What is it like to develop contracts with Solidity on Polkadot?

Last month, the "Solidity Development on Polkadot" course jointly launched by OneBlock+, Polkadot and PaperMoon was successfully completed. It lasted for three months and attracted a total of 219 developers to sign up for the course, creating a practical channel for developers who want to understand the Polkadot ecosystem and want to enter Web3.

On July 11, the third "Polkadot Open Call" was themed "The Growth Story of Polkadot Solidity Learners". Yuki, the head of PaperMoon Asia, Bing Mint and Vincent, outstanding students of the course, and Xinmin, the course assistant, were invited to share their challenges, gains and transformation thoughts in the course. The event also specially invited Lurpis, co-founder of Bifrost, to share project progress and recruitment information to provide students with more ecological opportunities.

This event received 2,937 views in total. Friends who missed the live broadcast can click to replay:

🎙️https://x.com/i/broadcasts/1PlJQManabdJE

Guest Information Overview

• Yuki: Head of Asia at PaperMoon and an OG member of Moonbeam Network.

• Lurpis: Co-founder of Bifrost, making Bifrost more reliable.

• Bing Mint: An outstanding student of this course. A Web2 developer in transition to Web3.

• Vincent: An outstanding student of this course. Transitioning from the traditional network security industry to Web3.

• Xinmin: Teaching assistant for this course. With nearly 20 years of development experience, he entered the blockchain industry in 2018 and has participated in the development of 15+ projects.

Course experience from the perspective of developers

Yuki: If you compare course learning and participation to a game, what is your role?

Bingmint:I am a "farmer who is familiar with the rules". The first framework I came into contact with was the Substrate framework, which was Rust at the time, which was a bit difficult for me. This course talks about how to develop contracts with Solidity on Polkadot. It happened that I had learned Solidity before, so I was very happy to use a familiar language to try to deploy DApp in another ecosystem.

It is also because the deployment cost of Ethereum is too high that I started to pay attention to Polkadot, wanting to see if there is a better development experience.

Vincent:I am a "new apprentice". I worked in network security before and had no experience with Web3. I decided to change my career at the beginning of this year and taught myself some Solidity, mainly by watching videos and reading materials. But I have always lacked practical experience, so I signed up for this course.

Initially, I didn't know much about Polkadot. I came here mainly for Solidity, but the course gave me a more comprehensive understanding of Web3. I am a novice who breaks through the barriers step by step, accumulates experience, and upgrades skills. The course is very friendly to newcomers. As long as you are willing to spend time and invest, you can gain a lot.

Xinmin:If the teacher is the coach, then the assistant is the "sparring partner" or "little book boy". I have been a developer for almost 20 years. I started to get involved in blockchain in 2018. Before that, I mainly worked on the ETH ecosystem, such as DeFi lending, chain games, NFT, OTC, etc.

Polkadot is something I have been paying attention to since 2020. This time, I am serving as a teaching assistant to help students better understand the course content and expand some related knowledge points.

Yuki: The course covers modules such as basic grammar, common contract libraries, Uniswap V2 migration, and on-chain security. Which content is particularly valuable?

Xinmin: I first participated in the OneBlock+ course as a student in the third term, and later participated in the advanced course in the 5th term, and then became a teaching assistant. I have witnessed the continuous improvement of the course content and the growth of the ecosystem along the way.

My biggest feeling is that the threshold of this course has been lowered, making it more suitable for beginners. This course structure is from the shallow to the deep, with both theory and practice, and a hackathon session has been added, so that everyone can "learn by doing". For developers who want to switch to Web3, Uniswap V2/V3 migration principles, security attacks and defenses, etc. are the focus of job interviews and are very practical.

I think this course is very systematic, and the course is free! This is rare in other ecosystems, and it allows developers to truly feel that Polkadot is doing things in a down-to-earth manner, rather than hyping and posting memes.

Yuki: How do you feel after actually participating in the study?

Vincent: My feelings are similar to what Teacher Xinmin said. The course is very friendly to novices, the content is well arranged, the difficulty is moderate, and it will not make people feel intimidated. The teacher's explanation is clear, the homework is also targeted, and the teaching assistant's answers to questions are also timely.

Although some of the knowledge is my first exposure, through Office Hour and group communication, the problems can be effectively solved, and the overall learning atmosphere is very good.

Ice Mint: I feel the same way. The learning atmosphere is very good. Everyone in the group will discuss problems with each other. The teacher and the teaching assistant are very responsive. Students can also help each other solve problems.

