Blockchain Developer Course | 6 weeks online

Program overview

The aim of this course is to provide a well-rounded and comprehensive introduction to Blockchain, digital currencies and smart contract platforms. We will start by learning about the history of money and digital currencies, and how to interact with Blockchains manually via the command line. We will cover the basic cryptography such as hash functions and discrete logarithms without which Blockchains would not be possible. With the core concepts under our belt, you’ll learn about keys, wallets, addresses and transactions, building a simple command line wallet interface along the way. Afterwards we’ll learn how Blockchains actually work to facilitate and secure transactions, what blocks are made of and how proof of work and mining work to secure the Blockchain. Finally we will cover the basics of Ethereum, Solidity and how to safely write, deploy and interact with smart contracts.

Where our students work

Get your dream job - we'll support you along the way!

What you will learn

1

Digital money, Cryptography & Bitcoin basics

Day 1: To understand Bitcoin, you need to understand money. In the first session we will take a look at the history of money, followed by the history of digital currencies in particular. Then we will get familiar with hands-on exercises with the Bitcoin CLI and its JSON-RPC API. Day 2: Without cryptography, there would be no Blockchain. Before we do anything with wallets or transactions, we need to understand key cryptographic concepts. We will cover hash functions, the discrete logarithm problem, public-private key cryptography and basic elliptic curve cryptography. We will use Python to apply these concepts in practice.

2

Blockchain through the eyes of Bitcoin

Day 3: We need to prevent anyone from double-spending, censoring, or tampering with the money supply and transactions. We will learn how the Blockchain is used to accomplish this, how mining works and what is the structure of a block. We will build a script to simulate Bitcoin mining to understand how a block is made and how proof of work works. Day 4 - Transactions: Transactions are the most important part of any Blockchain. Everything else is designed to ensure that transactions can be created, propagated on the network, validated, and finally added to the global ledger of transactions. In this lesson, we will learn the internal structure of Bitcoin transactions, transaction inputs and outputs, and use the Bitcoin CLI to explore how to make and send a Bitcoin transaction manually. Day 5 - Transactions continued, Consensus, Forks, P2P network: Following up on the previous session, we will send transactions with Python wallet. This means programmatically composing a transaction from unspent transaction outputs, signing the transaction with our private key and broadcasting it to the network. Additionally, we will look at what “consensus” means in the context of blockchain, how blockchain forks and upgrades work, the P2P network and finally bring it all together with a simplified blockchain simulation.

3

All about Wallets

Day 6 - Hierarchical Deterministic (HD) Wallets, Passphrases, Backups: The most important piece of user interaction with a blockchain is the wallet. We will look at how wallets are generated, backed up and restored, what mnemonic seeds are made of, and implement all this functionality with Python. Day 7 - Address encoding, Derivation paths and chaincodes, Hardened keys, Gap limits: Using what we learned in the last session, we will build a simple Python command line application that will generate a wallet for the user, show them a mnemonic sentence backup, let them import this backup to restore their wallet and generate addresses to receive bitcoins.

4

Ethereum I: Fundamentals, Contracts & Dev toolchain

Day 8 - Ethereum blockchain basics, Accounts, EVM, Transactions: In this lesson we will start looking at Ethereum and how the concepts we’ve learned apply to Ethereum wallets and accounts. We will understand how the Ethereum Blockchain and Ethereum transactions are different from Bitcoin and how to use Ethereum as a developer to interact with smart contracts. We will start with low level deployment with the Solidity solc compiler and geth (go-ethereum) only, without any advanced developer tools. Day 9 - Smart contract common patterns, Development toolchain, Upgradable contracts: For a newcomer, the Ethereum development toolchain can be quite complex and overwhelming. We will get started by setting up a development environment using Hardhat, an Ethereum development environment. Using our setup, we will look at smart contract deployment and how to build, deploy and maintain upgradable smart contracts.

5

Ethereum II: Smart Contracts, Dapps, DeFi

Day 10 - Smart Contract Security and Best Practices: Ethereum smart contracts are a complex topic. A bug in your smart contract could mean the millions of dollars that someone entrusted to your code could be lost forever. We will write a basic token contract, covering the basic features of Solidity and how to follow best practices to write safe smart contracts. Day 11 - Dapp development: The most common usage for Ethereum is the “dApp”, a “decentralized application”. It’s time to build our own. A dApp is in essence just a regular web application, that can also interact with the Ethereum blockhain. We will learn how to treat the Ethereum blockchain as our dApp backend, how to index data from it and how to interact with it and display it in a frontend web application. Day 12 - Dapps, DeFi, NFTs, Topics of choice: In our last session we will look more in depth at the current state of Ethereum, DeFi, Dapps, Decentralized Exchanges, NFTs and how it all works. Plus, we will take a look at any topics of your choice that you would like to see covered that are not part of the main curriculum, or other topics of interest that we might not have time for during the previous sessions.

