Many people think that Blockchain is only limited to cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, however, the field of blockchain is much broader than that. Blockchain is a distributed immutable ledger that is completely transparent. Let’s discuss each complex term one by one. It is distributed which means every person in the network will have their own copy of the blockchain. It is immutable which means that the data of a block can not be modified. A ledger is just like a notebook where we keep records of our transactions. Blockchain is a decentralized system where all transactions or data are encrypted. As discussed, blockchain is a very powerful technology and that is why nowadays each and every company is trying to incorporate blockchain technology in their business, and hence they are looking for blockchain developers.
Blockchain is conceptually completely new and the best way to master it is by doing some hands-on rather than just reading documentation or watching some online courses. In this post, we are going to discuss the top 15 blockchain projects ideas that you can implement to showcase your skills as a blockchain developer. If you’re a beginner and just starting out to learn blockchain development then these projects are going to help you to solidify your learning. And if you’re someone who is trying to become a blockchain developer professionally then this is something you can use for your portfolio to showcase your knowledge and development skills. For each project idea, we are going to discuss the fundamental idea, required knowledge in order to make that project, what features you should add, how to build it, what kinds of tools and technologies you’ll need to build it, which programming language you’ll need to learn and some real-world examples that you can draw inspiration from. So, let’s go ahead and get into the list of blockchain project ideas. We will also share the source code link and some tutorial links so that you can start working on your favorite project idea today itself.
Blockchain Project Ideas
All blockchain-based applications consist of two major parts – Smart Contract and Interface(front-end). Now without any doubt, Front-end or the user interface is important. Because using this user will interact with your application but when it comes to blockchain applications the part you need to focus more on is the Smart contract. Smart contracts are the programs that contain the business logic of your application and that will run on a blockchain. These smart contracts are written using the Solidity programming language. Therefore in order to learn blockchain development, first you have to learn solidity programming language. After learning Solidity language you need to learn how a blockchain application works and how it is different from any other web application. The most fundamental difference between a normal web application and a blockchain application is – a web application talks to a web server for its code and data while a blockchain application talks to a blockchain having code in the form of smart contracts and also the data in the blockchain itself. Now, let’s get started with the blockchain project ideas for beginners.
Best Blockchain Projects for Beginners
Below are the 5 blockchain project ideas for absolute beginners along with some tutorial links and source code. Remember, they are not for your portfolio, they are just for learning purposes.
1. Hello, World!
Required Knowledge: None
Idea: The very first project idea that you can implement is just to print a string “Hello, World!”. This is going to be a very simple smart contract that returns the string “Hello, World!”. Although it sounds like a very simple idea, but if you’re a beginner this will teach you a lot of things. It will teach you all the basics of a blockchain project. It will teach you the layout of a solidity file, how to declare contracts, how to declare a function and so many basic things.
Source Code: Hello World
2. Simple Storage
Required Knowledge: None
Idea: The next project idea that you can implement is a simple storage smart contract. In this contract, you can take an integer variable and make sure that you are able to read this variable and also update its value. You can define two functions one for incrementing the value of the declared variable and the other for decrementing the value. So now you can build smart contracts that are not read-only but you can actually modify the data. And once you know how to modify the data in a smart contract you can extend its functionality by adding more functions to it and make it more practical.
Source Code: Simple Storage
3. Multi-Send
Required Knowledge: Solidity, Ethereum
Idea: The next idea is to build a blockchain application that can send ethers to multiple ethereum addresses. Just like for sending an email you use the email address of another user, for sending ethers you use an ethereum address. So using this application users would be able to send ethers to a list of ethereum addresses. This application can be very useful in the case of sending salary to employees. Now to build this project you need to write an ethereum smart contract. You can use REMIX IDE to do so. Remix is an online IDE for making smart contracts using solidity language. You just need to declare a function that will take an array of addresses as the argument and inside the function, you need to run a simple for loop. After doing the above projects you will be able to do this project very easily without any tutorial.
Source Code: Multi Send
4. Ether Wallet
Required Knowledge: Solidity, Ethereum
Idea: Coming to the fourth project idea – Ether Wallet. Basically, A wallet that allows you to spend your ethers. In this project, you’ll create a smart contract that is able to receive ethers from other addresses and transfer ethers to other addresses. Smart contracts like this are not especially useful but they are great for learning. This ether wallet project will teach you how to manipulate or update ether in a smart contract. And this is a very important thing to understand because the power of smart contracts lies in their ability to transfer money. You’ll also learn about access control. If we allow everybody to withdraw the ethers then anybody can steal your money. So you’ll probably need to use a required statement in order to do this access control. After doing such basic projects you’ll be able to do advanced projects with much more ease. You can also try to build a Smart wallet after doing this ether wallet project.
