From Crypto Wallets to Smart Contracts: Building Your First Ethereum Contract

Just got this picture from google

It’s been 10 days since my last blog and I’m pretty sure that in blockchain time, that’s like a century. In the last few weeks, we’ve covered everything from crypto wallets to the intricacies of smart contracts. I’m impressed with how far we’ve come, and I’m excited to announce that it’s time to put all that knowledge into practice.

So, let’s roll up our sleeves and get our hands dirty by building our very first smart contract on Ethereum! As you may recall, Ethereum is the world’s second-largest blockchain, known for its smart contract capabilities. It’s the perfect platform for our project.

Before we dive in, let’s do a quick recap. Smart contracts are self-executing programs that run on the blockchain. They are designed to execute automatically when certain conditions are met. They are a game-changer because they allow for secure and transparent agreements without the need for intermediaries.

Now, let’s move onto building our first smart contract using Solidity, the programming language used for writing smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain. Solidity is a contract-oriented, high-level language that is influenced by C++, Python, and JavaScript.

Our smart contract will be a simple one that allows us to store and retrieve a message on the Ethereum blockchain.

Here’s the code: Are you ready? Let’s do this!

pragma solidity ^0.8.0;

contract MyMessage {
   string message;

   function setMessage(string memory _message) public {
       message = _message;
   }

   function getMessage() public view returns (string memory) {
       return message;
   }
}

Same feeling

Let’s break down this code:

• The first line specifies the version of Solidity we’re using, in this case, version > 0.8.0.
• We define a new contract called MyMessage.
• We create a new string variable called message.
• We define two functions: setMessage and getMessage. setMessage takes a string parameter _message and sets the message variable to its value. getMessage returns the current value of the message variable.
• The public keyword is used to specify that these functions can be called by anyone on the Ethereum network.

To deploy this contract onto the Ethereum blockchain, we need to use a tool called Remix IDE. Remix is an online tool that allows us to write, compile, and deploy Solidity smart contracts.

Once we’ve written and compiled our smart contract in Remix, we can deploy it to the Ethereum network using a wallet like MetaMask.

Congratulations, you’ve just built and deployed your first smart contract on the Ethereum blockchain! This is just the beginning of what’s possible with smart contracts and blockchain technology, and there’s so much more to explore and learn.

In our next post, we’ll dive deeper into the world of smart contracts and explore more advanced use cases. Until then, keep exploring and learning!

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