Developers have always been a rather hot commodity in the world of cryptocurrency. Every original blockchain has its own team of developers and engineers to maintain code and introduce new features. A chart recently surfaced on Twitter indicating Ripple developers are “valued” more than any other coder in the cryptocurrency space. That is a rather interesting turn of events, and one that needs clarification.
Can You Gauge The Value of a Developer?
That question is rather difficult to answer. There is no clear “yes” or “no”, as human lives and efforts are invaluable to the entire world. It is impossible to think some people are worth more than others just because of who they are and what they do. That doesn’t mean people will not try to put a value on the contributions they make to society, or in this case, digital asset development.
Given current market prices, @Ripple developers are > 3x more "valued" than #Bitcoin & #Ethereum devs, and 10x more than #Monero devs pic.twitter.com/kzRLSZUsHx
— Chris Burniske (@cburniske) May 14, 2017
The chart above shows how developers are paid a US Dollar amount per code repo point. Active developers will make quite a bit of money, although not everyone is in it to earn a paycheck. Bitcoin, for example, has many voluntary contributors who are not officially paid for their efforts. However, they can still receive donations from people who appreciate their work.
That being said, the chart goes to show developers are paid quite a lot of money in the Ripple world. That may come as a surprise to a lot of people. Even though Ripple is not necessarily consumer-oriented like Bitcoin or other digital assets, it has a certain value. It is important to note how this metric is calculated as well, as it puts things in a different perspective.
This is Not The Amount of Money Ripple Developers Earn
To be more precise, these numbers are calculated based on dividing the digital asset’s market cap by code repo points found on CryptoCompare. This creates some interesting results, although this does not serve as a way to discredit other people’s efforts. However, it shows Ripple developers are valued three times more compared to Bitcoin developers. The gap only widens when looking at other digital asset developers.
This does not mean the developers are effectively paid that much money, mind you. This number represents how much “value” their contributions represent as part of the whole ecosystem of the digital asset they work on. Rest assured this graph will only fuel more negative thoughts against Ripple. A lot of people don’t see the value Ripple providers, which is understandable. However, it is up to people to educate themselves to make sure their opinions are properly founded.
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