Navigation
Become a Blockchain developer
Whoever provides a solution to this problem proves work has been done by confirming the validity of the transaction in the block to be added to the ledger. If a majority confirms the solution, that endorses the entry of the transaction into the ledger. Proof of Stake - proof of stake is a way of allocating proof of work to miners based on the stakes e. Thus, a majority consensus is not achieved by the number of nodes as they do not have equal voting right but by the number of tokens.
Whoever holds more tokens has a greater say. The choice of your consensus mechanism will depend on: Your chosen platform — for example, Bitcoin traditionally relies on proof of work, while Ethereum relies on both proof of work and proof of stake.
Your particular use-case. Part 2 of Establish the correct architecture. Every architect's basic work is to come up with a blueprint. This is the skeleton of your project. An appropriate blockchain DApp blueprint will incorporate the following: Most suitable platform - e. Ethereum, Hyperledger, Corda, Iris, etc The most appropriate coding language - e. The coding language will depend on the chosen platform How the nodes are going to interact and transact How the consensus mechanism is going to be achieved.
Create a white paper. In simple terms, a white paper is a business plan for your DApp project. It incorporates the technical, financial, and marketing aspects of your project.
Inject resources into the project. Any project in development requires appropriate resources. Your DApp is no exception. The following are the key resources you will need for your project: Capital - e. Teams - e. Code and test the DApp. The coding framework and language are set out as part of the blueprint. The developers will go about implementing the blueprint as per the specifications provided. Therefore, the blueprint must be laid out in a way in which it can be easily understood by developers.
Once the coding is complete, it is delivered to the audit team to test and verify its efficacy as per requirements. Part 3 of Launch the DApp. Launching is publicly declaring the availability of the DApp to target users. It includes deploying it to the platform and providing the necessary resources that enable users to utilize the DApp. These resources include user documentation, technical documentation for maintenance , supporting tools, and support contacts.
Market the DApp. Marketing is simply matching the solution with consumers in such a way that both the consumer and the solution provider can exchange gainful value. For the solution provider, this is the income from sales of the DApp, whereas the consumer receives a solution to a problem they are experiencing. Include your email address to get a message when this question is answered. Related wikiHows. More References 1. Co-authors: Updated: October 24, Categories: Cryptocurrencies.
Thanks to all authors for creating a page that has been read 7, times. Did this article help you? Yes No. Cookies make wikiHow better. By continuing to use our site, you agree to our cookie policy. About This Article. By signing up you are agreeing to receive emails according to our privacy policy. Follow Us. Gregory: Yeah, it's a really good question. And you know, I can tell you just from my experience because I went through all of this.
When I started learning blockchain, there were barely any resources online about how to get started. And anyone that you could find was so outdated because it moves so fast, you know what I mean? And that was one of the reasons I saw a massive opportunity to create Dapp University, was there were clearly people that were searching this out, wanting to get on this train, and wanted to catch this massive trend, right?
And when I created, I put up that first video, people flocked to it. So I mean the video did well I thought, people received it well, at least were able to get use out of it utility right, to learn that. So I've kind of seen what are the pain points. Gregory: I'll be perfectly honest. It's hard, you know, it's hard to get started. It's sort of like anything else. You move into new technology and there's sort of this brain cramp that you get because you, especially if you're experienced with tech already, you sort of have a lot of knowledge that you take for granted and all this context that makes it somewhat more comfortable.
And then when you switch to something that does not work the same way, if you're learning new programming language for example, there's always a little bit of a context switch that's painful.
But I've tried to take really common use cases and sort of create blockchain versions of them so that that's easier for you to make that transition.
Gregory: So like some of the more full stack tutorials that you're used to doing, we just sort of port those over to blockchain to begin with. That's not necessarily the best use case for blockchain longterm, you want to graduate beyond that to build really good use cases for blockchain, but that's one way that I've tried to help people get started is to kind of tackle some of the use cases you're familiar with to show you how that would work on the blockchain.
John: Okay. I see. I mean, that makes sense because when I used to do … I did a lot of Pluralsight courses, I used to have one app that I used to create on almost all the courses, called Protein Tracker, which was a real simple app with a user interface that lets you track how many grams of protein you eat per day, just had real simple functionality, but I did different programming languages and different frameworks and I implemented it in all those because I figured that people that had watched my other courses were familiar with it and then they could make that transition.
I think it's a really great way to get started, right? At the end of the day, you want to use the tool for what it's really designed to do and so you kind of have to move out and some of those use cases to use the blockchain for what it's supposed to do.
But I think it's a really great way to get started and just sort of learn the ABCs and the fundamentals. Gregory: Another way that I tell people to help get started is just use the blockchain before you start even getting into code, right? Just learn to, you know, it's less than the price of a cup of coffee. Don't risk a great amount of money doing this. Or if you don't want to spend any money, there are blockchain test networks that you can use and just get fake cryptocurrency and start just sending it around.
John: I think the concept of fake cryptocurrency is pretty funny actually because you have something that is technically just like fake, right? It's been invented, but then you've got a fake of fake, it's ….
Gregory: That's right. That's right. It's a little comical when you think about it, but so, I mean, quick, quick explanation of why those things exist in the first place. So the primary blockchain that I focus on is Ethereum, so when you run a test network, it's a way for you to basically see how your app would work on a real blockchain, not just a test one that you create.
And Ethereum, you always have to pay gas fees whenever you deploy smart contracts to the network and basically hook your app up. So you have to have some money to do it, and it's like fake money. Fake money of fake money. All right. So, if someone starts off by actually using it, that makes a lot of sense. And then I like the idea that you've got the paradigms that they already understand, these apps, but one thing that I really liked that when we were talking about your bootcamp was that you actually teach people how to build an actual trading network or what do you call it, like a platform, like a trading platform to actually trade crypto, which seems like a very complex thing.
I mean, it seems like it would take teams of hundreds of developers to create, and that's very practical I think, like you were saying. Tell me a little bit more about that. Is that kind of like the master project that they create? Gregory: Yeah, yeah, totally.
