Dether Development Transparency — Part 2

Introducing Dether.js

To sustain our vision of a creating a decentralised OTC network of crypto traders and shops accepting crypto, today we are releasing the alpha version of dether.js: a javascript library to interact with the Dether protocol.

Why Dether.js?

Having an easy way to easy cash-in cash-out crypto is a need currently shared by the entire crypto community — and soon the entire planet — once the Blockchain technology reaches the masses. In order to build a strong network, we need to facilitate access to it. That’s what this library is made for.

It enables any Dapp to easily add cash-in and cash-out services to their Dapp. They are able to register new crypto sellers by themselves (and also refer them to earn money on their trade), or simply load the list of sellers/shops around the users.

What’s inside?

Dether.js is a javascript library available on github. Basically, it’s all you need to build an app interacting with our contract.

We use ethers.js as our Ethereum javascript API, which you can access from DetherJS.Ethers, so you don’t even need web3 or truffle contracts. Everything is handled by ethers.js and the function we’ve built on top of it.

It’s promise based, so you can use the async/await syntax.

How to use it?

npm install detherjs

Instantiate: we instantiate the contract by the network you provide: you have multiple provider options based on ethers.js package.

Call constant function: you can then call the contract data directly.

Transaction: if you want to make transactions or call non-constant functions, you have to create a wallet. We expose ethers.js in Dethers.Ethers. You just have to create a wallet as shown in the illustration.

With the user object you can for example addSellPoint()

You can find the technical documentation here.

What can you build with it?

First example — We have built Toshi Bot V.0

We built a bot on Toshi, Coinbase’s browser for the Ethereum network that provides universal access to financial services.

Dether.io Bot finds for you the closest ether seller around you based on your location.

For now, all you have to do is launch the bot, enter your location, and the Dether.io Bot tells you where the closest tellers around you are, and you can interact with them using Telegram.

You can already test it by scanning this QR code using Toshi:

Dether.io Bot on Toshi

And check our github repo for the bot here.

What’s next?

A lot of features are coming with our switch to mainnet on Q1 2018: token integration, zone auction system, special tags auction for shops, and one of the most important features, which is our organic referral system that will allow every user/apps to be financially rewarded on top of the protocol by onboarding new users/shops…

And that will be the subject of our next article in the Dether Development Transparency Series.

< LET’S GET IN TOUCH >

For any technical question or feedback, don’t hesitate to reach us on gitter.im