Get Into Web3/NFT/etc" and since I like gawking at train wrecks and scams, I watch some of those while doing the dishes. (No dishwasher machine. Maybe I can blockchain my dirty dishes?) Yup, it's all about wrapping existing black-box magic libraries with HTML/JS/stuff and strutting around like you're one of the cutting edge elite in-crowd hipsters.

  • I read this as saying 1/3rd of developers are learning just enough about buzzword technologies du jour to impress hiring managers who also don't know jack about them. From that perspective the number sounds way low.

  • So (Score:1)

    by Bahbus ( 1180627 )

    Roughly 1/3 of developers don't know if they're retarded, yet, and roughly 1/10 of developers have confirmed they 100% are.

  • Survey Finds Highest Developer Interest in Blockchain Apps, Cryptocurrencies, and NFTs

    It has been so depressing to watch the promise of the 90s-and-earlier software industry devolve into the techie-bro industry of today; an industry no longer driven by vision, of using technology to better the world or even just business, but one solely devoted to the next fashion cycle, on preying on people's narcissism to satisfy its greed.

    Like, OMG, gag me with a spoon!

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