How to set up a Solidity project and create your first smart contract

There are many programming languages out there. But there are not many that were created solely to create smart contracts. Those programs that run on the blockchain. Programs that create crypto coins, NFTs, or whole decentralized exchanges (DEX).

If you ever wanted to get into smart contract development with Solidity, then this article is for you. Well, even if you never heard of Solidity and smart contracts before, following this article might perhaps inspire you to dig a little deeper and perhaps even create your own crypto coin or DEX.

This article is a guide and aims to help you to set up your first Solidity project. You will learn how to set up Visual Studio Code for Solidity, install Hardhat as a local development environment, write your first lines of Solidity, test your contract, and then deploy it to a local testnet.