Blockchain Basics

Bitcoin first, then Ethereum

This is the opening course of a blockchain specialisation. It explains the essentials by looking at the Bitcoin protocol and then the Ethereum protocol, giving you the background needed before writing application code.

Hands-on skills

• Setting up a personal Ethereum node to experiment on
• Creating accounts and managing their access
• Mining, sending transactions and transferring Ether
• Checking balances across the network

It is a practical introduction for developers who expect to build on Ethereum, but it is less about smart contract languages than about the network underneath them. Running the node exercises on your own machine helps each step become concrete.