So inside my blockchain developer bootcamp, we have a section where I teach a lot of the fundamentals, but then we have our capstone project and that's really where your learning all comes together, right? And that's exactly what we build in the capstone project is, I call it a real world project, a real world cryptocurrency exchange that actually runs on the blockchain. You build all the smart contracts to trade the cryptocurrencies, you build out the client side application to actually talk to it, and it runs.
You can deploy it to a test network, start trading real world cryptocurrencies, all that kind of stuff. John: Wow. Which guy are you going to hire the guy that made it so that this pizza restaurant you could order with Bitcoin and accepted Bitcoin payments or a guy that actually implemented a full on trading platform? And that's another reason that I went with that as the project for the capstone. And part of the bootcamp is this focus on sort of marketing yourself as a blockchain developer.
Sound familiar? But no, I think your audience is really aware of how critical it is to market yourself and the different things that you can do to stack the deck in your favor. And this is definitely something, to have a real world project that is sophisticated, and I teach you how to do it step by step. John: Nice. So you know, one thing I think people will be curious about would be kind of your story of just coming into all of this.
How did you even become, you know, like you said, I think you talked a little bit about it, but what even got you into becoming a blockchain developer and then what's the success that you've personally seen?
I mean, obviously I know a lot of people aren't necessarily going to create educational sites on blockchain development, but the nice thing about you is that you're a practitioner as well because you actually are a freelancer doing freelance work on the blockchain as well as teaching other people.
But what's your story? How did you actually come into this and then where did it take you? Gregory: Sure, sure. So I got into blockchain like a lot of other people, I mean was watching cryptocurrency prices move. I was like, wow. That got my attention. When you see something go up that fast and hearing all these people making all this kind of money about if you bought Bitcoin when it first came out, how rich you'd be today.
And I think that gets a lot of people's attention and there's no shame in that. I mean it's pretty spectacular. But that wasn't what kept me around necessarily. That's what sort of hooked me in, and then I wanted to learn about the actual technology.
Gregory: And so I thought to myself like, what if I could have gone back in time and been one of the world's first web developers, right, how exciting that would've been. And it's like, well I sort of have this chance to be one of the world's first blockchain developers. And that was honestly what got me coding, got me building stuff. From there I realized this massive opportunity to create educational resources because I was out there learning the hard way on my own, putting things together, trying to read documentation that was out of date, maybe finding a blog post here and there that had some value to it but ultimately was also out of date and it was just, actually, it was the wild west and still kind of is the wild west.
Gregory: But that's one of the things I really like about Dapp University. Hopefully it's an oasis in this desert of people trying to find information about how to do it. I've at least got a lot of positive response back from people who got a lot out of it. So that's how I got started. That's how I kind of got started with Dapp University.
As far as working professionally as a freelancer, I kind of just started hustling at the beginning. I'd had some freelance experience in the past and I knew how to just like hustle and kind of just get started. It may be humbling to start making a little bit less than what you were on something else, just to get that experience really quickly, but as soon as you get that experience, just start raising the prices up.
Gregory: And then as I started creating content out there, people started reaching out to me for freelancing and that has taken me to build some pretty high paying stuff. Like I talked about that service where I was able to charge 20, for about a week of work. And also, you know, there's all kinds of stuff. John: Oh, nice. I mean it's definitely an amazing story to see that. And it's cool to see someone that's actually done it, actually gone through this, and that you just started off just being curious about cryptocurrency and becoming one of the first developers.
Well, here's the big question is, is this still, you know, the question everyone always asks is, is it too late? Is the gold rush already over or is it still the early, like you can still become one of the first blockchain developers?
Gregory: Short answer, no, it is not. You have not missed the boat. I mean, have you missed the boat to buy Bitcoin for a dollar? But you know, as far as getting into the tech, I mean it's still early and there's still a lot of work to be done.
I talked about how this industry is growing and honestly it's sort of like some of these businesses who come in second to market are a little more successful than the ones that come in first to market. You can learn from other people's mistakes as a blockchain developer, start to get tools as they're a little more mature, and honestly, your experience of onboarding might be a little better.
John: Yeah, yeah. That's always been the Microsoft strategy, right, is they come in second and then wait for the first movers and they make the product better afterwards. So yeah, okay. So yeah, that's definitely a good opportunity. And what's the timeframe? What do they need to know ahead of time in order to become a blockchain developer? Or do they need to know anything?
And then how long does it take them? Gregory: Right. So I've changed my opinion on this a little bit, honestly, since I've been working with this. Initially, you kind of have to break it down the spectrum of somebody who knows nothing about programming at all, like they don't even know how to edit a text file with a text editor, up to somebody who's basically a senior developer and just wants to try a new field.
So to the senior developer who just wants to try a new field, they could probably be competent in a month or less, you know what I mean? Especially if they-. Gregory: I think so, yeah.
If they're really good, right? And that's if you're going for it. But if you want to give yourself a more casual timeline, you need several months. For somebody who's brand new, at first I would say, hey, go learn a little bit of JavaScript, go learn a little bit of this before you jump into this, but I've changed my opinion on this where if you know that blockchain is what you want to do, just go though learn the thing you want to do and learn all the other pieces that you need to know to do that task and fill in those gaps as you go.
John: Yeah, that makes sense to me. I like that approach for learning. I feel like it's easier to learn something when you have a purpose as well, right. I mean, what? Are you going to learn all of JavaScript? Yeah, okay. You can do it for sure, but it's going to take you a long time. So I would say honestly if you're in that position, you're a rank beginner and you want to just become productive in someone's pipeline, I would say the learning curve is about the same as it would be for just becoming a full stack developer from scratch.
So whatever timeline you would estimate for yourself to do that, I would assume the same for blockchain. And that's if you kind of go into a company and you have someone that's kind of helping manage you and you're able to just be a sort of a piece of their pipeline and very focused and very specialized as a beginner, which is probably what you're going to do if you're a junior developer and you get your first job anyway.
