Become a blockchain Expert: Beginner to Advanced (for FREE)

7 min readAug 5, 2022

What if all my skills suddenly faded away? What would i do differently if i got back 2 years ago without any blockchain skills?

What if i want to start from zero WITHOUT any knowledge? There are very good questions which may interest you today.

Here is the FULL plan you absolutely need to follow to succeed in the blockchain space and become a good WEB3 DEV (and/or) WEB3 AUDITOR

I will assume that:

That you don’t have any experience in programming, computer science and finance.
You know how to use a computer, navigate into a browser and “play” with social media.
You already have 1–2 free hour per day when you can focus on building a skill.

Let’s GO !

⏩ Part 1: get the BASICS (mandatory)

If you don’t have any experience with blockchain and programming you absolutely need follow ALL steps of this PART 1, you’ll get the basics of all the next parts (2–4) otherwise you can skips some steps of this part.

▶ Step 1: Learn basics about blockchain and crypto.

The very first step is to familiarize yourself with the crypto world.

Learn the “crypto” vocabulary. (https://time.com/nextadvisor/investing/cryptocurrency/crypto-terms-you-should-know-before-investing/)
Invest a small amount (like 100$) on the crypto of your choice by using known exchanges like Kraken, Kucoin, Binance, Coinbase…
Read Mastering Bitcoin (https://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Bitcoin-Andreas-M-Antonopoulos/dp/1449374042) AND Mastering Ethereum (https://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Ethereum-Building-Smart-Contracts/dp/1491971940/) you’ll understand how the blockchain and smart contracts work in depth. (you can find free PDFs online.)
Learn what are the different types of wallet and how to secure them.(https://www.security.org/crypto/protection/)

▶ Step 2: Learn basics about programming and computer science.

You’ll use sometimes the (ugly) command line and terminal in your projects, better to learn now. (https://www.codecademy.com/learn/learn-the-command-line, this course is about Linux, but it applies to Powershell too)
Of course you’ll need programming to create and audit smart contracts on the blockchain, before learning a programming language you need to acquire the basics of programming. (https://www.codecademy.com/learn/learn-how-to-code/modules/bop-i)
Finally, learn basic computer science in order to fully understand all blockchain concepts: (https://www.tutorialspoint.com/basics_of_computer_science/index.htm)

▶ Step 3: Learn basics about web. (HTML and JS)

Start to learn about HTML and how to build basic websites, https://www.codecademy.com/learn/learn-html is by far the best resource to learn HTML very FAST.
Learn JS to create BEAUTIFUL and INTERACTIVE web pages: https://www.codecademy.com/catalog/language/javascript
(optional, you can learn a JS framework to build websites faster, I strongly advise you to use reactJS: https://en.reactjs.org/)

▶ Step 4: Others MANDATORY prerequisites.

Learn about finance and economics as blockchain is highly related to this field, Investopedia is by far the BEST FREE website to learn: https://www.investopedia.com
Learn about basics of MATH (here is all the math you need: https://medium.com/@TrustChain/do-you-need-math-to-get-started-in-smart-contract-hacking-443ff52b418d)
Strength you English skills (and accent) if you’re not a native English. All the content you’ll read/watch in the blockchain sphere is in English.

⏩ Part 2: Become a solidity EXPERT

▶ Step 5: Learn Solidity. (beginner to intermediate)

Once you’re done with the basics, it’s time to start:
Cryptozombie: https://cryptozombies.io/ is by far the most recommended resource to begin if you have ZERO experience.

▶ Step 6: Create Solidity projects.

At this point, you need to confront the real life and start gaining “true” experience. Your goal is now to build some web3 projects, here is some ideas:

An upgradable NFT smart contract
A personal Portfolio (where you can expose your creations and your resume.)
A DAO (Decentralized autonomous organization)
A Reflexion Token with taxes on each transfer.

▶ Step 7: Diving deeper into solidity.

Learn Reverse Engineering of smart contracts: https://medium.com/@TrustChain/list/reversing-and-degugging-evm-smart-contracts-f4dd9195d07b .
Ethereum documentation: https://ethereum.org/en/developers/docs/ where you can learn a lot of interesting stuff.
Smart contract programmer is a YouTube channel with lot of content about web3: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJWh7F3AFyQ_x01VKzr9eyA .

⏩ Part 3: Learn Solidity Cybersecurity

If you’re a web3 dev, you obviously don’t want that someone drain all you smart contract funds, as a result you need the have more than the basics about cybersecurity on blockchain to avoid hacks.

