Despite crypto market volatility and a deluge of bad news, a recent survey claims that activity among Web3 developers surged in the fourth quarter of 2022.

According to Alchemy’s Web3 Development Report, Ethereum, one of the major layer-1 (L1) blockchains in the crypto ecosystem, had a 453% growth in mainnet smart contract deployments in the fourth quarter of 2022, showing robust developer momentum despite crypto market volatility.

Head of growth at Alchemy Jason Shah told TechCrunch, “As we observed in Q3 as well, web3 programmers are long-term dedicated to expanding out this ecosystem because they believe in the technology.” Developers are staying the course despite poor market circumstances because to a combination of “that persistent conviction,” improved infrastructure and tools, and rising quarterly user acceptance.

According to statistics compiled by CoinMarketCap, the total value of the cryptocurrency market worldwide dropped from more than $2 trillion at the beginning of 2022 to about $800 billion by the end of the year. Bitcoin and Ether, two of the largest cryptocurrencies, both had decreases of 14% and 8.77% from the beginning to the conclusion of the fourth quarter.

Specifically in Q4, developers look to be approaching a phase when deploying more smart contracts is important given product maturity, and after Merge, there is renewed confidence and more reasonable deployment costs, as Shah put it.