I also like the practical competition session at the end, which can apply the knowledge learned in the course to the complete development process. There is also a workshop explanation of Debug, which is very helpful for us to locate and solve problems, and it is very practical.

Yuki: What is the biggest challenge you encounter in the learning process?

Xinmin: For me, the biggest challenge comes from the virtual machine environment of Polkadot. PolkaVM is quite different from Ethereum's EVM, especially in compilation and debugging. Since Substrate is developed based on Rust, the learning curve of Rust itself is relatively steep, and debugging will be more complicated.

In addition, from the perspective of the Solidity language itself, common problems for novices are unfamiliarity with syntax, such as static arrays, etc., which are also asked more in the group.

Bing Mint:When writing Solidity, some contracts can run normally on Ethereum's Remix, but errors occur when deployed to Polkadot because of differences in the EVM implementations on both sides. It was quite difficult to troubleshoot in the early stages, but fortunately, with the help of teachers and teaching assistants, the problems were gradually solved.

In addition, Polkadot's support for Solidity is not yet perfect. For example, I wanted to do the function of continuous monitoring on the chain, but I found that it is not supported yet, and there is relatively little relevant information, so I need to keep exploring and checking pits. At this time, communication in the group is particularly important, and everyone discusses and solves problems together.

Vincent:I have never done complete smart contract application development before. At the beginning, I was stuck in the front-end calling the contract library. Although it was just an API call, it was very unfamiliar to me and I practiced for several days before I got used to it.

Another thing is the use of Hardhat. I have only used Foundry a little before, and it took me a lot of time to understand it when switching tools. At the beginning of the class, I could only understand the teacher's code sentence by sentence, and I gradually caught up with the pace after accumulating experience.

Yuki: What supplementary materials do you recommend to help you get started faster?

Vincent: I think we can add some pre-courses to introduce commonly used contract libraries and development tools, such as the use process of Hardhat. Although there are documents online, it will be easier to understand if the role and call process of the API can be explained systematically.

New Thinking on Web3 Career Transformation

Yuki: After studying the course, do you have new thoughts on your future career direction?

Ice Mint: I did learn with a transformation mentality. During the learning process, I found that Polkadot SDK is a very practical tool. It supports customized chains and local debugging, which is not common in other ecosystems. If Polkadot does not support Solidity, it may be difficult for me to integrate into this ecosystem. But now that I have this entry point, I can try to participate in the project. Whether it is looking for a job or accumulating experience, it is a good starting point.

I personally have always agreed with the concept of Web3 and I also want to enter this industry. But to be honest, I still have some doubts about whether it can provide a stable employment opportunity. Web2 is still more mature in China, while Web3 is still in its early stages in China. I hope that in the future there will be more opportunities to learn while doing, and gradually join in.

Vincent:For me, a newbie, this course really fills in a lot of key knowledge points. Before, I only learned some Solidity language syntax, but I had almost no concept of the complete development process (development, testing, deployment, etc.). This course explained the whole process clearly, and also took me to actually operate some Uniswap and DeFi-related applications, which made it easier for me to understand some popular DApps now, and further understood some core features of the Polkadot ecosystem.

In the future, I hope to develop in the direction of Web3 security. Many projects are now doing code security audits, and the more complex the business logic, the more potential security issues there are. Only by truly understanding the business logic and implementation details behind the code can these vulnerabilities be discovered. I hope that I can participate in it in the future and help build a safer Polkadot ecosystem.

Bifrost project progress and recruitment sharing

Bifrost co-founder Lurpis shared the latest progress and recruitment information of the project at the event. As a technical team that has been deeply involved in the Polkadot ecosystem for nearly 5 years, Bifrost has accumulated rich experience in infrastructure construction and gradually polished out a set of reusable technical components.

Developers can quickly integrate the SLPx cross-chain Liquid Staking protocol through the Solidity SDK provided by Bifrost, access its cross-chain services on mainstream chains such as Ethereum, Base, and Arbitrum, and realize multi-chain deployment and collaborative operations. Currently, 15 projects have integrated SLPx, contributing more than 15 million US dollars in TVL.

The protocol supports profit sharing through RSP (Revenue Sharing Module). Developers only need to deploy and configure parameters to seamlessly access the ecosystem and obtain revenue. For example, projects such as Hydration and Subscan have achieved a closed-loop revenue based on this protocol.

Since its establishment, the Bifrost team has always adhered to long-termism. No matter how the market fluctuates, the protocol itself maintains stable income and structural closed loop.

