In crypto, price often gets all the attention, but behind every great project is a team of developers writing code, proposing upgrades, and building infrastructure. To really understand which networks are thriving, we need to look beyond the charts and into the code.
This article compares Kaspa and Litecoin through the lens of developer activity and more importantly, it normalizes that activity by market cap to give a fair comparison between a fast-growing newcomer and a long-established heavyweight.
Why Normalize Developer Activity?
Market cap tells us how large and economically relevant a project is. A $6 billion project should logically attract more developer attention than a $2 billion one, all else equal.
By dividing development metrics (like commits, contributors, or proposals) by market cap, we measure how efficiently a project is using its value to attract developer engagement. It’s a simple way to see who’s getting the most innovation per dollar.
The Data: Kaspa Is Outpacing Litecoin
Normalised metrics, all calculated per $1 billion of market cap:
| Metric | Kaspa | Litecoin |
|---|---|---|
| Commits | 2,074 | 4,058 |
| Active Core Developers | 2.36 | 0.91 |
| Total Contributors | 12.2 | 3.8 |
| Improvement Proposals | 4.33 | 0.61 |
| GitHub Stars | 428 | 682 |
| Code Forks | 174 | 455 |
| Repo Watchers | 25.6 | 75.8 |
While Litecoin has more stars and forks (reflecting its age and visibility), Kaspa has significantly more contributors, proposals, and developers relative to its size.
- Developer Teams: Kaspa has over twice as many core devs per $1B.
- Innovation: Kaspa has introduced more than seven times the number of improvement proposals.
- Community Involvement: Kaspa also has a higher contributor-to-market-cap ratio.
This suggests that while Litecoin is largely maintaining, Kaspa is actively evolving.
A Tale of Two Eras
Litecoin was a trailblazer in its time, but its development today is focused on small upgrades and Bitcoin parity. It’s mature, but slow-moving.
Kaspa, on the other hand, is still early in its lifecycle and has a hungry development team pushing out major upgrades like DAG optimization and throughput scaling. The normalized data shows that Kaspa is punching far above its weight in developer activity.
In a space that rewards innovation, that’s a signal worth watching.
