Recently, there has been a lot of interest in getting involved with Smart Contract development. To help you with this, I decided to reach out to Consensys, an Ethereum blockchain research company located in New York and asked their developers for resources they used to learn.

In return, I received six articles they recommended to beginners to get them started with their development. Some of these are tutorials, while others are just really great explanations of common blockchain concepts.

Education on Important Blockchain Technology

Every Wonder How Merkle Trees Work?

This infographic only takes a couple minutes to read, but it’s the best example I’ve found on how blockchain was able to optimize and save on electrical costs globally with a simple algorithm change.

An Introduction to LLL for Ethereum Smart Contract Development

This article will tell you about the programming language behind the Ethereum Network.

Introduction to zksnarks with Examples

This article discusses how zero knowledge proofs were implemented in the Ethereum blockchain. Zero Knowledge proofs are mind boggling, in that they fully allow for blockchain transactions without releasing the identity of the payer, payee or any other important party.

This article is great if you are interested in understanding how your privacy will be protected in the blockchain.

Tutorials on Building Dapps

Developing Dapps with Truffle and Metamask

Truffle is the top development platform for the Ethereum network. This article helps users work their way through their first Truffle app.

Building and Installing Ethereum Compilers

Very quick introduction on how to install Ethereum compilers via the command line

How to install Truffle TestRPC on Windows for Blockchain

TestRPCs allow developers to launch a development version of a blockchain on your computer. This is great for quick testing and development, so this is an absolutely critical skill for smart contract devs to understand.