Currently, Bifrost is opening 3 non-technical positions and supports remote work. Although development positions are not yet open, outstanding OneBlock+ students are also welcome to submit resumes. The team will include them in the talent pool as priority candidates. Lurpis also specifically mentioned that Currently, about 40% of the core developers in the Bifrost team are from the OneBlock+ community.

🙋 Recruitment channel: https://page.bifrost.io/opportunities

Community Q&A Selected Questions

This event also received a lot of positive feedback from the community audience. The following are selected questions and answers from several guests:

Q: As the founder of Bifrost, what experience do you want to share with novice Web3 developers?

Lupris:I was also a developer at first, and now I also write some code out of interest. I think the most important point is: products must be differentiated.

Although this is a cliché, it takes time and repeated experiments to truly achieve differentiation from the technical and product levels. It is recommended that new developers start with hands-on work, and a lot of cognition is accumulated in the process. It may take about half a year to truly find the unique positioning of their own products.

Bifrost initially chose to develop on Polkadot because it has features such as shared security and cross-chain interoperability. Although the early infrastructure was immature, as the ecosystem develops, Polkadot's technical advantages have gradually become more prominent. For example, we can now provide a cross-chain solution that is safer than most Layer 2s, and use the OpenGov flexible governance mechanism to dynamically adjust on-chain parameters.

Currently, Bifrost has achieved a complete on-chain closed loop: revenue acquisition, cost coverage, revenue distribution, community governance, etc. are all self-operating. Although these can also be implemented on Ethereum, they require calling a large number of non-standardized contracts and interfaces, which is more complex. In contrast, development using the Polkadot SDK is more systematic and efficient.

Q: Can you reveal the course schedule for the next term?

Yuki:Currently, our DevRel teacher is migrating some more complex DeFi protocols to PolkaVM, and will expand to Gaming, DAO, NFT, Multisig and other directions in the future. Subsequent courses will take you to understand the migration and deployment process of different types of contracts on PolkaVM.

In terms of form, it is still mainly based on laying a solid foundation for Solidity, while adding more tools to use, such as contract libraries, Hardhat, etc. The course will also retain the previously well-received practical links, such as DEMO deployment and mini hackathons. Excellent students will have the opportunity to be seen by mature teams such as Bifrost in the practical link, and even be directly recruited.

If you have plans to start a business, OneBlock+ will also help you understand the funding and resources that can be applied for in the Polkadot ecosystem, and create a closed-loop path from technical improvement, practical training to project incubation and career development.

In addition, we will also add some basic knowledge of blockchain, security debugging techniques and comparative thinking between different public chains to help everyone establish a more systematic cognitive framework. Even if your future destination is not Polkadot, this course can be a starting point for you to enter Web3.

Q: For a novice with absolutely no programming foundation, is the success rate of making a small project through the course high?

Yuki:I myself have no technical background. Whether you can complete the course or make a small application depends on the purpose of learning.

• If the goal is to make a simple application, there is about a 50% chance of success. You need to spend about 30 days to familiarize yourself with an introductory language and tools, and then use AI and GitHub examples to understand the contract logic.

• If you just want to understand the basic concepts of smart contracts or improve your interview competitiveness, this course is completely competent, and you are even more prepared than the average person.

• If you plan to do development for a long time, it is recommended that you first systematically learn a programming language, and then come to class to understand it more deeply.

Q: For pure beginners, how difficult would you rate this course from 1 (very easy) to 10 (very difficult)?

Vincent: I would give it 4 points. The course starts with the basics of Solidity, and the most difficult part may be the deployment and understanding of the principles of Uniswap. But overall, if you are willing to spend time and watch the course video several times, you can master it. The core of learning technology is repetition.

Ice Mint: For friends who have no programming experience at all, it's probably 6 points. The development method of Web3 is quite different from that of Web2. It's not just a grammatical issue, there are many new concepts to understand, such as decentralized design and contract structure. Therefore, novices will encounter many cognitive barriers at the beginning, but if they can persist, they can overcome them.

Xinmin:If you really have no language foundation at all, it will definitely be difficult. However, I believe that most people who want to do Web3 development have at least some technical foundation. I would give this course a difficulty of 3~4 points, which is relatively friendly overall.

Conclusion

Polkadot ecosystem is expected to complete the full upgrade of Polkadot 2.0 in August this year. PolkaVM is also scheduled to be launched on the mainnet in Q3 2025 to achieve native support for EVM/Solidity. Now we have officially joined the golden period of Polkadot ecosystem construction.