Dissect the EVM, mempool, MEV layer, beacon chain, and L2 stack — work at the protocol layer, not just the contract layer.
This is the advanced Ethereum course for builders who've shipped Solidity contracts and now want to operate at the infrastructure layer. You'll read EVM bytecode by hand, understand the mempool and MEV ecosystem from first principles (with a defensive orientation), engineer ERC-4337 smart accounts, dive into the Beacon Chain's consensus, dissect L2 architectures, propose custom precompiles, and work directly with reth/geth internals. Five capstone projects (you pick one) demonstrate mastery by actually altering the EVM or building protocol-grade infrastructure.
Built by Lakshya Kumar
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I am learning Ethereum at the protocol layer — EVM internals, gas mechanics, mempool, MEV (defensively), ERC-4337 account abstraction, beacon chain consensus, L2 stacks, custom precompiles, and reth/geth internals. Help me understand the actual mechanics with reference to real EIPs, real contracts, and real client source code.
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Sign in to applyComplete all modules, then submit the required number of capstone projects. Each must earn a passing rating from an admin reviewer.
Pick a cryptographic operation that's expensive in pure EVM (Poseidon, BLS12-381 G2 pairing, Verkle proof primitive). Write a complete EIP-1-format draft: title, motivation, specification (precompile address, input format, output format, gas pricing), rationale, security considerations. Implement it as a working Solidity reference contract (slow path) AND fork reth to add it as a native precompile (fast path). Benchmark side-by-side. Submit the EIP draft to Ethereum Magicians for community feedback.
Fork reth, add a custom JSON-RPC namespace and an ExEx (Execution Extension) that answers one specific contract-behavior question across historical state — e.g. 'every storage slot a contract reads in the last 100 blocks' or 'every DELEGATECALL chain depth >2 in the last 24h'. Run it against mainnet for 100 blocks, verify accuracy against ≥3 ground-truth examples, and expose the result as a new JSON-RPC method. Bonus: package as an installable ExEx with a single CLI flag.
Design and prototype a small OP-Stack-compatible sequencer that batches encrypted intents and reveals them on inclusion. Integrate a basic commit-reveal scheme or threshold encryption (e.g. via Shamir secret sharing across a 3-of-5 committee). Settle to a local L1 fork. Demonstrate that observers can't see tx contents until the block is finalized. Architecture doc + working code + benchmark of throughput impact vs vanilla sequencer.
Build a production-quality ERC-4337 smart account contract plus an ERC-20 paymaster that charges users in USDC (priced via Chainlink ETH/USD oracle) instead of ETH. Add a session-key validator (24-hour expiry, scoped to one target). Deploy to a testnet, submit UserOps via Pimlico/Stackup/Alchemy, demonstrate a complete user flow where the user pays in USDC with no ETH balance. Include an audit-grade test suite (100% line coverage, fuzz tests for reentrancy variants).
Design and implement a Uniswap v4 hook that routes large swaps through CoW Protocol or UniswapX as a fallback when expected MEV loss exceeds a threshold. Emit structured analytics events on captured-vs-extracted MEV per swap. Run a 24-hour live test on a testnet (Sepolia) with synthetic large swaps and produce a one-page report on captured MEV. Defensive orientation: the goal is to protect users from sandwich attacks, not to extract MEV.
The complete spec for the account abstraction system covered in M6.