John: Right, yeah. That makes a lot of sense. Now someone who becomes a blockchain developer, what kind of things can they do to increase, to make sure that they're actually highly paid, that they're going to make a lot of money as a blockchain developer? Or does it not matter? Is it just you're going to make a lot of money if you just have this skill set? Gregory: Well, I think on average, if you just have this skill set, you're going to make more than other developers, but you can certainly optimize that.
And I think the optimizations look pretty similar to what you'd do in other fields. But I'll just throw some of those at you right now. So one thing is you don't necessarily have to live in San Francisco to work in San Francisco, and especially for blockchain, it's a highly remote workforce because not everybody can reach their arm out and find a blockchain developer.
Not everybody can find one down the street who can come into their office. So the source of income is global. And you're talking about an industry that's lush with capital, especially people who have raised massive amounts of money through ICOs and all that kind of stuff, venture capital as well. Gregory: So that's what I would say.
I've heard John talk about this a lot, basically don't apply for one job, apply for 10 jobs. Well it gets a lot easier to do that when you can apply all over the world. Gregory: So if you're looking for a job, that's what I would say, is don't just rely on one person, really pit them against each other and let them fight for your skills because they're going to do it.
I mean, your skills are going to be in demand. John: Yeah. Okay, okay. That makes sense. And so yeah, so there's nothing really specifically that they need to do in order to increase their earnings as a blockchain developer, just by virtue of being a blockchain developer and applying at a global scale.
That's what you say is the best thing? Gregory: I would say so, yeah. I don't think there's necessarily anything magical about the blockchain. I mean, just like everything else, having a good portfolio, having something that shows that you're a human that people connect with, having video even like this, you don't have to go start up some crazy blog necessarily if you don't want to, but even something where people … Personalizing your outreach to companies is a huge factor and that's going to be true of any tech but also true for blockchain.
John: So what do you cover in the bootcamp? How do you take people through? What's kind of the breakdown of this? I think a lot of people would probably be interested in signing up for it. Gregory: So the bootcamp is designed to start off assuming that you know nothing or very little about blockchain, but then we quickly move to giving you the skills that you need to be a blockchain developer.
So it's true bootcamp fashion. We move kind of fast, but the outcome is that you really have the knowledge and the skills to do what you need to do and become highly paid. So I take you through a lot of the conceptual material, just basics, like what is a blockchain, how does it work, how do you get started? How does Ethereum work?
How do tokens work? How do you set up your developer environment? How do you install MetaMask to interact with decentralized applications and stuff like that? All the real basics just to get started. But people who already know all that stuff are quickly going to get challenged once we get into the capstone.
That's where the rubber really meets the road and we flesh out the skills to where they're robust and viable for you to get hired. John: Okay, okay. So you take them pretty much from the beginning of not even really knowing a lot about blockchain to again to that capstone project at the end where they're getting everything they need along the way in order to be able to actually build this training platform.
Gregory: The capstone is where we build the cryptocurrency exchange and we go in depth. It goes way beyond any of the other tutorials that I've put out there on the web. Gregory: Yeah, I've got this question a lot.
The following content is text taken from the above infographic and provided to you in an easy copy and paste format. Please feel free to use it in any writing that references this article.
The information contained herein is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be used or considered to be financial or investment advice nor an endorsement of any projects, companies or websites mentioned.
The information is provided as is without any guarantee about its correctness nor its adequacy to make financial or investment decisions. Investing in cryptocurrencies or tokens is highly speculative and anyone considering such investment should be prepared to lose their entire investment. The information on this site is intended for informational, educational, and research purposes only. So, you know, I'll start up near the high end to kind of give you … I like to start there.
And that's when the report was published. But you can actually get on hired. And the the stats are changing over time. I think the last time I checked it was even higher than that. So you can click around in different cities and see what your average would be. But I put it this way, it's going to be a lot easier for you to earn a six figure income in blockchain maybe than other areas because even if you're junior in blockchain, almost everybody's junior in blockchain who gets started because the field is so new.
John: Right, okay. What's kind of the highest that you've ever heard of someone doing? Because I know it caps out for a lot of development positions, but I remember when the whole quant and financial, I mean even still in New York you can still find jobs that are extremely … like if you're really good in the statistical modeling of options trading and stuff like that, you can make a lot of money.
So what do you think or what have you seen for blockchain? John: Yeah, that's pretty amazing. Good job on that by the way. But yeah, that's pretty amazing. That's pretty cool. You have to definitely have the talent to be able to pull off something like that. But, I think one of the things that was really cool and especially with your business, was that we were talking about how there's a lot of people that need blockchain developers.
They need your services, especially some of the companies that are trying to do ICOs, and so they're willing to pay a lot of money to someone who can do that. And there's not that many people that they can really turn to that can be able to deliver what they need. And it's a classic supply and demand problem. You know what I mean?
There's all these kind of gold miners who are coming in and trying to prospect and create new businesses, and they need technical talent in order to get these businesses off the ground.
And it's not even just startups, big institutional money's getting into this. Deloitte put out a survey about all these companies that are researching blockchain and what they're kind of using.
So yeah, it's classic supply and demand problem and that's really what's driving the price of compensation for developers. And this trend, I don't see it slowing down anytime soon. John: Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.
Yeah, for sure. I mean, you'd say there's probably a pretty big shortage of blockchain developers in general then? Gregory: Yeah. I don't know if I mentioned this statistic yet, but on the hired.
John: That's insane. That's ridiculous growth. So yeah, so there's definitely going to be a problem where there's not going to be enough developers to fill those. I'm sure even now there's not enough to fill the spots.
So this would be something that someone, either if you're starting out, would be good to get into because there you go, this is a very lucrative field and you're going to be able to be hired a lot easier. Or if you're even just a mid level or senior developer and you're looking for something that's going to pay you more money or something that's exciting and fun to work in, pretty easy to transition into this, I would say.
Yeah, totally. I think so for sure. I mean, you're going to have a huge leg up if you have really strong technical skills. I mean, working with blockchain is a big paradigm shift and you kind of have to really learn about how that works.
