Leanpub Header

Skip to main content

The Complete Solidity Guide

From Beginner to Professional Smart Contract Developer

This book is 100% completeLast updated on 2026-07-26

Build real smart contracts with confidence from your very first line of Solidity. This hands-on guide walks you from blockchain fundamentals to advanced security, DeFi, NFTs, DAOs and production-ready development. Packed with practical examples and proven patterns, it gives you the skills to create secure Ethereum applications that are ready for the real world.

Minimum price

$19.00

$29.00

You pay

Author earns

$

Also available for 1 book credit with a Reader Membership

PDF
EPUB
213
Pages
About

About

About the Book

Solidity is the dominant language for building smart contracts on Ethereum and the broader EVM ecosystem. This book takes you from zero blockchain knowledge to professional-grade smart contract development, covering everything from foundational concepts through advanced security patterns, DeFi architecture, upgradeable contracts, Layer 2 deployment, and account abstraction. Every concept is explained thoroughly with production-ready code examples that you can compile, study, and adapt for real-world applications. Whether you are building tokens, decentralized exchanges, DAOs, NFT marketplaces, or complex financial protocols, this book provides the knowledge and patterns used by professional smart contract engineers in 2026 and beyond.

Author

About the Author

Steve Publications

Steve is a technology professional with more than 20 years of experience in software development, server infrastructure, cybersecurity, vulnerability research and reverse engineering. Throughout his career, he has designed, secured, analyzed and tested complex software and infrastructure, with a particular focus on understanding how systems fail and how they can be made more secure.

Outside of work, Steve enjoys sharing knowledge with the technology community. He collaborates with researchers, industry experts and technology professionals to write practical books covering software development, cybersecurity, cloud computing, networking, DevOps, artificial intelligence and enterprise technologies. His books focus on practical learning through clear explanations, real-world examples and hands-on exercises. With more than two decades of industry experience, his goal is to help IT professionals, students and technology enthusiasts build useful skills and stay current in a rapidly changing industry.

We believe readers deserve to know how our books are created. Most of our authors are not native English speakers, so we use AI to help translate, proofread manuscripts, fix grammar, improve sentence structure and make technical explanations easier to read. AI is used as an editing tool only. It does not replace the research, technical knowledge or hands-on experience behind our books. Some of our authors also prefer to remain anonymous for privacy or professional reasons. In those cases, we publish their work under a different name. The author's name may be different, but the quality of the content and our review process remain the same.

Every book is written, reviewed and maintained by experienced technology professionals, with contributions from our private technical community of more than 400 engineers and researchers from Ukraine, Belarus and Russia. We spend far more time validating technical accuracy and keeping our content up to date than generating text. We are always interested in working with experienced professionals who have deep expertise in a particular technology or domain. If you would like to publish a book with us or help review an existing manuscript, we'd love to hear from you. Send us a message describing your area of expertise. We are especially interested in niche technologies, specialized skills and emerging topics that are underrepresented in existing technical literature.

If you look through the contents of our books, you'll see practical examples, detailed explanations and material that is regularly updated. Our goal is to publish books that professionals can actually rely on, not low-effort AI-generated content. If you ever feel that one of our books does not meet that standard, Leanpub offers a 60-day money-back guarantee. Feel free to request a refund if you are not satisfied with your purchase.

Contents

Table of Contents

A Complete Guide to Smart Contract Development on Ethereum

Introduction: The Smart Contract Revolution

  1. What Are Smart Contracts?
  2. Why Solidity Dominates Ethereum Development
  3. Who Should Read This Book
  4. How to Use This Book

Chapter 1: Blockchain Foundations and the Ethereum Ecosystem

  1. Understanding Blockchain Technology
  2. Ethereum and the EVM Architecture
  3. Wallets, Keys, and Addresses
  4. Gas, Transactions, and Network Economics
  5. Development Environments and Tooling Setup
  6. Chapter Summary

Chapter 2: Solidity Fundamentals - Your First Smart Contract

  1. The Structure of a Solidity File
  2. Data Types and Variables
  3. Functions and Control Flow
  4. Writing and Deploying Your First Contract
  5. Interacting with Contracts via Remix
  6. Chapter Summary

Chapter 3: State Management and Storage Layout

  1. Storage vs Memory vs Calldata
  2. Structs and Enums for Complex State
  3. Mappings and Arrays in Practice
  4. Storage Layout Optimization Strategies
  5. Chapter Summary

Chapter 4: Contract Architecture and Object-Oriented Patterns

  1. Inheritance and Contract Composition
  2. Abstract Contracts and Interfaces
  3. Libraries for Reusable Logic
  4. Events for Off-Chain Communication
  5. Custom Errors and Modifier Design
  6. Chapter Summary

Chapter 5: Access Control and Authorization Patterns

  1. Ownership Patterns and Pitfalls
  2. Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)
  3. OpenZeppelin Access Control Standards
  4. Multi-Signature Governance Mechanisms
  5. Designing Upgradeable Authorization Systems
  6. Chapter Summary

