# Progress Milestones

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.

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### Milestone 1 — Running Bitcoin Core

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.

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### Milestone 2 — Inspecting Your Node

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.

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### Milestone 3 — Sending Transactions

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.

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### Milestone 4 — Constructing Advanced Transactions

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.

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### Milestone 5 — Working with Bitcoin Script

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.

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### Milestone 6 — Designing Script Conditions

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.

***

### Continuing Your Learning

After completing this pathway, consider:

* Exploring [Chapters 14–20](https://github.com/BlockchainCommons/Learning-Bitcoin-from-the-Command-Line) of the book
* Running additional experiments with Bitcoin Core RPC commands
* Reviewing the Builders [Resource Hub](https://pathways.btrust.tech/resource-hub)
* Beginning to explore Bitcoin open-source projects

Many developers use this pathway as a bridge toward contributing to Bitcoin open-source software.