In the past months, while I was rebuilding ZooBC from scratch, something kept happening to me in the background: I was not just coding, I was re-learning everything at a deeper level.
Not the buzzword version of blockchain. The real version.
The kind where you start from bytes and rules, and you only earn the right to talk about consensus after you have built deterministic hashing, correct transaction validation, safe reorgs, and persistence that cannot lie. The kind where you do not “believe” a node, you verify it. The kind where you stop trusting hearsay and start trusting proofs.
And somewhere between rewriting modules late at night here in Bali, fixing edge cases, documenting comparisons, and watching testnets behave like real networks, I had a very clear thought:
If I just went through this whole journey again, with fresh scars and fresh clarity, I should teach it.
So we launched it.
Blockchain Zoo has opened the Blockchain Masterclass, an academy to teach people how to build a blockchain properly.
And yes, I am the teacher.
Build the ledger, not the pitch
I built this course because I am tired of the same pattern:
- Founders who “feel” blockchain is the right tool, but cannot explain what they need without guessing.
- Managers who have to hire someone and cannot tell if they are meeting a real expert or a fluent buzzword machine.
- Developers who can code, but have never built the base layer, so the core rules stay a black box.
- Smart contract devs who build on top of assumptions they never validated.
This masterclass is my answer to all of that.
It is practical, no-hype, and hands on. It is designed for builders and for decision-makers who want a correct mental model, not opinions.
Why now (and why it matters)
When blockchain was in the spotlight, it attracted hype, noise, and scams. Now the spotlight is on AI.
That is exactly why this is the right moment.
Blockchain is not about cryptocurrencies. It is about coordination, verification, resilience, and trustless infrastructure. Those are the things every industry needs, including AI itself: provenance, data integrity, incentives, governance, auditability.
This is the quiet window where serious work can happen again, away from the circus.
Two tracks, one goal: clarity
This course is built so you can join even if you are not a programmer.
- Concept track: no coding required. You learn how blockchains really work, how to reason correctly, and how to spot weak designs before they fail.
- Builder track: you implement a working node (Python reference), and you can port the blueprint to any stack later.
Either way, you leave with something rare: vocabulary and reasoning that map to real components and real failure modes. Nonces. Deterministic hashing. Safe reorgs. Mempools. Consensus. Networking. Fork games. DoS defenses. The stuff that breaks systems in production.
30 lessons. 2 hours each. No filler.
I prepared 30 lessons, each 2 hours, with outcomes, practical labs, downloadable code, quick checks, and a hook into the next lesson.
And the build order is not negotiable, because this is the only order that actually works:
Data structures first, then validation and state transitions, then mining and consensus, then networking, forks, reorgs, syncing, and finally the user-facing tools (API, wallet, explorer).
If you build in the wrong order, you end up with a fragile mess. I have lived that. You do not need to.
Who it is for
If any of these describe you, this is for you:
- Teachers, trainers, technical content creators
- Product managers, tech leads, engineering managers
- Founders and investors evaluating blockchain projects
- Integrators and solution architects
- Security engineers and auditors
- Backend, full-stack, and systems developers
- Smart contract developers who want the base layer to stop being a black box
When it starts, and how seats work
We run two lessons per week. Most students join live, recordings are always available, and if time zones split demand we can run additional live Q and A.
The course starts when either:
- 100 people subscribe, or
- March 2026 arrives
Whatever comes first.
Seats are limited, and registrations close when we hit that cap.
Holiday season gift: early bird pricing
Since it is the holiday season, I made the early bird price intentionally accessible:
- Until Dec 31 (local time): 10 EUR per lesson (300 EUR total for 30 lessons)
- January: 15 USD per lesson
- February: 30 USD per lesson
If you have been telling yourself “one day I’ll learn blockchain properly”, this is a good moment to stop postponing it.
My promise as a teacher
I am not teaching you slides.
I am teaching you how to reason like a node.
You will learn why each rule exists, and what breaks when you remove it. You will learn to design for adversarial inputs, not good-faith inputs. You will learn to evaluate projects without blind trust, and if you are a builder, you will leave with a blueprint you can reuse for years.
I am genuinely looking forward to meeting the first cohort.
If you want in, go to the academy page and enroll to reserve your seat. Early bird pricing ends Dec 31, and once the 100 seats are gone, that is it for this round.
