Recent data from analytics firm Santiment reveals which AI and Big Data-focused cryptocurrency projects are seeing the most active development work. The rankings, based on GitHub activity over the past 30 days, highlight a strong focus on infrastructure and decentralized compute.
Internet Computer (ICP) stands out with a developer activity score of 237, according to one analysis, while Santiment's separate data shows Chainlink (LINK) leading with a score of 261.03, followed by ICP at 235.5 and NEAR Protocol (NEAR) at 134.47. The significant gap between the top projects and the rest of the list indicates concentrated engineering efforts.
The rest of the top ten is dominated by infrastructure projects. Filecoin (FIL) scored 36.3, Livepeer (LPT) 31.2, and The Graph (GRT) 24.4. The list continues with Bittensor (TAO), Qubic (QUBIC), Oasis Network, Flux (FLUX), Swarms, and Virtuals Protocol, all with scores under 20. Santiment's list also includes Injective (INJ) at 16.17.
The data underscores a trend where foundational "plumbing" projects show consistent developer activity, as they require ongoing work to improve reliability, performance, and scalability. Filecoin's decentralized storage, Livepeer's video streaming infrastructure, and The Graph's indexing network are prime examples. The emerging AI and compute category, represented by projects like Bittensor and Flux, shows lower but still notable activity as they build decentralized alternatives to centralized cloud providers.
Analysts caution that GitHub activity is an imperfect metric, as it misses private repositories and other forms of contribution. However, sustained high activity levels typically signal active feature development, bug fixes, and protocol strengthening. This data is particularly valuable for developers assessing which technologies to learn and for investors looking beyond short-term price movements to gauge long-term project health and building momentum.
