/Programs/Decoding_Bitcoin_
Decoding Bitcoin. Study cohort.
Ten weeks working through Decoding Bitcoin, the free interactive course by The Bitcoin Dev Project: transactions, Script and Taproot, with live tools and coding exercises. Every Monday we meet on Discord to talk it through. Each of you owns a few discussion questions, everyone does the hands-on exercises, and this page keeps track.
Add all 10 sessions to your calendar: Google · Apple / Outlook
The Bitcoin Dev Project
Decoding Bitcoin
Interactive lessons, tools and coding exercises
- 01Transactions
- 02Scripts
- 03Taproot
OP_DUP OP_HASH160 <pkh> OP_EQUALVERIFY OP_CHECKSIG
The course
Built on Decoding Bitcoin.
Decoding Bitcoin is a free, interactive course by The Bitcoin Dev Project. Instead of reading a PDF, you learn by decoding real transactions, running scripts step by step and writing code. We follow it module by module and add what a course can't: a group, weekly discussion and someone to ask.
Transactions
Lifecycle, structure, UTXOs, fees and signing, then the GitHub Classroom exercises.
Start the module ↗ Weeks 6–8Scripts
The Script stack machine, P2PK, P2PKH, P2SH and multisig, ending with a build-your-own stack project.
Start the module ↗ Weeks 9–10Taproot
Schnorr signatures, key-path and script-path spends, and a capstone: build and spend a P2TR output.
Start the module ↗Tools you can use any time, all on the Decoding Bitcoin site:
Transaction Decoder
Paste a raw transaction and see every field explained.
Open ↗Hash Functions
Play with SHA-256 and see why one changed letter changes everything.
Open ↗Reorg Calculator
Work out how likely a chain reorg is, and why we wait for confirmations.
Open ↗Developer Roadmap
A map of what to learn next on the way to contributing.
Open ↗Coding Exercises
Hands-on exercises on GitHub Classroom that check your code.
Open ↗Curriculum
A few lessons a week.
Do the week's lessons on Decoding Bitcoin before Monday. Questions are shared out evenly, so each week some of them are yours. Answer them in the cohort channel on Discord and tick them off here. Every lesson button opens that lesson on bitcoindevs.xyz.
How it works
No accounts. Just show up.
Sign up once with your name and Discord username. You get a personal link that lets you tick things off from any device.
Do the lessons
Each week has two to four interactive lessons on Decoding Bitcoin, sometimes with an optional tool to play with. Tick "I've done the lessons" so the group knows where everyone is.
Answer your questions
Every question has one owner. Look for your name, post your answer in the cohort channel on Discord before Monday, and tick it done.
Do the exercises
Everyone does the same hands-on exercises: Decoding Bitcoin's tools and GitHub Classroom exercises, block explorers, and code you write yourself. Share what you got and tick each one off.
Meet on Monday
A 90-minute Socratic seminar on Discord, Mondays at 7pm UTC+8, with rotating roles so everyone gets a turn to lead. Week 10 is graduation and your next step into open source.
The Monday session
A Socratic seminar, not a lecture.
No slides and no teacher with all the answers. We learn by asking good questions, explaining our thinking out loud, and checking it against the lessons and real transactions. Everyone talks; nobody has to be an expert.
How the 90 minutes run
- 0–10 minCheck-in. One line each: the thing in this week's lessons that surprised you most. The facilitator asks the opening question.
- 10–50 minSmall groups. Breakout rooms of 3–5. Each question owner explains their answer in a few minutes, then the group probes it: why, what if, where does the lesson say that?
- 50–75 minHands-on. The exercise driver shares their screen and we work through an exercise together, live.
- 75–85 minBring it together. The summariser reads back the key takeaways and the questions we couldn't answer yet.
- 85–90 minWrap up. How did the discussion go? Next week's lessons, roles and questions.
Ground rules
- Talk to each other, not to the facilitator.
- Point to the text. Say which lesson backs your claim, or check it on a real transaction.
- Steelman before you disagree. Repeat the other view in your own words first.
- Mind your airtime. Spoken a lot? Invite someone quieter in.
- "I don't know" is a great answer. It goes on the list of open questions.
Roles rotate every week
The cohort
Who's in, and how it's going.
Students are listed in sign-up order. Questions count the ones assigned to each person; exercises count across all ten weeks.
Sign up
Join the cohort.
Free of charge for everyone joining. All you need is a Discord account and a few hours a week. Joining late is fine: you pick up questions from the weeks still to come.
Credits
Learn it free, online.
The lessons, tools and exercises are Decoding Bitcoin by The Bitcoin Dev Project. Its source is on GitHub, where you can also suggest edits. The weekly plan, discussion questions and extra exercises on this page are written by Code Orange.