Alchemy Insights Inc., a Web3 development infrastructure startup that dubs itself the “AWS of blockchain,” announced Thursday that it’s buying the Ethereum education startup ChainShot in its first acquisition ever.
Alchemy described the acquisition as a “major step towards free access to high-quality Web3 education” and said that the company intends to integrate ChainShot’s courses with its own, which cost up to $3,000. They won’t be offered 100% free.
ChainShot is a developer bootcamp with live, instructor-led courses for coders seeking to better understand the Ethereum ecosystem. It starts with blockchain fundamentals such as understanding the basic coding language for smart contracts, called Solidity, to advanced courses in explaining low-level code functions such as delegate calls.
Alchemy’s platform powers some of the biggest names in the crypto industry including several nonfungible token, or NFT, marketplaces, including OpenSea, SuperRare, Rarible and MakersPlace. NFTs are a type of blockchain-based crypto asset that represent the ownership of intangible items such as artwork, video game items and concert tickets that can be owned and traded.
The company last raised $200 million on a $10.2 billion valuation in February to build out its Web3 infrastructure platform.
Web3 is what experts refer to as the decentralized web, which is built on blockchain technology, such as Ethereum. That’s why Alchemy has set its sights on ChainShot and its educational bootcamp, so it can better onboard developers into the field.
According to a February report from Electric Capital, a venture capital firm that invests in Web3 companies, more than 34,000 new developers committed code to Web3 projects in 2021, the highest number ever documented. The report also noted that 65% of active developers started working last year as well and more than 18,000 monthly active developers commit primarily to the Ethereum ecosystem.
According to Alchemy, ChainShot has seen tremendous growth over the past four years and has almost tripled enrollment since January. More than 86% of its students graduate and 50% of them go on to find a job within six months. Graduates from ChainShot boast jobs at some well-known crypto firms such as OpenSea, OpenZeppelin and Flashbots.
Alchemy believes that ChainShot’s educational content will make an excellent addition to its own Web3U and Road to Web3 platforms, which offer their own specialized instructional content.
Ethereum is soon going through its own maturation as well, as an expected upgrade known as “the Merge” is happening in September that will greatly increase its efficiency. This will set the foundation for future upgrades to the blockchain, which will become available in 2023, setting the stage for scaling up the network to allow it to handle even more transaction volume.