Having build and worked on many Ethereum-based decentralized applications (DApps), I have found and used some incredibly useful tools that have made the development process much easier. These tools have enabled me to create dapps more efficiently and effectively.
Remix
Remix is an IDE that works on browser and desktop. It helps me in creating, testing, and deploying smart contracts on Ethereum Virtual Environment (EVM) blockchains. What I find great about this tool is that you don't need to go through the hassle of installing anything your workspace. It offers useful features and plugins such as gas usage estimation, smart contract compiler, and deploying to any blockchain directly from your browser. I strongly recommend this tool for beginners who wish to delve into smart contract development or quickly prototype their ideas.
Hardhat
Hardhat is a development environment specifically designed for creating EVM smart contracts. It offers a comprehensive set of tools that make it indispensable for serious smart contract development. With Hardhat, you have access to a variety of useful features. It provides a local blockchain node, which allows you to test your contracts with no cost. You can also replicate the state of testnet and mainnet blockchains by forking them to your local blockchain node. Additionally, Hardhat offers features like block and time manipulation on your local blockchain node! There are also useful addons such as smart contract verification for blockchain explorer. Without this tool, I would needed to invest a lot more time and money to develop and test my smart contracts.
Etherscan
Etherscan is the team that is behind the widely used blockchain explorers for EVM blockchains. A blockchain explorer is a valuable tool for both traders and developers. It provides important information about user accounts, transactions, and smart contracts. For developers, Etherscan offers useful features like contract verification and the ability to directly interact with contracts on their website or through their Application Programming Interface (API). I have personally found their APIs, such as contract verification, smart contract event logs, and transaction data to be incredibly helpful in my work.
OpenZeppelin
OpenZeppelin is a company that specializes in auditing and ensuring the security of smart contracts and blockchains. They have created a number of well-tested and trusted smart contracts that are widely used in the EVM blockchain community. Some of the important contracts they have developed include ERC20 (for fungible tokens), ERC721 (for non-fungible tokens), and Ownable (for managing access to contracts). They have provided comprehensive documentation for these contracts. Another helpful tool they offer is the smart contract wizard. It allows developers to specify their contract requirements, and the wizard generates the corresponding smart contract code. This code can be exported as code or used on platforms like Remix IDE.
Alchemy
Alchemy is a blockchain nodes service provider. They provide APIs that allow users to access and interact with blockchains without the need to set up their own nodes. This is essential for me during development and production of my dapps as I will need to gather information about my smart contract and the blockchain. What I like about Alchemy is that they have very generous free tier plan and the stability of their services. They even provide free testnet faucets! Alchemy also supports node services for non-EVM blockchains such as the Solana blockchain.
Ethers.js
Ethers.js is a free and open-source library that interacts with the EVM Blockchain using JavaScript. It is an incredibly useful tool for user-facing apps or scripts that work on EVM blockchains. This library is essential as it provides all the necessary functionalities to interact with user accounts, smart contracts, transactions, and logs on any EVM blockchain. It is known for being lightweight, stable, and well-documented compared to other similar libraries.
CoinGecko
CoinGecko is a platform that offers information about cryptocurrencies. It provides information like price, trading volume, charts, and trading platforms for different types of cryptocurrencies. It is an essential tool for traders and investors in cryptocurrency space. For developers, CoinGecko offers APIs that provide data such as the latest and historical prices of cryptocurrencies, cryptocurrency market capitalization, and even information about NFTs (non-fungible tokens). Some of the APIs that I found particularly valuable in one of the dapps I built was the historical price (OHLC) data of cryptocurrencies . This data was crucial for training my AI model for trading. Without the API, it would have been impossible to train the model effectively. CoinGecko provides comprehensive documentation about these APIs, which is very helpful for developers.
MetaMask
MetaMask is a self-custodian cryptocurrency wallet. It is the go-to cryptocurrency wallet for EVM blockchains. It is one of the oldest and most well-known wallets among traders and investors. It is also the most integrated wallet among the dapps that were built. For developers, MetaMask is usually the first wallet that will be supported by their dapp. It also plays a key role in smart contract development where IDE such as Remix can use MetaMask to deploy and interact with smart contracts on the blockchain.
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