Ethereum Internals in Go

📚 In 2020, I wrote a book for beginner blockchain developers explaining the core concepts like Transaction, Block, Mempool, Proof of Work Consensus, Peer-to-peer Sync and Wallet in the form of a story of a developer trying to revolutionize his local bar by implementing a decentralized payment system from scratch:

https://web3coach.gumroad.com/l/build-a-blockchain-from-scratch-in-go

It explains blockchain fundamentals using custom, simplified components, helping developers transition from the traditional client-server architecture to the peer-to-peer networks without feeling overwhelmed - but the components were not usable in production.

Time to level-up.

Time to master Ethereum.

Time to learn how one million transactions transferring 1B+ $ daily works under the hood.

Therefore, now, in May 2025, I am writing an in-depth "second edition" where we will together reverse-engineer the Ethereum internals written in GoLang.

Your upcoming Ethereum journey:

Chapter 1 - Run Ethereum Node On Your Computer

• Install GoLang
• Prepare 2TB of free space in SSD storage
• Clone famous go-ethereum codebase and compile Geth binary
• Intro to Beacon Chain - slots, epochs and validators
• Connect Geth to Beacon Chain
• Run Geth node and synchronize mainnet

Chapter 2 - Generate Ethereum Account

• Create Externally Owned Ethereum Account (EOA) using go-ethereum code
• Review the cryptography behind EOA - secp256k1, keccak256
• Compare Hex, Base58 and Base64 encodings
• Buy ETH with MetaMask

Chapter 3 - Create Transfer Transaction

• Develop a production-ready transfer CLI tool with tests for code coverage

• Build a real mainnet transaction object
• Serialize transaction using recursive-length prefix (RLP)
• Sign the transaction with EOA
• Broadcast the transaction to the peers around the world from your node

Chapter 4 - Decode Transaction

• Decode raw transaction bytes from Chapter 3
• Extract the v, r, s from transaction signature
• Recover the sender address from the signature
• Verify the transaction signature's authenticity
• Replay transaction

Chapter 5 - Review Transaction Receipts

• Retrieve the receipt for your transaction from Chapter 3 and 4
• Extract and interpret event logs emitted during execution
• Understand Bloom filters for efficient log searching
• Build a CLI tool to monitor and notify on specific transaction events

Chapter 6 - Trace Transaction Execution

• Enable debug API on your geth node
• Intro to callTracer and structLogs
• Capture transaction execution trace using debug_traceTransaction
• Analyze EVM stack, memory and storage operations
• Monitor gas consumption
• Identify state changes produced by transaction execution
• Debug transaction execution failures by analyzing traces

Chapter 7 - Examine State Management

• Explore the Ethereum state trie structure
• Retrieve account state before and after your transaction
• Visualize state changes triggered by transaction execution
• Implement state diff calculation to track modified accounts
• Understand state root calculation and verification

Chapter 8 - Persist Blockchain Data

• Explore LevelDB storage architecture in go-ethereum
• Map database keys and values for transactions, receipts, and headers
• Implement a CLI database explorer to navigate and visualize on-disk structures

Chapter 9 - Explore New Transaction Types

• Type 1 - Optional access lists with EIP-2930
• Type 2 - Fee market mechanism with EIP-1559
• Type 3 - Blob data with EIP-4844
• New pseudo-transaction called UserOperation for Account Abstraction

Chapter 10 - Write Smart Contract

• Intro to Solidity language
• Pre-calculate Smart Contract address with CREATE and CREATE2 opcodes
• Deploy your ERC-20 token with custom logic
• Design off-chain DEX orders with EIP-712
• Call and DelegateCall
• Write a Proxy contract using Transparent, UUPS and Beacon patterns

Chapter 11 - Program a Smart Wallet

• Intro to Account Abstraction
• EIP-4337 architecture: Bundlers, Paymasters, EntryPoints
• EIP-3074 vs EIP-7702
• UserOperations and the eth_sendUserOperation method
• Develop AA-compatible wallet sponsoring transaction gas of its users

Result

You will finish the book with in-depth understanding of the Ethereum blockchain.

🔥 How to get the book?

Initially, I thought about allowing pre-orders, but the pressure to deliver the book on a specific date would steal the joy of writing it.

Therefore, let's connect on LinkedIn first and have a chat about why this book is of interest to you.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/llukac/

Looking forward,

Lukáš.

PS: I put the price 999€ because I can't make it 0.