Weekly schedule

(CET)

Mo

Tue

Wed

Thu

Fr

Sat

09H00

12H00

13H00

18H00

19H00

20H00

Q&A Session

During these sessions, you are totally free to connect and ask any questions about the covered topics.

Lecture

Learn from our instructors who are experts in their respective fields and get introduced to new topics during live lectures.

Practice

Work on a set of interesting and challenging exercises related to the topics covered in the previous lesson.

Earn a Certificate of Accomplishment

Share your Certificate on social networks, printed resumes, CVs or other documents. Boost your career with the new skills that you gained.

Financial options

At Constructor Learning, we believe that finances should never be a barrier to accessing the education and training that can help individuals achieve their goals. That's why we offer a variety of financing options to make our courses more accessible to a diverse range of students. We also work with external organizations that provide financial assistance to those in need.

Learn more

Upcoming events

Attend one of our events. Discover our upcoming workshops, info sessions, final presentations and webinars on trending topics.

Data analytics workshop
29. Mar 23, 05:00 PM - 07:00 PM GMT+2
Online via Zoom
Get ready to dive into the world of data analytics with Dominik Bacher, Constructor Learning's Data Science champion and teaching consultant extraordinaire! Join us on Wednesday, March 29th, 2023, from 5 - 7 PM for an introduction to data analytics that will blow your mind. In just a few short hours, you will get an introduction to data processing basics, and data visualization techniques, he will even show you how to frame data science problems like a pro. But that's not all! By the end of the workshop, you'll have the chance to flex your machine-learning muscles and create a model that can predict housing prices. That's right, you'll be a data science superstar in no time. If you're interested in Data science and want to take your skills to the next level, this event is for you. Don't miss out on this incredible opportunity - register today to save your seat!
Details
Introduction to JavaScript workshop
30. Mar 23, 05:00 PM - 07:00 PM GMT+2
Online via Zoom
Are you interested in learning how to code with JavaScript? Join our Introduction to JavaScript workshop on Thursday, March 30th from 5-7 pm. This workshop is completely online and will be held using Zoom, so you can join us from the comfort of your own home. We welcome everyone who is new to coding and want to learn the basics of JavaScript. We'll cover everything you need to know to get started with coding, including what variables and data types are, how to use functions, and more. You'll even get a chance to try coding yourself! Don't worry if you're completely new to coding - we'll guide you through everything step by step. Sign up now and get ready to discover the exciting world of coding with JavaScript!
Details
Education fair Zurich
11. May 23, 11:00 AM - 07:00 PM GMT+2
Zürich HB (Booth 34)
Constructor Learning will be at the Zurich 2023 Education Fair. Visit us at our booth, talk to our Student Success Team or our Program Managers and learn more about our continuing education offerings. We will see you there.
Details

Application process and prerequisites

Basic programming knowledge required (Python as well as familiarity with the command line).

Simply apply to the program here.

FAQs

How is the day by day schedule?

During every session you would be introduced to a new topic for around 45 - 60 mins. For the rest of the 2 hours, you will complete guided exercises with the help of our teachers and teaching assistants.

How is this course different from other self-paced online courses?

Most self-paced courses are a good place to start, however, they do not go into the depths of problems early-stage programmers face in their day-to-day coding life nor do you get help when it really matters. That’s not the Constructor Learning philosophy. We’re here for you. Each and every learner gets the attention they deserve from our experienced staff of instructors and mentors.

Is there an interview selection for this course?

No, as long as you meet the listed prerequisites. The main goal is to help you take your first step in the world of Blockchain.

Contact us

Your instructors

Tom Vrba

Instructor

Bio

He started working with Ethereum in 2016 as part of his Master's thesis on mechanism design, learning how to work with smart contracts along the way and being a part of developing a non-fungible token before the ERC-20 token standard (think Cryptokitties and digital art) emerged. After Constructor Learning in 2018, he joined Shift Crypto to work mainly with Bitcoin and on the BitBox02 hardware wallet, which to date is his favorite hardware wallet. Since 2020 he's been working again with Ethereum, DeFi, NFTs and smart contracts and working as an independent contractor, mentor and educator.