🔹 1. What Are Opcodes?

📌 Definition:

Opcodes (Operation Codes) are low-level instructions that tell a computer (or in this case, the Ethereum Virtual Machine) what operation to perform.

Think of them as the "machine language" of Ethereum — the most basic commands that the EVM can understand and execute.

For example:

• ADD → tells the EVM to add two numbers
• MUL → tells it to multiply
• PUSH → push data onto a stack
• JUMP → change where the program is executing

Each opcode has a specific job and costs gas to run.

✅ Key Point:

Opcodes specify the operation to be performed — that’s their main purpose.

🔹 2. From High-Level Code to Opcodes: How It Works

Step 1: You Write Human-Readable Code

You write a smart contract in Solidity (or another high-level language), like this:

uint a = 1;
uint b = 2;
uint c = a + b;

This is easy for humans to read and write.

Step 2: Compiler Converts It to Bytecode

But computers (and the EVM) don’t understand Solidity. So the compiler converts your code into EVM bytecode, which is made up of opcodes.