India accounts for 17% of world’s developers entering Web3 space; to leapfrog US by 2028: Report

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India accounted for nearly 17 percent of new developers entering the Web3 space in 2024 and is expected to go past the US to emerge as the world's largest developer community by 2028, a report has said.

The report released by Web3 VC firm Hashed Emergent on March 11 also said India has world’s second largest crypto developer base, with 11.8 percent of the developers based in the country despite the government’s cautious approach towards the sector.

“Data shows that 45.3 percent of Indian Web3 developers contribute code, 29.7 percent address bug fixes, and 22.4 percent focus on documentation,” the report said. Gaming and NFTs account for 30 percent of developer engagement, while DeFi and RWAs contribute 26 percent.

Most Indian developers are new to the Web3 space, with more than 50 percent joining in the past two years and 85 percent aged under 27, the report said.

India boast of over 1,200 startups in the Web3 space across sectors – making India the third-largest founder base too in this space.

“With investor confidence surging, Indian startups raised $564M in 2024, up 109 percent from 2023, bringing the cumulative funding to over $3 billion,” the report said.

Web3 refers to decentralised internet based on concepts and use cases around blockchains, which are distributed ledgers controlled communally by participants, and token-based economics.

Apart from organising hackathons to encourage more developers to enter the field, Web3 ecosystem players have also tied up with universities in Odisha, Bhubaneswar, Madras, and Kerala to introduce students to the sector.

Funding trends

In 2024, funding into Web3 startups grew to $564 million, up 109 percent from 2023, taking the total funding in the space to more than $3 billion.

Indian founders focused on building new decentralized finance (DeFi) applications, including creating Staking, liquid staking, and re-staking products across ecosystems as well as perpetual DEXs, Real World Assets (RWAs ), and tokenisation platforms, the report said.

Key subsectors that attracted investments were AI, RWAs, and staking solutions led by increased infrastructure spends around centralized AI by big tech.

Coinbase Ventures, Y Combinator, Animoca Brands, IOSG, and LD Capital, as well as homegrown Venture Capital firms such as Hashed Emergent, CoinDCX, PeakXV, Borderless, and Alpha Wave, were some of the VC firms looking aggressively into investing in Indian projects.

"India's Web3 ecosystem has grown stronger amid global challenges. The country’s unique blend of technological agility, entrepreneurial spirit, and digital adoption are driving progress,” Hashed Emergent CEO and managing partner Tak Lee said.

“We now see renewed retail participation, shifting investor trends, and deeper integration of Web3 solutions by enterprises and the government.”

Earlier in an interview with Moneycontrol, Ryan Sungho Kim, co-founder and partner at Hashed, the parent company of Hashed Emergent, said though India’s blockchain and Web3 space was at a nascent stage, the country would eventually pick up as major economies, including the US, Europe and Japan, turn pro-crypto.