## Welcome to Vyper Fundamentals This course is especially exciting to us because this is the Python and Vyper edition. Something we haven't done before in the past. In the past 5 years that we've been doing this, we've done Python, but never Vyper. Now Python is positioning itself to be one of the most important languages to learn in the coming years. In the age of AI. When it comes to financial technology companies like hedge funds or asset managers, all the portfolio managers or traders, they're using Python. Why? Because Python is very easy to read, easy to script, and it's a production language to build very powerful applications with. And additionally, looking at the AI landscape, Python is dominant there as well with tools like PyTorch and TensorFlow, and all these libraries and packages built specifically around the AI landscape. We're also looking forward to advancements in languages like Mojo, which are going to be languages literally built to run in the AI environment. So, you, who is watching this video right now, you are setting yourself up to have an edge over all these waves of people coming in, because you are learning this technology of the future with Python, and specifically with Vyper. Now we'll learn more about Vyper in the coming videos, but basically, Vyper is a smart contract development language. So, we're actually going to learn Vyper, and learning Vyper, you will learn Python along the way, which is very nice. So, if you have zero Python experience, us teaching you Vyper here will also teach you some Python. Now there are some differences between the languages, between Vyper and Python. However, a lot of the syntax is going to be very similar. So, whether you're brand new to Python, whether you're brand new to Vyper, this is the course for you. Now, it would be beneficial if you had a little bit of Python experience before jumping into this. That's going to make your life a lot easier, you're going to move a lot quicker. There are plenty of courses on Free Code Camp that will teach you these things along the way. However, we're going to assume that you know nothing about Python. We're going to assume that you're a beginner Python developer. That way, you can follow along, and you can learn production professional Python code as well in this curriculum, too. Now, that being said, if you do already know Python, which that's great as well, you can skip over some of the sections where we teach you Python, and at the beginning of those videos I will label them, saying hey, we're going to teach some Python skills in this lesson, feel free to skip. Now a question that you're probably asking is, "Why Vyper? Why would I learn Vyper over Solidity?" Looking at this chart here as of recording, Vyper has around 3% of the total TVL of smart contracts. Basically, what this means is not a whole lot of money is in Vyper smart contracts. However, the reason you would want to do this is, because there are a couple applications that have a ton of money in Vyper smart contracts. Curve, one of the largest DEXs out there is built exclusively on Vyper. Lido, one of the largest staking platforms, is built with a lot of Vyper. Yearn Finance as well has a lot of Vyper. Vyper, by its nature, is meant to be easy to learn, easy to read, easy to write, and very easy for AIs to understand. And importantly, very easy for security researchers to understand, so that your smart contracts have fewer bugs in them. Which, in the smart contracts space, is incredibly important, because a single bug can mean you lose millions of dollars. And additionally, because Vyper is in this Python tooling world, you are going to step into the AI, to the finance, to the fintech world, and have all these powerful Pythonic tools and libraries at your disposal already. So, jumping into the Python and Vyper landscape, will set you up for this future of AI and finance. So I am incredibly excited for you to be on this journey with us here, learning Vyper, learning smart contract development because we've got a lot in store for you. At the end of Vyper Fundamentals, you will understand the basics of Vyper, you'll even learn a little bit of Python without even knowing it. You'll learn some tools and techniques for interacting with AI to help you write your smart contracts, help you write your code. You will have deployed your first three smart contracts yourself, and you'll be ready to move into a more professional environment, and just by you being here, just by you writing your first line of code, you are a smart contract developer and welcome to Web3. And if you missed this section during Blockchain Basics, let's go ahead and get started with some best practices so that we can set you up for success for learning here.