Source Code: Ether Wallet
5. Polling System
Required Knowledge: Solidity, Ethereum
Idea: The next project idea is a polling smart contract. In this polling system, people would be able to create a new poll, and in that poll, they would be able to mention different choices. Users would place their vote for one of the mentioned choices. You’ll set a voting period and everybody will be able to vote. At the end of the voting period, one of the choices would be the winner. These polls can be related to any topic. If you do this smart contract you will need to deal with addresses, you’ll discover more advanced data structures like hashmap. You’ll also learn how to deal with time in solidity while implementing voting period functionality, so it’s going to be a little more interesting. This is a slightly difficult project and you can mention this project in your portfolio as well.
Source Code: Polling System
Intermediate Blockchain Projects
Now, let’s discuss some intermediate blockchain project ideas that you can definitely add to your resume or portfolio.
1. Time lock Wallet
The first project idea in this category is – Time lock Smart Contract. A time lock smart contract would be a wallet that would keep your crypto assets locked for a certain amount of time. That means you won’t be able to withdraw your crypto assets even if you want to do so. We can use such wallets for multiple reasons. But one of the biggest applications of this time lock wallet is to prevent you from selling your crypto assets on the crash of the market. When the market crashes people tend to sell their crypto due to the fear of losing all their invested money. But we all know that if we want to make some really high profit in crypto we need to be able to hold it for a very long time. One way of doing this is to lock your crypto in a time lock wallet. In this way, you won’t be able to withdraw it for a certain amount of time.
2. To-do List App
The next project idea is to make a To-do list app powered by ethereum smart contracts. By making this application you can learn how exactly blockchain works or how blockchain applications work in general. In a simple to-do list web application, we use a web browser and a web server for storing all the code and data of our application. But to build a to-do list application on a blockchain you need to do something else. Instead of connecting directly to a server, you have to access your to-do list via a browser and you are going to connect to the client-side application that you will build. This client-side application is not going to talk to a web backend and a database instead it’s actually going to talk directly to the blockchain. And on the blockchain, we will have our code written in ethereum smart contracts that will contain all business logic for our to-do list app. All the to-do items are going to be stored on the blockchain itself. The smart contract will contain all the tasks of our to-do list and will allow us to add new tasks, mark complete, delete tasks, etc.
Source Code: To-do List App
3. Voting System
The third intermediate blockchain project idea is to build a Voting system. Voting is a very good example of how blockchain and smart contracts can be used in order to bring trust and transparency to the system. This application can be useful for conducting voting at the organizational level as well as at the national level. While building this project you need to make sure of some things in order to make your voting system work. First, details of the users should be hidden in your application due to privacy issues. In order to do this, you need to use an ethereum address which really will be the only identifier for the users. Second, one person should be able to place only one vote, and that too only when they’re eligible. Next, it should be transparent with a condition that all the rules of voting are being followed. Then of course we need the votes to be accurately recorded and counted. There should not be any kind of mistake or possibility of fraud in the voting system. All this will be done using solidity. Have fun with this project!
Source Code: Voting System
4. Savings and Lending Application
The next project idea is to build a savings and lending application. Decentralized finance or DeFi is a big trend right now. DeFi is basically a way of taking existing financial solutions and putting them over to the blockchain. Saving and lending is a category where people are doing this a lot. Using this application, people would be able to take loans on the blockchains. That means they can essentially lock up certain assets and borrow other cryptocurrencies and then pay back later after a certain amount of time. A different use case for this kind of application is cryptocurrency trading. Traders can lock up certain cryptocurrency assets to borrow a different kind of asset, then trade it and make a profit. Now let’s discuss what kind of technology would you need to build this. Smart contracts will be the major part of such applications. You need to write smart contracts with the solidity programming language and then deploy them in the blockchain. The smart contract will have all the business logic to manage the saving and lending protocols. In the future, there’s gonna be room for multiple types of products like this because just like there are multiple cryptocurrency exchanges there can be multiple lending and savings platforms because people are always looking for competitive rates.
Source Code: Savings and Lending Application
5. Decentralized Cryptocurrency Exchange
The final idea of a blockchain-based project in the intermediate category is a decentralized cryptocurrency exchange. This would be a non-custodial cryptocurrency exchange that means it won’t be live on a server somewhere. It will allow you to own and control the private keys to your cryptocurrency. There are so many cryptocurrency users out there and they all want to trade their cryptocurrency at some point in time and a decentralized cryptocurrency exchange would allow them to do this. An example of such an application is Idex. Now how to build this decentralized cryptocurrency exchange? To build this, you would need to create some smart contracts that handle the trading. Your application should be able to trade any type of ethereum assets, ethereum cryptocurrency itself, and any ethereum based tokens. Once you have the smart contracts in place to do this you would need some sort of client-side interface so that people can interact with your application and use it. For making the interface, you can use any backend framework like React.js, Node.js, Angular, Django, etc. Now in order to convert your web application into a blockchain application, you’ll also need some sort of library. A library that turns your web application into a blockchain website and that’s where web3.js come. Web3.js allows you to talk to smart contracts inside a regular website.