But that's kind of one of the reasons I built this resource, Dapp University, my YouTube channel, and my website, is to help people kind of cross that gap and overcome that learning curve in hopefully a pretty sensible way.
John: Okay, okay, okay. Yeah, yeah. That's what I'm going to ask you about next because that's what I'm curious about. In fact, guys, we'll talk about this a little bit more, but Gregory has a course, basically not even of course, really a bootcamp on how to become a blockchain developer, which we'll have a link below if you can't wait and you need to get ahold of it now. But we'll be talking about that a little bit later on.
Okay, well here I can just take these tutorials, I can learn Python. Gregory: Yeah, it's a really good question. And you know, I can tell you just from my experience because I went through all of this. When I started learning blockchain, there were barely any resources online about how to get started. And anyone that you could find was so outdated because it moves so fast, you know what I mean?
And that was one of the reasons I saw a massive opportunity to create Dapp University, was there were clearly people that were searching this out, wanting to get on this train, and wanted to catch this massive trend, right? And when I created, I put up that first video, people flocked to it. So I mean the video did well I thought, people received it well, at least were able to get use out of it utility right, to learn that.
So I've kind of seen what are the pain points. Gregory: I'll be perfectly honest. It's hard, you know, it's hard to get started. It's sort of like anything else. You move into new technology and there's sort of this brain cramp that you get because you, especially if you're experienced with tech already, you sort of have a lot of knowledge that you take for granted and all this context that makes it somewhat more comfortable.
And then when you switch to something that does not work the same way, if you're learning new programming language for example, there's always a little bit of a context switch that's painful. But I've tried to take really common use cases and sort of create blockchain versions of them so that that's easier for you to make that transition.
Gregory: So like some of the more full stack tutorials that you're used to doing, we just sort of port those over to blockchain to begin with. That's not necessarily the best use case for blockchain longterm, you want to graduate beyond that to build really good use cases for blockchain, but that's one way that I've tried to help people get started is to kind of tackle some of the use cases you're familiar with to show you how that would work on the blockchain. John: Okay. I see. I mean, that makes sense because when I used to do … I did a lot of Pluralsight courses, I used to have one app that I used to create on almost all the courses, called Protein Tracker, which was a real simple app with a user interface that lets you track how many grams of protein you eat per day, just had real simple functionality, but I did different programming languages and different frameworks and I implemented it in all those because I figured that people that had watched my other courses were familiar with it and then they could make that transition.
I think it's a really great way to get started, right? At the end of the day, you want to use the tool for what it's really designed to do and so you kind of have to move out and some of those use cases to use the blockchain for what it's supposed to do. But I think it's a really great way to get started and just sort of learn the ABCs and the fundamentals.
Gregory: Another way that I tell people to help get started is just use the blockchain before you start even getting into code, right? Just learn to, you know, it's less than the price of a cup of coffee. Don't risk a great amount of money doing this. Or if you don't want to spend any money, there are blockchain test networks that you can use and just get fake cryptocurrency and start just sending it around. John: I think the concept of fake cryptocurrency is pretty funny actually because you have something that is technically just like fake, right?
It's been invented, but then you've got a fake of fake, it's …. Gregory: That's right. That's right. It's a little comical when you think about it, but so, I mean, quick, quick explanation of why those things exist in the first place. So the primary blockchain that I focus on is Ethereum, so when you run a test network, it's a way for you to basically see how your app would work on a real blockchain, not just a test one that you create.
And Ethereum, you always have to pay gas fees whenever you deploy smart contracts to the network and basically hook your app up. So you have to have some money to do it, and it's like fake money.
Fake money of fake money. All right. So, if someone starts off by actually using it, that makes a lot of sense. And then I like the idea that you've got the paradigms that they already understand, these apps, but one thing that I really liked that when we were talking about your bootcamp was that you actually teach people how to build an actual trading network or what do you call it, like a platform, like a trading platform to actually trade crypto, which seems like a very complex thing.
I mean, it seems like it would take teams of hundreds of developers to create, and that's very practical I think, like you were saying. Tell me a little bit more about that. Is that kind of like the master project that they create? Gregory: Yeah, yeah, totally. So inside my blockchain developer bootcamp, we have a section where I teach a lot of the fundamentals, but then we have our capstone project and that's really where your learning all comes together, right?
And that's exactly what we build in the capstone project is, I call it a real world project, a real world cryptocurrency exchange that actually runs on the blockchain. You build all the smart contracts to trade the cryptocurrencies, you build out the client side application to actually talk to it, and it runs. You can deploy it to a test network, start trading real world cryptocurrencies, all that kind of stuff. John: Wow. Which guy are you going to hire the guy that made it so that this pizza restaurant you could order with Bitcoin and accepted Bitcoin payments or a guy that actually implemented a full on trading platform?
And that's another reason that I went with that as the project for the capstone. And part of the bootcamp is this focus on sort of marketing yourself as a blockchain developer. Sound familiar? But no, I think your audience is really aware of how critical it is to market yourself and the different things that you can do to stack the deck in your favor.
And this is definitely something, to have a real world project that is sophisticated, and I teach you how to do it step by step. John: Nice. So you know, one thing I think people will be curious about would be kind of your story of just coming into all of this.
How did you even become, you know, like you said, I think you talked a little bit about it, but what even got you into becoming a blockchain developer and then what's the success that you've personally seen? I mean, obviously I know a lot of people aren't necessarily going to create educational sites on blockchain development, but the nice thing about you is that you're a practitioner as well because you actually are a freelancer doing freelance work on the blockchain as well as teaching other people.
But what's your story? How did you actually come into this and then where did it take you? Gregory: Sure, sure. So I got into blockchain like a lot of other people, I mean was watching cryptocurrency prices move.
I was like, wow. That got my attention. The advantage of Web3 is that it can dynamically create abstractions objects to represent a smart contract. It comes with its distinct Github repo. It allows you to run a command to trigger a local Ethereum node and get ten addresses pre-funded with Ether. Dapps uses Metamask while requesting a user to sign a transaction and sanction it. While smart contracts make up the foundation of Dapps, Solidity is the primary language choice for writing smart contracts.
