How do you think Dether will help people?

When I first started thinking about Dether, I was always trying to think of the potential users behind it, and whether or not they are familiar with blockchain technology. And the more time passes, the more I strongly believe that Dether will help the masses to easily get familiar with cryptocurrency and blockchain, without prior knowledge about it. Personally, I pay close attention to user experience when building Dether. If we really want Ethereum and decentralized applications to go mainstream, then anyone should be able to use Dether to buy and sell Ether. That’s the reason why we decided to have a smooth user experience with a pleasant user interface. And it should be the same for every decentralized application. When building a decentralized application (Dapp), the main challenge for teams is to make your users actually use blockchain technology without even noticing it.

Hamid B.

People need a simple and universal way to buy and sell cryptocurrencies, no matter where they are in the world. Today, there are no standards, like ATMs, present in all countries. That’s what we want to build with Dether, and thanks to the characteristics of cryptocurrencies, and to the rate of penetration of mobile phones in our lives, one just needs to have a phone and cash, and an application to connect everyone.

Mehdi A.

What are the key tips to keep a team motivated towards the same vision?

I think that the challenge behind Dether’s mission to break barriers to Ethereum mass adoption keeps us all super motivated and excited about what we are building. Everyone in the team has experienced a cryptocurrency cash-in or cash-out problem at a moment in our life, whether it was for us, for a friend, or for a relative. It shaped our vision and our ambition to build a working alpha before the token sale so that our community members can actually have a good visibility on Dether, instead of just words on a whitepaper. We also took time to install an entrepreneurship culture in the team and it has also led every member to be a real asset. The fact that everyone can propose new ideas, quickly test them and mesure them to know if an idea is a success or not keeps everyone motivated towards an ambitious mission. Last, but not least, it’s important to have diversity in the team. When we look at the team members’ backgrounds, it’s so interesting to see how we all have different backgrounds in the team: I have experience in the political sphere, Romain was a photographer for famous artists, Mamad was a consultant for top French companies, Mehdi is a former break dancer, Mohamed launched a food truck startup etc. And this diversity brings innovation and keeps everyone on the track towards the same mission.

Hamid B.

We are lucky to be a team of friends sharing the same vision around a project. Thanks to this, things are done very naturally, and everyone can use their skills to push the project forward. It is this strength that characterizes us and without this alchemy, we would not be where we are today.

Mehdi A.

Why did you join Dether, and what do you hope to achieve?

Before Dether, I worked with Mehdi and Hamid on a project as a Full Stack JS/Ethereum developer. And since I was already very interested in the Ethereum blockchain, I didn’t hesitate once when they asked me to work on Dether. Moreover, the entrepreneurial aspect and technical innovation are factors of great importance to me. On the technical side, my background as a web developer helped me to adapt to Solidity (the development language of the smart-contracts on the blockchain Ethereum). As a developer, what stimulates me is to develop something today and develop something totally different the next day — I never want to have a routine! The Ethereum Blockchain is still in its infancy, so we have to constantly create, innovate, and look for the most efficient way to interact with it using the libs available. From this point of view, Devcon3 has shown that the Ethereum community is doing a tremendous job of providing us with effective tools to improve our productivity. The Dether Alpha release was a real success, the community gave us a lot of positive feedback about the features, the design etc… It’s a real pride for us to see that people appreciate our work and to see our application live on testnet, it’s proof that the hours and nights of work weren’t in vain. But this is just the beginning… The next big challenge we are going to face is to release the app on Mainnet. This important step in the life of a Dapp is crucial and will confront us with the real problems encountered by users who trust the Dether app and the Ethereum blockchain. The security aspect is going to be a great challenge on which we have already started to work, and which we are constantly improving.

Ishak L.

What are your thoughts on the Ethereum community?

I think the people involved in blockchain are people who are really engaged to change the world, interested in new technologies and want to emancipate themselves from the current monetary system. This technological evolution opens the door to a new world in which everyone wants to participate become the pioneers of this new system. It is in this context that I became interested in the Ethereum blockchain. The fact that we can decentralize all kinds of applications opens up huge and interesting perspectives. For my part, Dether is the missing link for the democratization of crypto to become accessible to all. I also find that the visual identities of the Ethereum ecosystem projects have nothing to envy regarding the projects outside the blockchain. There is a real effervescence with all these projects and concepts that are created, and each one tries to develop a real and original identity. Through Dether, I’m lucky enough to be able to fully blossom in a project where I can do what I want, creatively speaking.

Romain H.

I think that the Ethereum community is a dynamic and constantly growing community, as proof, the latest major event, Devcon3 has brought together people from all over the world to discuss, exchange on innovative projects, and reflect on how to break down barriers to allow everyone to access blockchain technology. The Dether Alpha release has been positively perceived by the community, and we have exchanged with potential future partners whose applications are complementary to Dether. Some of them build reputation systems, others build identity systems, and some come up with voting or other forms of governance. Everyone has understood that to help the growth of the blockchain ecosystem, we must create synergies in order to develop real interoperability (when it is possible) between the different products on the market. It is in this vision that Dether is part of this process, and we are working very hard on that.

Mamad B.

We hope this article has given you a little more insight into the overall vision of the Dether project team. We will soon publish a more in-depth individual interview of each member.

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