Q: I’m really curious about your QA process at the moment, and how you plan to scale QA.

A: For now, we have unit test CI, and regular audits taking place. We are in the process of hiring a QA team member.

Q: I have a question, where is my password going to be stored?

A: We don’t store anything related to your password, it’s only used to encrypt/decrypt your encrypted private key.

Q: How is the private key encrypted?

A: We use ethers.js library to manage everything related to the wallet.

Q: How is the key actually encrypted? Regardless of library, what encryption scheme do you use? And is the pass phrase simply used as a key or is there a KDF process beforehand? Do you know what encryption schemes the ethers.js library is using or have you just plugged it in?

A: We use the ethers.js encrypt function, which create a secret storage JSON wallet, associated with a password to decrypt. We aren’t cryptographers, so we use an already well-tested and well-known library to do this job!

Q: What languages do you use to build the Dether app?

A: It’s a PWA built on React.

Q: Are you storing information related to reputation and loyalty points on the blockchain?

A: Yes, loyalty points are calculated when you perform a trade — its fully decentralized and stored on-chain.

Q: What will be the daily max for selling ETH?

A: For the beta it will be just 1000$/max day, later we could use a mix of centralized/decentralized KYC [for a higher limit].

Q: Who pays for gas to keep loyalty points up to date?

A: It will be paid by the user the next time he or she carries out an action on the chain. Your balance will depend on your action, but it’s supposed to decrease only if you stake it for premium services.

Q: Is your mobile phone number stored on the blockchain?

A: No, we only use to validate your address.

Q: What is current app readiness state? In percents, if possible. Thank you.

A: We’re currently testing on mainnet, so we’re very close to release.

Q: Why do you need DTH tokens (as opposed to ETH)?

A: To stake a zone, like taxi medallions. We don’t want to have a complicated token utility, so we stick to a simple but strong utility: being able to operate on the protocol. If you stake ether with small proportion of total ETH, if Dether valuation is not very high, it would be a very simple transaction and not cost very much ETH to take over the network. Let’s say with something like 0.00001% of total ETH, you could easily take over the entire network. But by using our own token with a good repartition among lots of small owners, someone wanting to take over the whole network would make the price go up drastically.

Q: Are you going to integrate a comment section on users’ profiles, which will make it easier to recognize scammers?

A: Definitely in the next version.

Q: Will you integrate Binance (BNB) token?

A: Yes. Binance is an ERC20 token, and we plan to integrate many ERC20 tokens.

Q: Will someone be able to trade any ERC20 token via Dether or are you going to have a centralized curation?

A: First, you will have the possibilty to trade ETH for listed ERC20s directly from the app, thanks to our integration of the AirSwap Swap protocol in the exchange feature of the app, so if you want to buy or sell tokens for cash, you’ll need to exchange them for ETH directly in the app with the “one-click exchange” feature, and then trade your ETH for cash with the teller feature. But in future versions, we’ll make it possible for tellers to be able to sell any kind of token directly to their client, without the need to own them first.

Q: Why do you integrate with AirSwap and not with 0x? Does AirSwap have more liquidity than 0x?

A: Because they were most advanced for ‘one click trade’ feature, for a mass adoption app we think its the killer feature. 0x three or four months ago didn’t have this feature, nor an easy widget to integrate on the website like AirSwap, but I heard they were working on it after. Regarding the liquidity, there’s already good volume on AirSwap.

That being said, the app’s exchange feature will evolve, and we definitely will take a closer look to other dex solution like 0x, Kyber or Oasisdex and will integrate them if needed.

Q: What’s up with Dether js library? Anyone is doing anything with it?

A: We will reopen the Github repo with some good documentation to explain how to use it in the coming weeks following the release. We already have some contact with well-known dApps willing to use it to show their users where they could buy or sell their crypto. Dether.js is a big part of our plan to make Dether global, but we first need to build a minimum acceptable network by launching our own app and promoting it, to make dether.js valuable to use.

Q: Thoughts on Monzo and Revolut?

A: They are great mobile banking services, and definitely an inspiration in terms of execution for a fintech startup, but we’ve had a vision from day 1 to offer an alternative financial system, thanks to Ethereum. That’s why being dependent on credit card processors has never been our priority. And we saw over the past few months that all the crypto credit card startups have had some problems.

Q: 1) How does Dether team plan to drive demand for DTH ? Especially in situations where current tokenomics fail. Do you plan to readjust your strategy or consider reinventing whole token system in that case?

2) What do you see as Dether’s competitive advantages comparing to LocalEthereum and others?

A: 1) You need DTH to operate on the protocol; our token is supposed to be staked as long as you want to operate on the protocol to make profit by selling/ buying crypto.

2) We are mobile first and our focus is more local trades for cash than other solutions, which propose online solutions. We could address these markets later too. But for now, we are focusing on people willing to trade locally for cash — that’s where we think there’s huge demand in unbanked countries.

Thank you again to Mehdi for taking the time to answer these questions, and to our users for asking them! We hope you enjoyed reading them. Have more questions? Be sure to stop by our Telegram channel to learn more!

*Questions have been edited for length and clarity.