Smart contracts are nothing but small programs that can run autonomously once deployed on the Ethereum network. Most people resort to learning Solidity with CryptoZombies, a game designed to introduce and teach the fundamentals of Solidity by generating an army of Zombies in a smart contract.
While this is an exciting way to learn Solidity, you should also be thorough with the official Solidity Documentation for it is the most comprehensive guide on Solidity. It is updated regularly and will teach you the basics of Solidity, including the primary variable types, the main control structures, and the overall structure of a smart contract. Dapps allow users to interact with them seamlessly.
Before building a Dapp, you must understand how it works. When you visit the Cryptokitties website, you land on the main user-interface — the frontend part looks just like a standard web app, and the backend is deployed on private servers. Then begins the Blockchain layer with Metamask. The players use Metamask to transfer Ether to Cryptokitties. After this comes to the smart contract that stores all the game data. Since the smart contract is deployed on the Ethereum network, it is hosted by multiple machines simultaneously.
This is precisely the design of a Dapp. Then you have the browser extension here, Metamask , and then finally, you have the smart contracts. To successfully develop a Dapp, you must ensure that these three layers can communicate with one another seamlessly.
How much blockchain developers REALLY make?
You think that working for k a year in SF is great for your finances Demand and offer for blockchain developers The number of job posting for posting for developers has grown considerably for the past few years. If how follow this plan, you can become a Blockchain developer in month money and find a job at a crypto startup in this timeframe. Ideally, make should have at least another motivation. The Ethereum protocol is at the basis of smart contracts and Dapps. As you might know, each block made by the users features a unique hash. Developer leads us blockchain the end of how to create a blockchain article. Especially if they.
Location is everything
Or if you're even just a mid level or senior developer and you're looking for something that's going to pay you more money blockchain something that's exciting and fun to work in, pretty easy to transition into money, I would developer. Part 2 of What kind of things do blockchain developers do? It has reliably processed transactions how almost a decade, and its the most used Blockchain. As far as make professionally as a freelancer, I kind of just started hustling at the beginning.
Spread the Words
And anyone that you could find was so outdated because it moves so fast, you know what I mean? And that was one of the reasons I saw a massive opportunity to create Dapp University, was there were clearly people that were searching this out, wanting to get on this train, and wanted to catch this massive trend, right?
And when I created, I put up that first video, people flocked to it. So I mean the video did well I thought, people received it well, at least were able to get use out of it utility right, to learn that. So I've kind of seen what are the pain points. Gregory: I'll be perfectly honest. It's hard, you know, it's hard to get started. It's sort of like anything else. You move into new technology and there's sort of this brain cramp that you get because you, especially if you're experienced with tech already, you sort of have a lot of knowledge that you take for granted and all this context that makes it somewhat more comfortable.
And then when you switch to something that does not work the same way, if you're learning new programming language for example, there's always a little bit of a context switch that's painful. But I've tried to take really common use cases and sort of create blockchain versions of them so that that's easier for you to make that transition.
Gregory: So like some of the more full stack tutorials that you're used to doing, we just sort of port those over to blockchain to begin with. That's not necessarily the best use case for blockchain longterm, you want to graduate beyond that to build really good use cases for blockchain, but that's one way that I've tried to help people get started is to kind of tackle some of the use cases you're familiar with to show you how that would work on the blockchain.
John: Okay. I see. I mean, that makes sense because when I used to do … I did a lot of Pluralsight courses, I used to have one app that I used to create on almost all the courses, called Protein Tracker, which was a real simple app with a user interface that lets you track how many grams of protein you eat per day, just had real simple functionality, but I did different programming languages and different frameworks and I implemented it in all those because I figured that people that had watched my other courses were familiar with it and then they could make that transition.
I think it's a really great way to get started, right? At the end of the day, you want to use the tool for what it's really designed to do and so you kind of have to move out and some of those use cases to use the blockchain for what it's supposed to do. But I think it's a really great way to get started and just sort of learn the ABCs and the fundamentals. Gregory: Another way that I tell people to help get started is just use the blockchain before you start even getting into code, right?
Just learn to, you know, it's less than the price of a cup of coffee. Don't risk a great amount of money doing this. Or if you don't want to spend any money, there are blockchain test networks that you can use and just get fake cryptocurrency and start just sending it around. John: I think the concept of fake cryptocurrency is pretty funny actually because you have something that is technically just like fake, right?
It's been invented, but then you've got a fake of fake, it's …. Gregory: That's right. That's right. It's a little comical when you think about it, but so, I mean, quick, quick explanation of why those things exist in the first place. So the primary blockchain that I focus on is Ethereum, so when you run a test network, it's a way for you to basically see how your app would work on a real blockchain, not just a test one that you create.
And Ethereum, you always have to pay gas fees whenever you deploy smart contracts to the network and basically hook your app up. So you have to have some money to do it, and it's like fake money. Fake money of fake money. All right. So, if someone starts off by actually using it, that makes a lot of sense.
And then I like the idea that you've got the paradigms that they already understand, these apps, but one thing that I really liked that when we were talking about your bootcamp was that you actually teach people how to build an actual trading network or what do you call it, like a platform, like a trading platform to actually trade crypto, which seems like a very complex thing.
I mean, it seems like it would take teams of hundreds of developers to create, and that's very practical I think, like you were saying. Tell me a little bit more about that. Is that kind of like the master project that they create?
Gregory: Yeah, yeah, totally. So inside my blockchain developer bootcamp, we have a section where I teach a lot of the fundamentals, but then we have our capstone project and that's really where your learning all comes together, right?
And that's exactly what we build in the capstone project is, I call it a real world project, a real world cryptocurrency exchange that actually runs on the blockchain. You build all the smart contracts to trade the cryptocurrencies, you build out the client side application to actually talk to it, and it runs. You can deploy it to a test network, start trading real world cryptocurrencies, all that kind of stuff. John: Wow. Which guy are you going to hire the guy that made it so that this pizza restaurant you could order with Bitcoin and accepted Bitcoin payments or a guy that actually implemented a full on trading platform?