(If you don’t want to be a blockchain auditor, you can skip step 9 and 10)

▶ Step 8: Practice solidity CTF challenges.

A “CTF” is a “cybersecurity” challenge where your goal is to “hack” a vulnerable smart contract (deployed on testnet of course, without real money). It’s like hacking but without any illegal purpose.

You will quickly get familiar with all well-know vulnerability on Ethereum.

Here is well-known CTFs:

▶ Step 9: Practice your AUDIT skills in real life.

Once you’re comfortable with most of the CTFs, you can practice on real life projects.

Read some audit report by already known blockchain security companies in order to be familiar of the report methodology and the list of security flaws. (You can go here: https://hashex.org/audits/conducted-audits, https://solidproof.io/projects or here: https://hacken.io/audits/)
Chose some already audited projects by big blockchain security companies and try to audit them again WITHOUT seeing the true report, once you’re done, compare YOUR audit report with the COMPANY’s audit report and observe what you have done right & wrong.
Repeat on a dozen of projects in order to build your real life audit skills.

Many of the Ethereum vulnerability are stored here: https://swcregistry.io/

▶ Step 10: Reproduce known HACKS.

To grow up you practical cybersecurity skills, you need to understand how previous smart contract were hacked.

The more you’ve learnt how smart contract were hacked, the best you will be to recognize theses flaws in your next challenges!

https://rekt.news/ shows the most prominent hacks in DEFI, you can easy find the source code of the projects, redeploy the contract and retry the hack. (If you can’t find the flaw by yourself, you can still search someone who explains happened on google.)

▶ Step 10bis (optional) : Do some bug bounty

Bug bounty is like CTF, but there is 2 differences:

Instead of “testnet” smart contract, you try to find flaws on already deployed projects on mainnet.
if you find a flaw or a bug you can get an amount of money.

This is optional, but it can significantly improve your resume.

▶ Step 11: Get Informed

The sphere of blockchain is evolving at a very fast rate.

What was true 3 months a go may be not true today!

This is why you need (at all cost) to setup your own personal feed.

I use Inoreader (https://www.inoreader.com/) to combine all my sources of information (Blogs, YouTube, Telegram, Podcasts, Newsletters, Twitter and so on…) in one place.

This is a lot easier, and I check my own feed 1–2 times a day when I’m done with my work, there is a high number of advantages with this method:

You don’t need one account for every social media.
It’s a lot more practical.
The social media “algorithm” can’t recommend “trashy” content to you.
You can include your own CSS to personalize the feed theme.
And a lot more.

⏩ Part 4: Build an UNBREAKABLE network.

Yo may already head that “your network is your net-worth”.

This is TRUE is every aspect of life, but even more on crypto. If don’t know anyone, all you knowledge is worthless.

Unfortunately, this is the hardest part of this series, unlike PART 1–3 where you can advance and learn very fast, building a network is way more costly in time and in resources.

▶ Step 12: Build a social media presence. (and create content)

You can try to REGULARLY post content on:

LinkedIn, a must have in your professional carrier.
Twitter, if you like drama.
Medium, if you like to write and share your knowledge (like me).
YouTube, if you like to post videos and share your knowledge.
Instagram/TikTok.

Chose 1 or 2 platforms MAXIMUM and try to build an audience here, when you will be seeking a job, you social media presence will yield you a decisive advantage against others applicants.

You may be able (also) to earn passive income from your content (by using ads or affiliation) without adding more work.

▶ Step 13: Join communities, DAOs or meetups.

You can join communities on Telegram and on discord to build step by step your reputation.

You can answer to questions.
Discuss with other members.
Show that you’re implied in the project.

This will allow you to build your network, to make new friends to improve your skills.

Maybe at one time, some people of your “network” will need a smart contract developer and/or auditor. As they already trust your by your “friendship”, you can get the job.

If you want to dive deeper:

How to Network and Make Friends in Crypto

Stop trying to approach people on LinkedIn, you need to understand the structure of content, conversation, and…

medium.com

▶ Step 14: Learn basics of psychology and marketing

If you want to be hired for a job and gain the upper-hand among others you need to develop your social skills.

This book is the best in order to achieve this objective: https://www.amazon.fr/influence-Persuasion-Robert-Cialdini-PhD/dp/006124189X

⏩ Part 5: Conclusion.

Mastering blockchain is not a skill as hard as thought. Especially the solidity language which is way easier that most of others programming language.

Since blockchain is a “high paying” skill, there will be more and more people entering in the market and hence more competition.

I advise you to start right now before it’s too late.