IICTI Certified Blockchain Developer

Holders demonstrate that they can apply and evaluate consensus protocols, finality and blockchain security models, eVM internals and gas-optimised smart contract engineering, smart contract security, vulnerability classes and audit practice and formal verification, fuzzing and invariant testing, plus 7 further areas, in realistic professional scenarios, as defined in the AQSCERT scheme for Blockchain Developer.

Who it is for: Professionals working, or preparing to work, in software development roles.

1. 01Consensus protocols, finality and blockchain security models9% of the exam

   • Evaluate consensus and finality guarantees and their implications for application and protocol design.
   • Scope: PoW, PoS (Gasper, Tendermint/CometBFT, HotStuff), BFT assumptions, finality and reorg risk, MEV and proposer-builder separation, validator economics, liveness vs safety trade-offs.
2. 02EVM internals and gas-optimised smart contract engineering10% of the exam

   • Design smart contracts that are correct, gas-efficient and resilient to EVM edge cases.
   • Scope: EVM execution model, storage layout and slots, calldata vs memory, transient storage (EIP-1153), Solidity and Yul optimisation, Vyper, compiler behaviour and gas profiling (Foundry, Hardhat).
3. 03Smart contract security, vulnerability classes and audit practice11% of the exam

   • Evaluate smart contract designs for vulnerability classes and lead secure review and remediation.
   • Scope: Reentrancy, access control, oracle manipulation, flash-loan economic attacks, signature replay, front-running, SWC/OWASP Smart Contract Top 10, audit methodology, static analysis (Slither, Aderyn) and audit reporting.
4. 04Formal verification, fuzzing and invariant testing9% of the exam

   • Design verification strategies that prove or stress critical invariants of on-chain systems.
   • Scope: Property-based and invariant fuzzing (Foundry, Echidna, Medusa), symbolic execution (Halmos, Manticore), formal verification (Certora, SMTChecker, K framework), specification writing and coverage.
5. 05Upgradeability, contract architecture and on-chain governance9% of the exam

   • Architect upgradeable contract systems with safe governance and controlled change management.
   • Scope: Proxy patterns (Transparent, UUPS, Beacon, Diamond/EIP-2535), storage collision, initialisation risks, timelocks and multisig (Safe), DAO governance attacks, immutability vs upgradeability trade-offs.
6. 06DeFi protocol design and mechanism economics9% of the exam

   • Evaluate DeFi mechanisms for economic soundness and design protocols resistant to manipulation.
   • Scope: AMMs and concentrated liquidity, lending and liquidation mechanics, stablecoin designs, oracle design (Chainlink, TWAP), tokenomics, incentive compatibility and economic attack modelling.
7. 07Layer 2 scaling, rollups and cross-chain interoperability9% of the exam

   • Evaluate scaling and interoperability architectures and select designs based on their trust and security assumptions.
   • Scope: Optimistic and ZK rollups, data availability (EIP-4844 blobs, DA layers), sequencer centralisation, fraud and validity proofs, bridges and messaging (IBC, CCIP), bridge security failures and trust assumptions.
8. 08Applied cryptography and zero-knowledge proof systems9% of the exam

   • Design applications that correctly apply cryptographic primitives and zero-knowledge proofs.
   • Scope: ECDSA/EdDSA and BLS signatures, Merkle and Verkle trees, commitment schemes, zk-SNARKs and zk-STARKs, circuit development (Circom, Noir, Halo2), MPC and threshold signatures.
9. 09Account abstraction, wallets and key management9% of the exam

   • Architect wallet and key management solutions that balance usability, security and custody requirements.
   • Scope: ERC-4337 and EIP-7702, smart accounts, paymasters and bundlers, passkey signers, MPC and HSM custody, social recovery, transaction simulation and signing UX security.
10. 10Enterprise and permissioned blockchain architecture8% of the exam

    • Evaluate when distributed ledgers fit enterprise problems and design permissioned architectures that integrate with existing systems.
    • Scope: Hyperledger Fabric, Besu and Corda, private data and confidentiality, identity and PKI integration, tokenisation of real-world assets (ERC-3643), off-chain integration, indexing (The Graph) and oracles for enterprise data.
11. 11Blockchain regulation, compliance and operational risk8% of the exam

    • Evaluate regulatory and operational risk of blockchain solutions and design compliant, monitored deployments.
    • Scope: EU MiCA, DORA, FATF travel rule and AML/CFT, sanctions screening, GDPR and immutability, smart contract legal enforceability, incident response for on-chain exploits and monitoring (Forta, OpenZeppelin Defender).

Question types

Single choice 100%

Delivery

Online (remote proctored), Test centre, On-site (corporate)

Retakes

Up to three attempts within any 12-month period. A 14-day waiting period applies after a first unsuccessful attempt and 30 days after a second. Each retake requires a new booking and fee. Retakes draw a different randomised form from the question bank.

Provisional cut score — psychometric validation is required before live delivery. Blueprint v1.0.

1. 1

   Register

   Create a free account and start the programme.

2. 2

   Practice

   Online practice test (coming soon).

3. 3

   Training

   Optional

   Online course or classroom — or skip it.

4. 4

   Certification

   Independent exam and certification decision.

Training is optional and does not by itself confer certification. Find a training partner