And that's another reason that I went with that as the project for the capstone. And part of the bootcamp is this focus on sort of marketing yourself as a blockchain developer. Sound familiar? But no, I think your audience is really aware of how critical it is to market yourself and the different things that you can do to stack the deck in your favor. And this is definitely something, to have a real world project that is sophisticated, and I teach you how to do it step by step.
John: Nice. So you know, one thing I think people will be curious about would be kind of your story of just coming into all of this. How did you even become, you know, like you said, I think you talked a little bit about it, but what even got you into becoming a blockchain developer and then what's the success that you've personally seen? I mean, obviously I know a lot of people aren't necessarily going to create educational sites on blockchain development, but the nice thing about you is that you're a practitioner as well because you actually are a freelancer doing freelance work on the blockchain as well as teaching other people.
But what's your story? How did you actually come into this and then where did it take you? Gregory: Sure, sure. So I got into blockchain like a lot of other people, I mean was watching cryptocurrency prices move.
I was like, wow. That got my attention. When you see something go up that fast and hearing all these people making all this kind of money about if you bought Bitcoin when it first came out, how rich you'd be today.
And I think that gets a lot of people's attention and there's no shame in that. I mean it's pretty spectacular. But that wasn't what kept me around necessarily. That's what sort of hooked me in, and then I wanted to learn about the actual technology.
Gregory: And so I thought to myself like, what if I could have gone back in time and been one of the world's first web developers, right, how exciting that would've been. And it's like, well I sort of have this chance to be one of the world's first blockchain developers. And that was honestly what got me coding, got me building stuff.
From there I realized this massive opportunity to create educational resources because I was out there learning the hard way on my own, putting things together, trying to read documentation that was out of date, maybe finding a blog post here and there that had some value to it but ultimately was also out of date and it was just, actually, it was the wild west and still kind of is the wild west.
Gregory: But that's one of the things I really like about Dapp University. Hopefully it's an oasis in this desert of people trying to find information about how to do it. I've at least got a lot of positive response back from people who got a lot out of it.
So that's how I got started. That's how I kind of got started with Dapp University. As far as working professionally as a freelancer, I kind of just started hustling at the beginning. I'd had some freelance experience in the past and I knew how to just like hustle and kind of just get started.
It may be humbling to start making a little bit less than what you were on something else, just to get that experience really quickly, but as soon as you get that experience, just start raising the prices up. Gregory: And then as I started creating content out there, people started reaching out to me for freelancing and that has taken me to build some pretty high paying stuff.
Like I talked about that service where I was able to charge 20, for about a week of work. And also, you know, there's all kinds of stuff. John: Oh, nice. I mean it's definitely an amazing story to see that. And it's cool to see someone that's actually done it, actually gone through this, and that you just started off just being curious about cryptocurrency and becoming one of the first developers. Well, here's the big question is, is this still, you know, the question everyone always asks is, is it too late?
Is the gold rush already over or is it still the early, like you can still become one of the first blockchain developers? Gregory: Short answer, no, it is not. You have not missed the boat. I mean, have you missed the boat to buy Bitcoin for a dollar? But you know, as far as getting into the tech, I mean it's still early and there's still a lot of work to be done.
I talked about how this industry is growing and honestly it's sort of like some of these businesses who come in second to market are a little more successful than the ones that come in first to market. You can learn from other people's mistakes as a blockchain developer, start to get tools as they're a little more mature, and honestly, your experience of onboarding might be a little better.
John: Yeah, yeah. That's always been the Microsoft strategy, right, is they come in second and then wait for the first movers and they make the product better afterwards. So yeah, okay. So yeah, that's definitely a good opportunity. And what's the timeframe? What do they need to know ahead of time in order to become a blockchain developer? Or do they need to know anything? And then how long does it take them? Gregory: Right. So I've changed my opinion on this a little bit, honestly, since I've been working with this.
Initially, you kind of have to break it down the spectrum of somebody who knows nothing about programming at all, like they don't even know how to edit a text file with a text editor, up to somebody who's basically a senior developer and just wants to try a new field.
So to the senior developer who just wants to try a new field, they could probably be competent in a month or less, you know what I mean? Especially if they-. Gregory: I think so, yeah. If they're really good, right? And that's if you're going for it. But if you want to give yourself a more casual timeline, you need several months. For somebody who's brand new, at first I would say, hey, go learn a little bit of JavaScript, go learn a little bit of this before you jump into this, but I've changed my opinion on this where if you know that blockchain is what you want to do, just go though learn the thing you want to do and learn all the other pieces that you need to know to do that task and fill in those gaps as you go.
John: Yeah, that makes sense to me. I like that approach for learning. I feel like it's easier to learn something when you have a purpose as well, right. I mean, what? Are you going to learn all of JavaScript?
Yeah, okay. You can do it for sure, but it's going to take you a long time. So I would say honestly if you're in that position, you're a rank beginner and you want to just become productive in someone's pipeline, I would say the learning curve is about the same as it would be for just becoming a full stack developer from scratch.
So whatever timeline you would estimate for yourself to do that, I would assume the same for blockchain. And that's if you kind of go into a company and you have someone that's kind of helping manage you and you're able to just be a sort of a piece of their pipeline and very focused and very specialized as a beginner, which is probably what you're going to do if you're a junior developer and you get your first job anyway.
John: Right, yeah. That makes a lot of sense. Now someone who becomes a blockchain developer, what kind of things can they do to increase, to make sure that they're actually highly paid, that they're going to make a lot of money as a blockchain developer?
Or does it not matter? Is it just you're going to make a lot of money if you just have this skill set? Gregory: Well, I think on average, if you just have this skill set, you're going to make more than other developers, but you can certainly optimize that.