Chapter 6: Token Standards - ERC-20, ERC-721, ERC-1155, and Beyond

  1. The ERC-20 Standard and Fungible Tokens
  2. ERC-721 Non-Fungible Tokens
  3. ERC-1155 Multi-Token Standard
  4. ERC-4626 Tokenized Vaults and Advanced Standards
  5. Chapter Summary

Chapter 7: Security Fundamentals and Common Vulnerabilities

  1. The Security Mindset for Smart Contracts
  2. Reentrancy Attacks and Defenses
  3. Integer Overflow and Underflow
  4. Front-Running, MEV, and Transaction Ordering
  5. Access Control Failures and Privilege Escalation
  6. Chapter Summary

Chapter 8: Advanced Security - DeFi-Specific Attack Vectors

  1. Flash Loan Attacks
  2. Oracle Manipulation and Price Feeds
  3. Denial of Service in Smart Contracts
  4. Delegatecall Risks and Storage Collisions
  5. Signature Replay and Cryptographic Pitfalls
  6. Chapter Summary

Chapter 9: Upgradeable Contracts and Proxy Patterns

  1. Why Contracts Need Upgrades
  2. How Proxy Patterns Work
  3. Transparent Proxy Pattern
  4. UUPS Proxy Pattern
  5. Beacon Proxies for Batch Deployments
  6. Migration Strategies and Upgrade Safety
  7. Chapter Summary

Chapter 10: Gas Optimization and Performance Engineering

  1. Understanding Gas Costs at the EVM Level
  2. Storage Optimization Techniques
  3. Computational Efficiency Patterns
  4. Packed Storage and Layout Tricks
  5. Real-World Optimization Case Studies
  6. Chapter Summary

Chapter 11: Low-Level Solidity - Assembly, Yul, and ABI Encoding

  1. ABI Encoding and Decoding
  2. Low-Level Calls and External Interactions
  3. Inline Assembly in Solidity
  4. The Yul Intermediate Language
  5. When to Use Low-Level Techniques
  6. Chapter Summary

Chapter 12: Testing, Debugging, and Quality Assurance

  1. Testing Philosophies for Smart Contracts
  2. Unit Testing with Foundry
  3. Integration and Fork Testing
  4. Fuzzing and Property-Based Testing
  5. Debugging Strategies and Tools
  6. Chapter Summary

Chapter 13: Decentralized Finance - Building DeFi Protocols

  1. DeFi Architecture and Composability
  2. Automated Market Makers (AMMs)
  3. Lending and Borrowing Protocols
  4. Yield Aggregation Strategies
  5. Building a Complete DeFi Protocol
  6. Chapter Summary

Chapter 14: DAOs, Governance, and Decentralized Applications

  1. DAO Architecture and Voting Mechanisms
  2. Token-Based Governance Systems
  3. Staking and Reward Distribution
  4. Frontend Integration with Web3 Libraries
  5. Layer 2 Networks and Scaling Solutions
  6. Chapter Summary

Chapter 15: Cross-Chain Development, Account Abstraction, and the Future

  1. Cross-Chain Communication and Bridges
  2. Account Abstraction with ERC-4337
  3. Smart Contract Wallets
  4. Ethereum 2.0 Integration and Staking
  5. The Future of Solidity Development
  6. Chapter Summary
  7. Conclusion: Your Path Forward as a Smart Contract Developer

References

Get the free sample chapters

Click the buttons to get the free sample in PDF or EPUB, or read the sample online here

The Leanpub 60 Day 100% Happiness Guarantee

Within 60 days of purchase you can get a 100% refund on any Leanpub purchase, in two clicks.

See full terms...

Earn $8 on a $10 Purchase, and $16 on a $20 Purchase

We pay 80% royalties on purchases of $7.99 or more, and 80% royalties minus a 50 cent flat fee on purchases between $0.99 and $7.98. You earn $8 on a $10 sale, and $16 on a $20 sale. So, if we sell 5000 non-refunded copies of your book for $20, you'll earn $80,000.

(Yes, some authors have already earned much more than that on Leanpub.)

In fact, authors have earned over $15 million writing, publishing and selling on Leanpub.

Learn more about writing on Leanpub

Free Updates. DRM Free.

If you buy a Leanpub book, you get free updates for as long as the author updates the book! Many authors use Leanpub to publish their books in-progress, while they are writing them. All readers get free updates, regardless of when they bought the book or how much they paid (including free).

Most Leanpub books are available in PDF (for computers) and EPUB (for phones, tablets and Kindle). The formats that a book includes are shown at the top right corner of this page.

Finally, Leanpub books don't have any DRM copy-protection nonsense, so you can easily read them on any supported device.

Learn more about Leanpub's ebook formats and where to read them

Write and Publish on Leanpub

You can use Leanpub to easily write, publish and sell in-progress and completed ebooks and online courses!

Leanpub is a powerful platform for serious authors, combining a simple, elegant writing and publishing workflow with a store focused on selling in-progress ebooks.

Leanpub is a magical typewriter for authors: just write in plain text, and to publish your ebook, just click a button. (Or, if you are producing your ebook your own way, you can even upload your own PDF and/or EPUB files and then publish with one click!) It really is that easy.

Learn more about writing on Leanpub