Orientation
Five minutes of setup, a map of what's ahead, and the ground rules. Nothing here needs anything beyond a browser.
L1Ground rules
- Honesty over hype. Every use case in this course ships with its failure modes. You'll study as many dead projects (B3i, fizzy, we.trade) as live ones — that's where the real lessons are.
- Sources and dates. Market numbers carry an "as of" date and a source. Vendor forecasts are labelled as forecasts.
- Domain first. Blockchain decisions in insurance fail on domain grounds, not technology grounds. Module 04 is not optional background — it's the hinge of the course.
- The Galileo lens. Cyan boxes connect each topic to a real production insurance core that already runs a blockchain audit ledger. Watch for them.
L2Tooling setup
Tier by tier. Start with nothing; add tools only when a module asks.
| When | Tool | Why / notes |
|---|---|---|
| Now (🟢) | A modern browser | The whole course, the block playground, and quizzes run offline in-page. |
| Module 02 (🔵) | Remix IDE — remix.ethereum.org | Browser Solidity IDE. No install, includes a simulated blockchain (Remix VM). |
| Module 02/06 (🔵) | MetaMask — metamask.io | Browser wallet, only for optional testnet deployment. Create a fresh wallet for learning. Never put real funds in it, and never enter an existing seed phrase anywhere. |
| Module 06 (🔵) | Sepolia test ether | Free from faucets (e.g. Google Cloud or Alchemy faucet). Test ether has no value. |
| Optional (🟣) | Node.js + Foundry | Local professional toolchain — covered as an appendix in M06. Not required. |
| Optional (🟣) | Docker | Only if you want to actually run the Fabric sample in M07 (the lab reads fine without it). |
Nothing in this course requires real cryptocurrency, ever. All labs run on simulated chains or valueless testnets. Treat any request for real funds, private keys, or seed phrases — anywhere, from anyone — as a scam.
L3Meet the case study
Galileo is the life-insurance core platform of Singlife Philippines: written in C#, storing policy data in MongoDB, and — unusually — routing every write through a private blockchain that acts as an audit ledger, with Kafka streaming ledger entries into read models. It insures millions of customers and is mid-way through a migration to a commercial platform (eBao).
That makes it the perfect case study: a real, shipped, production example of the most defensible blockchain pattern in insurance (the audit ledger) — and a live lesson in total cost of ownership, because the organisation ultimately chose to replace it. You'll meet it in every module and redesign it in the capstone.
L4Suggested pacing
| Plan | Schedule | Covers |
|---|---|---|
| Two-week sprint (full-time) | ~5 h/day | Everything incl. labs and capstone |
| Eight-week track (evenings) | ~6 h/week | Everything; one module per sitting, labs across two |
| Essentials week | ~3 h/day × 6 | 🟢 only: M00, 01, 04, 05, 08, 09 |