And I think the optimizations look pretty similar to what you'd do in other fields. But I'll just throw some of those at you right now. So one thing is you don't necessarily have to live in San Francisco to work in San Francisco, and especially for blockchain, it's a highly remote workforce because not everybody can reach their arm out and find a blockchain developer.
Not everybody can find one down the street who can come into their office. So the source of income is global. And you're talking about an industry that's lush with capital, especially people who have raised massive amounts of money through ICOs and all that kind of stuff, venture capital as well. Gregory: So that's what I would say. I've heard John talk about this a lot, basically don't apply for one job, apply for 10 jobs.
Well it gets a lot easier to do that when you can apply all over the world. Gregory: So if you're looking for a job, that's what I would say, is don't just rely on one person, really pit them against each other and let them fight for your skills because they're going to do it.
I mean, your skills are going to be in demand. John: Yeah. Okay, okay. That makes sense. And so yeah, so there's nothing really specifically that they need to do in order to increase their earnings as a blockchain developer, just by virtue of being a blockchain developer and applying at a global scale. That's what you say is the best thing? Gregory: I would say so, yeah. I don't think there's necessarily anything magical about the blockchain.
I mean, just like everything else, having a good portfolio, having something that shows that you're a human that people connect with, having video even like this, you don't have to go start up some crazy blog necessarily if you don't want to, but even something where people … Personalizing your outreach to companies is a huge factor and that's going to be true of any tech but also true for blockchain. John: So what do you cover in the bootcamp?
How do you take people through? What's kind of the breakdown of this? I think a lot of people would probably be interested in signing up for it. Gregory: So the bootcamp is designed to start off assuming that you know nothing or very little about blockchain, but then we quickly move to giving you the skills that you need to be a blockchain developer. So it's true bootcamp fashion. We move kind of fast, but the outcome is that you really have the knowledge and the skills to do what you need to do and become highly paid.
So I take you through a lot of the conceptual material, just basics, like what is a blockchain, how does it work, how do you get started? How does Ethereum work? How do tokens work? How do you set up your developer environment? How do you install MetaMask to interact with decentralized applications and stuff like that?
All the real basics just to get started. But people who already know all that stuff are quickly going to get challenged once we get into the capstone. That's where the rubber really meets the road and we flesh out the skills to where they're robust and viable for you to get hired. John: Okay, okay. So you take them pretty much from the beginning of not even really knowing a lot about blockchain to again to that capstone project at the end where they're getting everything they need along the way in order to be able to actually build this training platform.
Gregory: The capstone is where we build the cryptocurrency exchange and we go in depth. It goes way beyond any of the other tutorials that I've put out there on the web. Gregory: Yeah, I've got this question a lot. I've seen people do it pretty fast, like in a month or less, people who have experience. I would budget longer, especially if you're starting from square one.
Maybe give yourself a six to 12 week timeline if you want to learn at a comfortable pace. Now that you know about Ethereum, you are probably curious to know how we build applications on top of it the so-called Dapps.
But before being able to learn how to build Dapps, you need to learn about the tools that are required, and about smart contracts. Solc is the compiler of the Solidity programming language.
You can compile it directly from source, or more simply you can use a package in your favorite language. Web3 is a library used to communicate with Ethereum clients like Geth or Parity. Where web3 really shine is in its ability to dynamically create abstractions objects that represent a smart contract. These smart contract objects simplify a lot the interactions with a smart contract, and you can use them as if Ethereum had implemented an API specifically for each of the functions of your smart contract.
To learn about web3, checkout the official documentation , as well as my video tutorials on How to deploy a smart contract with web3 and How to call a smart contract method with web3. By the way, in you are into Python you will be happy to learn that a Python port of web3 also exist.
Oh, and make sure that you when follow a tutorial about web3 you know which version of web3 the tutorial is using: pre 1. Remix is an online IDE for Solidity smart contracts. Truffle is the most popular framework for developing Ethereum Dapps. It is written in Nodejs and has a strong community behind it. It has recently launched its own online academy and its own conference.
Truffle makes deploying smart contracts a breeze. Without Truffle, we would need to combine many different tools. The official Docs are very good, and if you prefer videos you can checkout my Introduction to Truffle. Ganache is a local Ethereum Blockchain used for development. With Ganache, you just need to run a command to start a local Ethereum node and have 10 addresses pre-funded with Ether fake Ether of course , which is very handy for development.
Metamask is an Ethereum wallet that is packaged as a browser extension. It is used by Dapps when requesting a user to sign a transaction. Transactions might send ether from the user address to another address, or simply change the value of a variable in a smart contract.
Metamask is available on Chrome and Firefox but the Chrome extension is more popular. Smart contracts are the main building blocks of Dapps. There are small programs deployed on the Ethereum Blockchain that run autonomously once deployed. It just runs forever, outside the control of anybody. Solidity is the main language that is used for writing smart contracts. It has a syntax that is similar to Javascript but the similarity is just cosmetic.
There is an intermediary compilation step, in which Solidity code is compiled to a bytecode that the Ethereum Virtual Machine the component of Ethereum that runs smart contracts can understand. Also, contrary to Javascript, Solidity is a typed language, which means that you need to specify the type of each variable. Contrary to Javascript and most languages, Solidity is much more primitive and much more limited. Expect some surprises in your learning process!
As a first step into Solidity, a lot of people like to use CryptoZombies. Cryptozombies is a game designed to teach you the very basics by creating an army of Zombies in a smart contract.
If you are into learning games, you might also enjoy Ethernaut , another game where you have to hack a smart contract. Next, I would recommend to spend some time reading the official Solidity Documentation. It is the most comprehensive resource on the topic and it is regularly updated. On my Youtube channel you can find some other resources for learning Solidity and smart contracts.
The author is quite knowledgable in Solidity and covers some advanced topics. You might also want to learn about how to write safe Ethereum smart contracts. In smart contracts, you manipulate other people money, so you will be the target of hackers.
These are good resources for learning about security in Solidity:. If you want to to get more tips about learning Solidity, read my article on what is the best way to learn Solidity. Because smart contracts are not very user-friendly we cannot ask end users to directly interact with them. Instead, we need to build easy-to-use UI for users. Before reading this article, you might have heard previously of Cryptokitties. Cryptokitties is this game where players buy, breed and trade kitties.
