Four weeks · about 3 hours of reading
From nothing to competent.
A sequenced path using only free material. The order matters more than it looks — security comes before doing anything, and doing something cheap comes before understanding the economics, because abstractions stick better after you have used them.
- 1 Week 1 · ~35 minutes
Know what you are dealing with
Goal: You can explain what an NFT is to someone else, including what you do not own when you buy one.
- Read: What are NFTs, actually? The concept, the standards, and the honest state of the market.
- Read: Web3 explained What the surrounding vocabulary means once the marketing is removed.
- Skim: the glossary You do not need to memorise it. You need to know it exists.
Check yourself: Can you say, in one sentence, what you own when you own an NFT — and what you do not?
- 2 Week 2 · ~50 minutes
Learn the security before you hold anything
Goal: You have a wallet set up correctly and you can recognise the main attacks.
- Read: storing NFTs safely Seed phrases, hot and cold separation, approvals.
- Read: scams and red flags Each attack, mechanically. The highest-value reading on this site.
- Do: set up a wallet Write the recovery phrase on paper. Restore it once to check you copied it correctly.
Check yourself: Could you explain why a request for setApprovalForAll during a free mint is a warning sign?
- 3 Week 3 · ~1 hour
Make one transaction, cheaply
Goal: You have minted or bought something on a layer 2 for a few cents, and seen the whole flow.
- Read: how to create and mint Chain choice, metadata, storage — the part that determines whether it survives.
- Do: mint something on a layer 2 Base or Polygon. A few cents. Your own file, so there is nothing to verify.
- Read: how to buy an NFT Read it even if you do not intend to buy — the verification steps are the lesson.
Check yourself: Did you check your token renders on a marketplace other than the one you minted on?
- 4 Week 4 · ~45 minutes
Fees, royalties, tax and what you actually keep
Goal: You can work out the real economics of a trade, and you know what records to keep.
- Read: royalties explained Why the 5% often does not arrive.
- Read: NFT taxes Including the trap of paying with appreciated crypto.
- Do: run a trade through the calculator Find the break-even price. It is higher than you expect.
Check yourself: Do you know what your break-even sell price is on something you hold, including gas on both sides?
- 5 Then · Open-ended
Pick a direction
Goal: You have the fundamentals. What comes next depends on what you want.
- Developer: smart contracts explained Then Solidity, then Ethernaut before anything you write holds value.
- Creator: where the demand went More useful right now than any launch playbook.
- Structure: pick a course If you want someone pacing you through the next part.
Check yourself: You are past the point where a beginner course would teach you anything new.
Common questions
How long does this actually take?
Do I need to spend any money?
Why is security in week two rather than later?
Should I buy a course instead?
After the roadmap
Then, if you want structure.
Once you have done all of the above, a course is no longer filling a gap in your knowledge — it is buying you a structured path through the next part. That is a good reason to buy one, and a different reason from the one most people start with.