Curriculum·J306 Smart Contract Risk for Non-Developers·96 min
Reading a contract without reading code
By the end of this lesson you can
- →Enumerate the eight contract powers that determine your outcome, without reading Solidity
- →Locate each one using a block explorer and published documentation
- →Explain why a price you cannot sell into is not a price
- →Distinguish a question about code from a question about authority
Junior · account required
This lesson opens with The SQUID token, November 2021.
Orientation and Freshman are open to everyone, no account needed. From Sophomore onward we ask you to sign in, because progress through the later levels only means anything if it is tracked against a record.
It is free. We do not sell the list and there is nothing to buy at the end of it.
Sources and review
- https://www.thecoinrepublic.com/2025/01/01/how-squid-games-success-led-to-one-of-biggest-rug-pulls-in-2021/
- https://cryptopotato.com/binance-is-tracking-the-squid-game-scammers-and-will-hand-the-intormation-to-authorities/
- https://blockworks.com/news/multichain-founder-family-arrested
- https://www.chainalysis.com/blog/multichain-exploit-july-2023/
Confidence high·Volatility low·Reviewed 2026-08-06·Owner unassigned
Contested
Explorer interfaces, verification status and the availability of read and write tabs vary by chain and change over time. The eight powers are properties of the contract standard and are durable; where to click is not, and the lesson teaches what to look for rather than a fixed sequence of screens.
An unverified contract is not evidence of wrongdoing on its own, since verification is a voluntary step some legitimate deployers skip. It does mean the powers below cannot be established, which per the risk rubric in J306-05 is a finding rather than a neutral absence.