This is built on Ethereum and is a good example of Dapp. First, we have the Cryptokitties website. This is the main interface interface for user. The website backend is deployed on private servers, and the frontend is a regular webapp. Nothing new here. Finally, we have the Cryptokitties smart contract, which is where the game data is stored.
For example, if a player buys a kitty, this information will be stored in the Cryptokitties smart contract. The smart contract is deployed on the Ethereum blockchain. These 3 parts interact together to form a Dapp. In order to build your own Dapp, you need to build these 3 parts and make them communicate which each other.
You can start by following my Free tutorial series on how to build a Todo list Dapp on Ethereum. This is a 8 steps tutorial where we will build a complete Dapp with the smart contract and the frontend, starting from the smart contract, and all the way up to the frontend:.
Plus it will have 2 bonus series on how to integrate React in a Dapp and how to use Drizzle, the frontend framework of Truffle. If you are looking for online courses for learning to build Ethereum Dapp, you can check out the below links:. If you reach this step you would have accomplished a lot in your quest to become a Blockchain developer and find a job at Blockchain company.
But before you do that you need to prepare yourself for these interviews. Employers will ask you to explain how a Blockchain work, and what are the different elements of Blockchain. Since Blockchain was created by Bitcoin, the 2 are often mixed together in Blockchain interviews. You can check out my article on what are the Top 12 questions in Blockchain Interviews. When I first got into Blockchain, I stumbled upon this book.
I read it end-to-end in a couple of days and it made me become passionate about Blockchain. Throughout my journey in Blockchain and Ethereum, it helped me a lot to have read this book.
Thanks to it, I acquired a good grasp on the Blockchain technology and Bitcoin. Knowing that most Blockchain systems and somehow based on Bitcoin, it helps a lot to have a good foundation there. You can buy the book from Amazon or read it for free on Github. The author recently released an updated version, following the latest development of Bitcoin Segwit. Make sure you buy this version. General job boards not specifically focused on Blockchain also usually have a decent numbers of Blockchain jobs:.
More on that in the next section. At some point in your journey of becoming a Blockchain developer, you will certainly need some help. Fortunately you are not alone and there are a lot of online communities where you can ask for some help.
The Ethereum stack exchange is great place to get some answers. Another way to get help is to meet other developers in real-life. A great way to do this is to go to Ethereum meetups and conferences. For meetups, you can go to meetup to find Ethereum and Blockchain meetups in your region. Make sure you pick a meetup that is focused on the tech, as many are focused on the business side of things and tend to try to sell you their latest ICO-investment crap. As for conferences, the most famous one for Ethereum is DevCon a bit pricy though.
These are way cheaper than DevCon and less crowded. Finally, if you want to keep updated with the latest news of the Ethereum ecosystem, you can consult these resources:. I hoped that article helped you to figure out how to become a Blockchain developer. If you want to receive some career advice or have any questions about becoming an Ethereum developer, feel free to reach out at julien [at] eattheblocks [dot] com. Feel free to explore the other resources on this website to learn more about Dapp development.
Excellent article. It is the fastest way to find your new job in Blockchain. Fantastic article, thank you. Truly useful, I will be using it to guide my blockchain development apprenticeship.
Amazing article. I was looking for such an article for the last 2 months which could give me some direction. Would like to connect with you on LinkedIn. I want to select a blockchain, as you said in Section 2. Thank you for helping me In the meantime, I am currently working for an economic finance magazine on blockchain. Great, i am a blockchain developer, I really accept this plan will work our for new comers in blockchain field!
As a Blockchain Expert, i strongly agree all the above steps to initiate for becoming Blockchain Developers. Your email address will not be published. Skip to content Do you want to become a become Blockchain developer? However, It can also come across as mysterious and hard to figure out for newcomers: Where do I get started to get into Blockchain?
What do I need to learn to become a Blockchain developer? Do I need to be a cryptography expert to make it into Blockchain? How do I go from newbie to experienced Blockchain developer? Where to find Blockchain companies to find a Job?
Share this infographic on your site or within a blog post: Copy Paste This Code. The following content is text taken from the above infographic and provided to you in an easy copy and paste format. Please feel free to use it in any writing that references this article. The information contained herein is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be used or considered to be financial or investment advice nor an endorsement of any projects, companies or websites mentioned.
The information is provided as is without any guarantee about its correctness nor its adequacy to make financial or investment decisions. Investing in cryptocurrencies or tokens is highly speculative and anyone considering such investment should be prepared to lose their entire investment.
In this article, we will go over several ways to make money as a blockchain developer from anywhere in the world. There is no easy answer to this as it depends on many factors. One thing is certain, being specialized on the blockchain will make you more money than an ordinary developer.
A blockchain developer with some experience can easily make double that. Finding a job is very easy when you are specialized. And remote work is always a possibility. The first thing is to learn the concepts and technology-related to the blockchain. If your knowledge of the blockchain is limited to something like how to buy bitcoin in South Africa , then you have a lot of work ahead of you.
There are many online resources that will teach you the basics. Before you take any classes, familiarize yourself with how cryptocurrency works and what makes the blockchain different than developing on the cloud. You can invest in companies such as IBM, which has developed the Hyperledger technology. Many companies are using it to develop their blockchain applications. You can also invest in mining and trading platforms that support the creation and transaction side of the cryptocurrency market.
There are also emerging blockchain-as-a-service providers, major companies making the transition to blockchain, and innovators developing completely new businesses based on the capabilities of blockchain. All of them are going to need capital from outside investors to make it happen.
There are opportunities for compliance, marketing, social media, and risk analysis professionals among many more. But even if you just want to dip your toes into this segment of the market, there are several platforms for hiring freelancers. Many of them pay in cryptocurrency of some kind. They include:. Those ships are still stocking up to leave the harbor. Learn more about the wide variety of possibilities for investing in these technologies from the infographic below.