With each successive crypto bear market, there will more and more industry consolidation. This means that the projects that are essentially vaporware with funds raised through likely-soon-to-be-fraudulent ICOs or airdrops will disappear.

So, how should an investor identify projects that have a good chance of recovering from extended bear markets? One way is to monitor technology develop via a project’s GitHub activity, which often acts as an indicator of the project’s dedication to growth, even when the financial gains are absent.

While even the most active project on GitHub could easily be worthless and go under, this data at least functions as a quick screen before conducting deeper due diligence on potential investments.

Here are the top 10 cryptocurrency projects by total commits on GitHub over the last three months.

0x (ZRX) | $0.715 | $384M Mkt Cap | 1,947 GitHub Commits

Description: 0x is an open protocol that facilitates the low-friction peer-to-peer exchange of ERC20 tokens on the Ethereum blockchain. The 0x Protocol is aiming to become a common infrastructure for decentralized applications (DApps), enabling them to access large public liquidity pools or even create their own. This system of available liquidity allows 0x to take the concept of a decentralized exchange a step further, as traditional DEXs are commonly illiquid, slow, expensive, and inoperable with one another. (more)

Language: TypeScript

Total Contributors: 29

AltDex 100 Rank: 24

RChain (RHOC) | $0.412 | $149M Mkt Cap | 1,469 GitHub Commits

Description: RChain is a Turing-complete, Byzantine fault-tolerant blockchain platform, enabling developers to write concurrent and infinitely scalable decentralized applications.

Language: Scala

Total Contributors: 41

AltDex 100 Rank: 45

Republic Protocol (REN) | $0.026 | $15M Mkt Cap | 1,360 GitHub Commits

Description: Republic Protocol is a decentralized dark pool for the trustless cross-chain atomic trading of cryptocurrencies.

Language: Go

Total Contributors: 7

AltDex 100 Rank: N/A

aelf (ELF) | $0.392 | $98M Mkt Cap | 1,345 GitHub Commits

Description: aelf is developing a platform that supposedly functions as a highly efficient and customizable operating system, essentially the “Linux system” for Blockchain. The aelf blockchain will feature self-evolving main/side chains, commercial-scale transaction performance, efficient cross-chain communication, and an optimized ‘OS-like’ architecture. Together, aelf aims to develop their platform to target corporate entities. (more)

Language: C#

Total Contributors: 22

AltDex 100 Rank: 45

TRON (TRX) | $0.022 | $1.5B Mkt Cap | 1,173 GitHub Commits

Description: TRON is a cryptocurrency-based localized platform founded by the Tron Foundation, a Singapore-based non-profit organization headed by Justin Sun. TRX was originally developed as an ERC20 token on the Ethereum network but plans to launch a mainnet this June. The virtual currency seeks to build a free, content entertainment network that will use localized distributed storage networks to reduce the cost of sharing digital content. (more)

Language: Java

Total Contributors: 64

AltDex 100 Rank: 11

Zeusshield (ZSC) | $0.0041 | $5M Mkt Cap | 1,149 GitHub Commits

Description: Zeusshield uses the blockchain to apply trust management into insurance services, thus building up a new insurance ecosystem with the provision of precision marketing and intelligent insurance claims.

Language: JavaScript

Total Contributors: 7

AltDex 100 Rank: N/A

XMax (XMX) | $0.00074 | $5M Mkt Cap | 1,061 GitHub Commits

Description: Xmax is an all-in-one blockchain ecosystem for the entertainment industry, which includes a set of developer tools to improve the creation and distribution of decentralized applications.

Language: C++

Total Contributors: 9

AltDex 100 Rank: N/A

Raiden Network (RDN) | $0.377 | $19M Mkt Cap | 1,059 GitHub Commits

Description: The Raiden Network is an off-chain scaling solution for performing ERC20-compliant token transfers on the Ethereum blockchain. It is Ethereum’s version of Bitcoin’s Lightning Network, enabling near-instant, low-fee, scalable, and privacy-preserving payments.

Language: Python

Total Contributors: 51

AltDex 100 Rank: N/A

Gulden (NLG) | $0.0275 | $11M Mkt Cap | 887 GitHub Commits

Description: A security-focused blockchain platform that enables users to send the Dutch cryptocurrency to each other, wire it to any IBAN account or pay at Gulden merchants.

Language: C++

Total Contributors: 100+

AltDex 100 Rank: N/A

Cardano (ADA) | $0.092 | $2.4B Mkt Cap | 749 GitHub Commits

Description: Cardano is a next-generation blockchain project that features a full-fledged smart contract platform with a library of protocols for building decentralized applications (DApps). As a distributed computing platform, Cardano allows projects to conduct initial coin offerings (ICOs) and issue tokens to the public.

Language: Haskell

Total Contributors: 84

AltDex 100 Rank: 8

Final Take

These projects have been the most active on GitHub over the past three months. While this doesn’t definitely mark these projects as quality, it does mean that there is a higher chance of them actually building through the bear market. Any investor interested in any project in this list should conduct their own, independent audit of the project’s development, in addition to other major factors including its community, leadership, real-world utility and more.

Disclaimer: This article’s author has cryptocurrency holdings that can be tracked here. This article is for informational purposes only and should not be taken as investment advice. Always conduct your own due diligence before making investments.