Source Code: Decentralized Cryptocurrency
Advanced Blockchain Projects
Let’s discuss some advanced blockchain projects now.
1. Blockchain Wallet
The first advanced blockchain project idea is – Blockchain Wallet. There are so many cryptocurrency users out there and they want something to manage their funds. Blockchain wallets will allow them to hold these funds and transfer them to some other wallets as well. Some examples of blockchain wallets are trusted wallets, Coinbase wallet, and Argent wallet. The main use case of such wallets is to hold cryptocurrencies. But also some wallets work as dapp browsers as well. Essentially they have a built-in web browser that lets you use blockchain-based applications. Blockchain applications need a way to sign transactions with the user’s private key and this is what these wallets allow to do. Now how would you build something like this?. You can use React Native or Flutter to build the native application. Now you need to connect this application to the blockchain. To do this, web3.js would be helpful. As discussed earlier, Web3.js is a library that turns your web application into a blockchain website.
Source Code: Blockchain Wallet
2. Digital Asset Marketplace (DAM)
The next project idea is Digital Asset Marketplace. So many people hold digital collectibles (digital assets) and they need a place to buy and sell them. Digital asset marketplaces or DAM provide a complete framework for their users. DAM act as a trusted intermediary between issuers and investors of digital assets. They propose a set of tools and services to facilitate transactions between the different users. To build this kind of application you would require some ethereum smart contracts written in the solidity programming language. You would require a web application and web3.js library to turn this web application into a blockchain website.
Source Code: Github Link1, Github Link2
3. Peer To Peer Carpooling
The next project idea is a peer-to-peer carpooling application. Currently, most carpooling systems are in the control of one agency. You can create a smart contract that would connect the rider and driver directly without the intervention of any third party like Uber or Ola. Agencies like Uber and Ola have all the data of drivers as well as of riders and this can lead to major privacy issues. If somehow, ride-sharing and car hire are moved to blockchain then we can build a much more secure and reliable carpooling system.
Source Code: Peer to Peer Carpooling
4. Skill Verification System
The next project idea is to build a skill verification system. On social media platforms, people make any claim about themselves which is often taken as the truth even if it’s not. This skill verification system would validate skills in a simple and objective way including decentralized consensus. Examples of skills would be judged anonymously by random other users. They would verify and validate the claim and get rewarded for their work. For example, if someone is an expert in react.js, they put up a claim and attach proof such as their Github repos then other members in the same domain would verify it. And based on the consensus, the claim is either ‘endorsed’ or ‘flagged’. You can try building this application using ethereum smart contracts.
Source Code: Skillcheck
5. Fake Product Identification System
The next advanced blockchain project idea is a fake product identification system. As we all know nowadays every brand has a fake copy of them out there. Every popular brand has fake manufacturers selling the same item at cheaper rates by compromising with the actual quality. Even the experts of the original company may not be able to distinguish between fake products and their real products. What if we use blockchain technology to detect original products and add a QR code to them while manufacturing. The QR code of the product will be linked to a Blockchain. We can store the product details and generated QR code of that product as blocks in the database. Now people would be able to scan the QR code using their smartphones and their smartphones will tell them whether the product is fake or not. It will compare the scanned QR code against entries in the Blockchain database. If the code matches, it will give a notification to the customer that the product is original, otherwise it will give the notification that the product is fake. This is a very interesting and useful project idea and if you successfully implement this then chances are that big brands are going to knock at your doorstep!
Source Code: Identification System
Blockchain Projects: Why Are They So Important?
Blockchain is an emerging technology. The software industries are looking for good blockchain developers and that’s why making blockchain projects would definitely give you an edge over other candidates. Most of the candidates make normal web applications or mobile applications as their projects. But blockchain application development involves going one step further. You will make a web application or a mobile application and then turn it into a blockchain application. In this way, if you add blockchain projects to your resume it automatically implies that you’re good at web development or mobile development also. Also, there’s so much room for innovation in the blockchain world. So many opportunities are still undiscovered in this area that you should definitely check out.
Conclusion
In this post, we have discussed the top 15 blockchain project ideas that you can build and add to your resume in order to stand out from the crowd. We have divided the ideas into 3 categories beginner, intermediate and advanced so that irrespective of your current level you could get an idea for a blockchain-based project. We have seen how any blockchain application is built using ethereum smart contracts and an interface. We have also discussed the importance of the Web3.js library in building any blockchain application.
Resource: Interviewbit