A report by The Next Web has shown that solidity programming has become one of the most popular blockchain coding languages. There’s also demand for devs with solidity experience and great pay. It’s safe to say that it’s an in-demand skill worth learning, and if you want to learn more about it, you’ve come to the right place. 

What is Solidity Programming?

It is a programming language that provides a more robust and flexible trading space, a feature mainly missing A in the Bitcoin platform.

Proposed by Gavin Wood in 2014 and developed by a team of programmers in the Ethereum network, Solidity is an object-oriented program that primarily implements smart contracts on many blockchain platforms, including Ethereum Classic, Tron and Hedera. 

Solidity programming language is executed on the EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine).

Applications Of Solidity Programming

1. Avalanche C-Chain

Avalanche is a widely distributed, open-source blockchain that accepts smart contracts. Avalanche's primary cryptocurrency is AVAX.

2. Binance Smart Chain

Binance is the largest cryptocurrency exchange, with millions of cryptocurrencies traded daily. In addition, it boasts unparalleled financial product offerings.

3. Counterparty 

Counterparty, a distributed financial digital assets platform built on the Bitcoin blockchain and network, is known to use solidity and serpent.

4. Ethereum

Ethereum runs a distributed, open-source blockchain platform with millions of contributing developers worldwide. Considering this programmable feature, Ethereum outranks Bitcoin regarding the scope of services. Little wonder it's the initiator and primary promoter of solidity programming. Ether is its native cryptocurrency.

5. Ethereum Classic

Born out of an incidence of targeted hacking in 2016 where 3.6 million ether worth over 9 million US Dollars was drained off the Ethereum blockchain by an unknown hacker, Ethereum Classic was a quick countermeasure to forestall a repeat of the criminal act. 

Ethereum Classic is an open-source, blockchain-based decentralised computing technology with smart contract capabilities.

6. Tron

TRON pushes forward an initiative to further decentralise the crypto market, which could draw in more developers and consequently gain spectacular popularity as millions of users throng to the Tron block. But Justin Sun, CEO and founder of the Tron Network, would assure Binance and other concerned parties that he has no intention of taking over any blockchain. Nevertheless, the Tron dream may still be in the works as Gavin Wood's Polkadot's parachains and parathreads capable of cross-connecting blockchains regardless of their language could outrank even the almighty Ethereum in terms of developer community soon. The cryptocurrency native to the Tron blockchain is Tronix (TRX), with a current value of $0.05 as of the time of this writing. 

7. Hedera Hashgraph

The Hedera Hashgraph used HBAR as its native cryptocurrency and was developed for  speed of transaction processing and minimal transaction costs at its core. Currently, it can handle at least 10,000 transactions in a second and a very minute fee of $0.001 per transaction.

Smart Contracts

One fundamental reason for the creation of solidity is to speed up engagements through the employment of smart contracts. Smart contracts are synonymous with conventional paper contracts that act as legally binding documents between parties in the business.

Smart contracts are, however, web-based programs that reside in blockchains and execute automatically when certain conditions are met without the intervention of an intermediary. 

They follow the 'if-else' logic statements, such as “if X condition is met, then move to Y”. Smart contracts automate the execution of an agreement thus leading to a trustless environment where unknown parties can trust the code rather than trusting each other.  This leads to scaling transactions at a global level without the need for central authorities. 

To visualise the significance of smart contracts in simpler terms, think of this everyday scenario where a 50-cent coin is passed into a soft drink vending machine. After the press of a button, the desired soft drink rolls out. Thus settling the contract with zero intervention. 

Understanding Smart Contract Applications and The Blockchain

Blockchain is where you store smart contracts. Smart contracts are solely employed for their security and durability. Since the terms and conditions defined for a specific smart contract are encrypted on a shared ledger, the incidence of information loss or manipulation on the block is highly improbable, making smart transactions run securely, efficiently and inexpensively.

Solidity Language

Solidity is a high-level programming language widely adopted by most cryptocurrency giants, including Ethereum and Tron. 

What skills do you need for Solidity?

You need to grasp the concept of the Ethereum blockchain, how it works, and the scenarios of its implementation. Besides, a basic background in other high-level programming languages, including Python, Java and C++, is a prerequisite considering that Solidity follows a similar language structure and framework.

Evolution of Solidity Programming

The latest release of solidity is version 0.8.17. Solidity programs are run on the solc and solc.js platforms. The new release has fixed an important bug centred around how overflow checks on multiplication performed poorly. It's now more efficient, and an LSP feature has been added to facilitate the analysis of all files in the project. Also, some adjustments in code generation has been made.

Why Learn Solidity? 

The benefits of learning solidity in today’s time are hard to ignore. Understanding and working with blockchain technology, which will shape the future is a good enough reason to motivate every developer to take a sneak peek into learning solidity. 

Where to learn solidity?

If you’re interested in learning this programming language, there are a few places that can help out.

1. Crypto-Zombies by Loom: It’s an interactive online school that teaches you how to build smart contracts in solidity by creating your own crypto-collectable game

2. FreeCodeCamp: A platform that lets people learn development for free. 

3. Alchemy: It’s a Web3 development platform with tutorials on solidity.

4. Blockchain-Learning Solidity: This LinkedIn course teaches how to build a contract-based application.

5. ETHGlobal: This is a YouTube channel with videos from world-class developers.

Here are some other great YouTubers to follow: 

• Dapp University

• EatTheBlocks

• kinematics

• The Define

How to get started learning solidity:

1. Decide where you want to learn Solidity

2. Learn about JavaScript and TypeScript

3. Read Bitcoin Whitepaper and Ethereum Whitepaper to understand the fundamentals of blockchain. 

You should watch some YT videos to refresh your knowledge of Bitcoin and Ethereum. 

4. Learn about Beginner ERC20 or ERC721 tutorials.

5. Read the Smart Contracts of different projects to familiarise yourself with smart contract theory.

6. Play several Crypto Education Games, such as Ethernaut

7. Keep writing code and building till you know Ethereum virtual machine assembly

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