Following the inclusion of Midnight in the Electric Capital developer report earlier this year, Midnight has accelerated through the summer to reach record numbers of monthly active developers.
As of August 17, 2026, the latest Electric Capital data shows a 325% surge in active Midnight contributors over the past year and a 693% increase over three years. High-commitment contributor categories demonstrate similar momentum, with full-time developers growing 226% over two years and established developers expanding 357% over three years.
This momentum stands out against broader market trends. While overall crypto developer activity fell 28% industry-wide over the past year, Midnight continues to attract builders actively shipping privacy-enhancing projects.
Tag repositories to ensure every contribution counts
Electric Capital produces the primary independent benchmark for tracking software engineering activity across decentralized networks. The report aggregates public GitHub commits, active contributor counts, and repository metadata to evaluate ecosystem health objectively. Automated indexers scan open source repositories, attributing software contributions to specific protocol networks when repositories contain standardized project metadata tags.
Developers building on Midnight are strongly encouraged to tag their repositories with the midnightntwrk label to ensure public industry trackers count every commit, DApp, and tool. Unattributed repositories remain invisible to automated aggregators, so adding standardized repository metadata only takes a few minutes and immediately amplifies individual projects and contributes to verified public metrics that demonstrate Midnight's rapid expansion.
Quick steps for repository attribution
Attributing a repository only takes a few minutes, and this is an important and high-impact way to support the ecosystem and ensure your contributions are properly credited.
Step 1: Add GitHub topics
Add the required midnightntwrk label to the Topics field in the repository’s About sidebar. If the project uses the Compact smart contract language, also add the compact topic.
Avoid non-standard variants like midnight, midnight-network, midnight-compact, or midnight-ecosystem, as automated indexers do not track these tags and will not attribute your project to the Midnight ecosystem.
Step 2: Insert a README sentence
Electric Capital scans README files for precise text signals to confirm a network relationship, so custom phrasing prevents automated recognition. Insert one standardized sentence near the top of the project README based on the project type:
- DApps, contracts, or tooling running directly on Midnight: "This project is built on the Midnight Network."
- SDKs, infrastructure, wallets, or services: "This project integrates with the Midnight Network."
- Developer tooling, frameworks, or libraries: "This project extends the Midnight Network with additional developer tooling."
Step 3: Submit a directory listing
The Midnight Awesome DApps list is the community-maintained directory of ecosystem projects. Open a pull request to the list to make your work easily discoverable.
Submit your project at: github.com/midnightntwrk/midnight-awesome-dapps and earn Zealy points for your submission.
For a more detailed walkthrough for repository attribution, use this article on the Midnight Dev Diaries blog.
Connecting with Midnight devs
Subscribe to the Midnight developer newsletter to see what’s happening across the developer ecosystem and get the latest on events, hackathons and resources for devs.
For real-time collaboration and direct technical support, builders can connect with the developer community directly through the #dev-chat channel in the Midnight Discord.