Let's start by understanding what BTCPay Server is and its origins. We value transparency and certain standards to form trust in the Bitcoin space. A project in the space broke these values. BTCPay Server’s lead developer, Nicolas Dorier, took this personally and made the promise to obsolete them. Here we are, many years later, and working towards this future, fully open-source, every day.

After the words spoken by Nicolas, it was time to start building. A significant amount of work went into what we now call BTCPay Server. More people wanted to contribute to this effort. The most recognizable are r0ckstardev, MrKukks, Pavlenex, and the first merchant to use the software, astupidmoose.

What does open source mean, and what goes into such a project?

FOSS stands for Free & Open-Source Software. The former refers to terms that allow anyone to copy, modify, and even distribute versions (even for profit) of the software. The latter refers to openly sharing the source code, encouraging the public to contribute and improve it. This attracts experienced users who are enthusiastic about contributing to the software they already use and derive value from, ultimately proving to be more successful in adoption than proprietary software. It is consistent with the Bitcoin ethos that “information longs to be free.” It brings together passionate people who form a community and is simply more fun. Like Bitcoin, FOSS is inevitable.

This course consists of multiple parts. Many will be taken care of by your classroom teacher, Demo environments that you get access to, a hosted server for yourself, and possibly a domain name. If you complete this course independently, please be aware that the environments labeled as DEMO won’t be available to you. NB. If you follow this course in a classroom, server names might differ depending on your classroom setup. Variables in Server names might be different due to this.

Every chapter has objectives and knowledge assessments. In this course, we will cover each of these and provide a summary of key features at the end of each lesson block (i.e., chapter). Illustrations are featured to provide visual feedback and reinforce key concepts in a visual aspect. Objectives are set at the start of each lesson block. These objectives go beyond a checklist. These provide you with a guide to a new skill set. Knowledge Assessments are progressively more challenging, as the setup of your BTCPay Server is complete.

With the BTCPay Server Course, a student can understand the basic principles, technical and non-technical, of Bitcoin. The extensive training in using Bitcoin through BTCPay Server will allow students to operate their own Bitcoin infrastructure.

The BTCPay Server Foundation, which allowed Alekos and Bas to write this course, is in Tokyo, Japan. The BTCPay Server foundation can be reached through the listed website.