Go Crypto Engineer Course: Blockchain Infrastructure, MEV, and On-Chain Bots

Why Go for Blockchain Infrastructure?

Go is the language of blockchain infrastructure:
→ Ethereum (geth) — written in Go
→ Cosmos SDK — written in Go
→ Most CEX backends (Binance, OKX, Coinbase) — Go
→ MEV bots and high-frequency crypto trading — Go
→ Exchange matching engines — Go

Why Go beats alternatives for crypto infra:
→ vs Python: 10–100x faster, true concurrency (goroutines)
→ vs Java: simpler, faster startup, better memory management
→ vs Rust: easier to write, still very fast
→ vs Node.js: true parallelism, better for CPU-bound tasks
→ Built-in networking (net/http, gRPC) for protocol work

2026 job market:
→ Infrastructure engineers command 20–30% premium over app devs
→ MEV specialists are among the highest-paid in all of crypto
→ AI + blockchain automation is the fastest-growing niche

Full Curriculum

Module 1: Go Fundamentals (12 lessons)

Go Basics:
→ Variables, types, control flow (Go's terseness is intentional)
→ Functions, multiple returns, named returns
→ Structs, interfaces, embedding
→ Pointers and when to use them
→ Error handling: Go's explicit error pattern
→ Packages, modules (go.mod ecosystem)

Go Concurrency (the killer feature):
→ Goroutines: lightweight threads
→ Channels: communicate by sharing, don't share to communicate
→ Select statement: multiplex channels
→ sync package: Mutex, WaitGroup, Once
→ Context: cancellation and timeout patterns
→ Common concurrency patterns: fan-out, fan-in, pipeline

Go Networking:
→ net/http: building HTTP servers and clients
→ WebSocket: real-time data streaming
→ gRPC: high-performance RPC for blockchain nodes
→ JSON encoding/decoding at high performance

Module 2: Blockchain Fundamentals (8 lessons)

Blockchain Core Concepts (for engineers):
→ Merkle trees: how block data is structured
→ Cryptography: ECDSA, hashing, address derivation
→ P2P networking: how nodes discover and communicate
→ Mempool: transaction lifecycle from submission to inclusion
→ Block production: PoW vs PoS mechanics
→ State management: how balances and contracts are stored

Ethereum Internals (Go implementation):
→ go-ethereum (geth) codebase tour
→ JSON-RPC API: the interface every tool uses
→ WebSocket subscriptions: real-time block/transaction streaming
→ eth_call vs eth_sendTransaction
→ ABI encoding/decoding: interacting with contracts in Go

Module 3: On-Chain Bot Development (8 lessons)

DeFi Mechanics (from an engineering perspective):
→ AMM math: how price impact is calculated
→ Arbitrage opportunity identification
→ Liquidity pool state reading
→ Price oracle reading (Chainlink, Pyth)

Building Your First Bot:
→ Connecting to Ethereum node via go-ethereum
→ Subscribing to new blocks and pending transactions
→ Parsing transaction data (to address, method signature, calldata)
→ Executing trades: constructing and sending transactions
→ Gas management: dynamic gas pricing

Bot Architecture:
→ Strategy pattern: separating signal from execution
→ Risk management: position sizing, stop conditions
→ State management: tracking positions and PnL
→ Logging and monitoring: Prometheus + Grafana

Module 4: MEV Strategies (10 lessons)

MEV Fundamentals:
→ What is MEV (Maximal Extractable Value)
→ Searcher ecosystem: who captures MEV
→ Flashbots: the MEV-Share protocol
→ Block builder vs proposer separation (PBS)

MEV Strategy Types:

Arbitrage:
→ DEX-to-DEX arbitrage (Uniswap → Curve → Balancer)
→ Cross-chain arbitrage detection
→ Statistical arbitrage basics

Liquidations:
→ Aave/Compound liquidation opportunities
→ Health factor monitoring
→ Flash loan integration for capital efficiency

Sandwich Attacks (education only):
→ How they work mechanically
→ Why they're harmful to users
→ How protocols defend against them (slippage protection)

Advanced MEV:
→ Backrunning: capturing value from large trades
→ Bundle building with Flashbots
→ MEV on Solana: Jito's approach

Lab: Build a real arbitrage bot
→ Connect to mainnet fork (Anvil)
→ Detect arbitrage opportunities between 2 DEXes
→ Execute profitable trades
→ Measure performance and tune

Module 5: Blockchain Infrastructure (6 lessons)

Running Nodes:
→ Ethereum full node setup (geth + lighthouse)
→ Archive node vs full node tradeoffs
→ RPC optimization for high-throughput applications

Custom Blockchain Integration:
→ Cosmos SDK overview: building app-specific chains
→ IBC (Inter-Blockchain Communication) protocol
→ Custom modules: adding logic to a Cosmos chain

P2P Networking:
→ libp2p: Go's distributed networking library
→ DHT (Distributed Hash Table) for peer discovery
→ Gossip protocol: how transactions propagate
→ Building a simple P2P application

Module 6: AI + Web3 Automation (Advanced, ~8 lessons)

AI-Driven On-Chain Automation:
→ Integrating Go AI clients (Claude API, OpenAI API)
→ Agent patterns in Go: tools + reasoning loop
→ Natural language → on-chain action pipeline

Use cases:
→ AI trading signal generator → bot executor
→ Natural language DeFi portfolio manager
→ Auto-research and report generation on new protocols
→ AI-powered MEV opportunity identification

Capstone: On-Chain Automation Bot
→ User inputs: "rebalance my portfolio to 50% ETH, 30% USDC, 20% SOL"
→ System parses intent, queries prices, constructs transactions
→ Executes with safety checks (slippage, max spend limits)
→ Reports results in plain language

Capstone Projects

Project 1 — Arbitrage Monitor + Executor:
→ Monitor DEX price differences in real-time
→ Calculate profitability including gas costs
→ Execute when opportunity meets threshold
→ Performance dashboard

Project 2 — On-Chain MEV Bot (Mainnet Fork):
→ Deployed on Anvil mainnet fork
→ Real DEX interaction, real profitability measurement
→ Risk management built-in

Project 3 — AI-Driven Web3 Automation:
→ Natural language interface
→ Multi-step DeFi operations
→ Production-ready deployment

Career Paths

Enroll: WeChat customer service (QR on courses page) · Telegram: @kkdemian

— iBuidl Education Team