DPRating, a cryptocurrency rating agency established in 2017, has released the July 2018 edition of its GitHub Audit report, which ranks projects based on their GitHub activity (e.g. how often new versions of the software are being released).

DPRating, which in the words of its founder, Darpal Wang, “aims to be the Moody’s of the crypto space”, produces various types of reports to help investors. The GitHub Audit looks at the software development activity of 200 blockchain projects by monitoring each development team’s activities on GitHub, a platform used by almost open source projects for hosting and managing code.

Each project is rated according to the following criteria:

Popularity of the Library . This measure the interest in a project by looking at how much attention the project is getting from developer community by looking at the mean number of times a code library has been “watched”, “starred”, or “forked”. There are four possible values: “Very High” (greater than 500); “High” (between 100 and 500), “Medium” (between 20 and 100); and “Low” (below 20).

. This measure the interest in a project by looking at how much attention the project is getting from developer community by looking at the mean number of times a code library has been “watched”, “starred”, or “forked”. There are four possible values: “Very High” (greater than 500); “High” (between 100 and 500), “Medium” (between 20 and 100); and “Low” (below 20). Number of Contributors . This refers to how many developers have contributed to the project by submitting code/documentation changes. “High” means more than 12, “Medium” means between 6 and 12, and “Low” means below 6.

. This refers to how many developers have contributed to the project by submitting code/documentation changes. “High” means more than 12, “Medium” means between 6 and 12, and “Low” means below 6. Release Frequency . They take the version release frequency of Bitcoin and Ethereum, around 14.31 days for a new release, as the reference value. They then divide the number of average days spent for a new release by this reference value to get a release frequency score. “High” means below 2, “Medium” is between 2 and 4, and ” Low” is defined as above 4.

. They take the version release frequency of Bitcoin and Ethereum, around 14.31 days for a new release, as the reference value. They then divide the number of average days spent for a new release by this reference value to get a release frequency score. “High” means below 2, “Medium” is between 2 and 4, and ” Low” is defined as above 4. Types of Commits . In GitHub, a “commit” (or “revision”) means an individual change to a file (or set of files). The ratings team says that there are several types of commits: A1 (Continuously, steadily developing new features); A2 (“Fixing Bugs and testing after new feature developments”); A3 (“Releasing few new features based on initial commitment and changing configurations”); B (“Fixing bugs and testing for Devops”); C (“Changing configuration for Devops”); and D (“Cannot be defined in any above category”).

. In GitHub, a “commit” (or “revision”) means an individual change to a file (or set of files). The ratings team says that there are several types of commits: A1 (Continuously, steadily developing new features); A2 (“Fixing Bugs and testing after new feature developments”); A3 (“Releasing few new features based on initial commitment and changing configurations”); B (“Fixing bugs and testing for Devops”); C (“Changing configuration for Devops”); and D (“Cannot be defined in any above category”). Overall Rating. This derives an aggregate rating/score based from the rating received for library popularity (“1 point for Very High, 0.5 points for High, no point for Middle or Low”); size of contributor pool (“1 point for High, 0.5 point for Medium, no point for Low”); release frequency (“1 point for High, 0.5 point for Medium, no point for Low”); number of commits (“1 point for over 200 commits, 0.5 point for between 100 and 200 commits, no point for between 30 and 100 or below 30”); and types of commits (“1 point for A1 or A2, 0.5 point for A3, no point for B, C and D”).

Here are the top 20 projects (ranked from best to worst) ranked by their overall rating:

Here are a few highlights from these rankings: