Top 5 Free Courses to Learn Blockchain Programming

Hello, all — hope you all are having a great time and are working towards your goals for this year. I have been sharing a lot of courses and tutorials recently about what to learn this year, starting from tools and frameworks to libraries and programming languages, but one of the most important technologies you can learn this year is blockchain development.

It's one of most talked about technologies at the moment and is considered to be the Next Big Thing after the invention of the Internet, as blockchain technology can provide a way to attain digital trust on via the Internet.

Though I must say that the rally of cryptocurrencies has a huge role to play in the widespread adoption of blockchain. For example, I've known about Bitcoin for a long time but never invested in it, and the same goes for blockchain.

Even though I knew about it, I never thought to learn blockchain development or write tutorials about it. That is until I realized that it might worth my time to learn more about blockchain.

There is such a great emphasis on blockchain development as finance, real estate, healthcare, and other sectors are very keen to adopt them.

Venture capitalists are currently diverting a lot of investments into funding blockchain-based companies, which means there could not be a better time to learn about blockchain then this year, and there is no better way to start than with free online courses.

5 Free Courses to Learn Blockchain Development

These courses will not only teach you the fundamentals and basics like what is blockchain and how it works but will also show you how to create a smart contract and your own private network.

1. Blockchain Fundamentals

This is an awesome course on blockchain fundamentals and smart contract development from Pluralsight

In this course, you will first learn more about the Ethereum blockchain, smart contract development, and how to create private blockchains.

The course is also very hands-on as you'll learn how to set up a development environment and all the pre-requirements from a clean Microsoft Windows image, which also makes it easy to follow this course.

After learning the basics, you'll create a fully functional sample application. Your sample application is a distributed application that ensures a secure and trustworthy product lifecycle trail for batches of food using blockchain technology.

After completing this course, you should be able to create your own blockchain contracts and distributed applications with a functional development environment that makes you productive for years to come.

2. Blockchain Theory 101

This is a great introductory course about blockchain — anyone who wants to learn about blockchain technology can join this course for free.

In this course, you will learn more about blockchain technology (including mining, consensus algorithms, smart property, and smart contracts).

The instructor, Melanie Swan, is also the author of the published book Blockchain: Blueprint for a New Economy.

She evaluates the current status of blockchain technology as well as potential applications in financial services, logistics, healthcare, energy, IoT, and next steps regarding its deployment in your organization.

3. Blockchain — Principles and Practices

This is another awesome course on blockchain from Pluralsight that provides an overview on how this technology works with Bitcoin, Ethereum, and/or other providers.

In this course, you will start with the fundamental data structures and algorithms used to build a typical blockchain app and build up a working example over the course.

First, you will learn how to store single transactions in a block, and later, you will discover how to store multiple transactions in a block using Merkle trees.

After that, you will be taught how to make the blockchains tamper-proof using mining and proof-of-work. Finally, you will learn how nodes on a blockchain maintain consensus.

After completing this course, you will have the knowledge and tools necessary to build your own blockchain application.

One thing to keep in mind is that for any of these Pluralsight courses, you can get free access by signing up for their 10-day free trial. After that, it's $29 USD per month.

4. Ethereum for Beginners: Build a Hello World Blockchain App

This is a good, practical course to begin your journey with Ethereum blockchain development where you will learn how to create a Hello World blockchain app in no time.

This course is designed for programmers beginning their journey with Ethereum and blockchain development and want to test their skills with a basic project before moving forward with more advanced Ethereum development courses covering much more technical information.

In fact, this course is actually a sample from their more comprehensive course: Ethereum Developer Masterclass: Build Real-World Projects, which teaches the Ethereum development in great detail.

If you are increasingly interested in developing with the Ethereum network, then you can also check out that course.

5. Introduction to Cryptocurrencies and Blockchain

This course is for those who get excited about Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. And, well, there is nothing wrong with that. Most of us only know about blockchain because of those popular forms of cryptocurrency and their phenomenal rise in popularity.

This course will teach you blockchain by explaining cryptocurrencies first. This will help you better understand how blockchains work and how they differ from traditional transaction models.

Conclusion

That's all for now on the top free courses to learn blockchain development. As I mentioned, blockchain development is getting a lot of attention because of its disruptive potential.

It's not generating a lot of jobs yet, but you can stay ahead of the curve by learning it right now. Apart from programmers and developers, these courses are also great for anyone who wants to know what a blockchain is and how it works, e.g. BA/PM and QAs.

Thanks for reading this article. If you like these free blockchain courses, then please share this post with your friends and colleagues. And if you have any questions or feedback, then please drop a note in the comments section.