Progress Milestones
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Self-paced pathways work best when learners can periodically check their progress.
These milestones are not evaluations or requirements. Instead, they help you confirm that your understanding and practical skills are developing as expected.
If you can comfortably complete the tasks below, you’re likely on track with the pathway.
After completing Week 1, you should be able to:
Run a Bitcoin Core node (bitcoind)
Connect to your node using bitcoin-cli
Execute basic RPC commands
Inspect node information (e.g., getblockchaininfo, getnetworkinfo)
You should feel comfortable interacting with your node through the command line.
After completing Week 2, you should be able to:
Query blockchain state and node status
Understand wallet behavior inside Bitcoin Core
Inspect transactions and blocks through CLI commands
Interpret common RPC outputs
You should be able to explore your node and understand what the outputs mean.
After completing Week 3, you should be able to:
Generate new addresses
Send Bitcoin transactions using CLI commands
Inspect transaction details
Track transaction confirmation status
At this stage, you should feel confident creating and broadcasting transactions directly from the command line.
After completing Week 4, you should be able to:
Create and manage multisignature wallets
Work with Partially Signed Bitcoin Transactions (PSBTs)
Coordinate transaction construction across multiple participants
Inspect and analyze more complex transaction structures
You should now understand how collaborative and multi-party transactions work in Bitcoin.
After completing Week 5, you should be able to:
Understand the role of Bitcoin Script in transaction validation
Inspect locking and unlocking scripts
Embed scripts into P2SH transactions
Understand how script conditions control spending
You should now understand how Bitcoin enforces spending rules programmatically.
After completing Week 6, you should be able to:
Work with timelocks and conditional spending
Reason about complex script structures
Design simple custom spending conditions
Understand how scripts combine to create advanced transaction logic
At this point, you should have a strong practical foundation in interacting with Bitcoin Core through the command line.
After completing this pathway, consider:
Exploring Chapters 14–20 of the book
Running additional experiments with Bitcoin Core RPC commands
Reviewing the Builders Resource Hub
Beginning to explore Bitcoin open-source projects
Many developers use this pathway as a bridge toward contributing to Bitcoin open-source software.
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