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Build a dApp

You arrive from Smart Contracts able to write and test validators. This module is about meeting users where they are: connecting Cardano to web apps, services, and protocols.

It runs as two arcs. The first puts an application in front of users; the second builds the protocols underneath. Two side-tracks branch off, and you can skip both without losing the thread.

Connect users​

The path most applications follow, in order:

  • Your first dApp: assemble a working app end to end from a runnable template, connect a wallet, read a balance, send ADA.
  • Connect a wallet: the CIP-30 connector in depth, including the frontend-signs, backend-submits split every production dApp needs.
  • Wallet authentication: passwordless sign-in by proving wallet ownership with a signed message.
  • Listen for payments: the receiving side, detecting and confirming ADA arriving at an address.
  • Sponsored transactions: multi-party transactions where someone other than the user covers the fee.

For the transactions behind these flows, see your first transaction and lock and spend.

Build protocols​

What runs underneath an application, where the eUTXO model shapes the design:

  • DeFi on Cardano: DEXes, AMMs, liquidity pools, lending, and the eUTXO-specific answers to concurrency (order batching, pool sharding, transaction chaining).
  • Oracles on Cardano: how off-chain data gets on-chain, the push and pull models, and what each trust choice buys you.
  • Integrate a price feed: the practice, a working Pyth integration in three steps plus the validator patterns that use it.
  • On-chain randomness: why a validator cannot generate a random number, and the constructions that work anyway.

Side-track: AI agents​

An agent that holds a wallet and acts without a human is the same building blocks driven by different logic, plus the infrastructure an agent economy needs.

Side-track: Internet of Things​

  • IoT on Cardano: hands-on workshops that read and write the chain from microcontrollers, from fetching a wallet balance onto a display to minting sensor data on-chain, plus hardware references and troubleshooting.

Exchanges and custodial services​

Integrating at a lower level than a dApp (accounting, address management, transaction handling) is its own guide: Exchange integrations. The components such an integration builds on are listed in Cardano components.

Next steps​