Ethereum & Quidli

Why Quidli Chooses to Build on Ethereum Today

One year after the crypto and ICO explosion of 2017, we in this loosely federated ecosystem are suddenly flush with blockchains.  Given the massive successes of Bitcoin and Ethereum, companies have been racing to build systems that address the scalability and speed issues often cited as drawbacks of today’s Big Two.  But in our mission to rework work in the 21st century, we at Quidli are sticking with Ethereum as the base layer for our equity transfer protocol; and we want to explain to our community exactly why. 

First and foremost, with a growing community of developers (already over 500,000), Ethereum is indisputably the leading system for building decentralized applications.  Despite there being multiple generations of blockchains in the market today, second generation Ethereum is still the richest in terms of developers and activity.  Essentially, more advanced features and functionalities mean nothing if there aren’t teams of developers enthusiastically building on your system.  And while the landscape itself is far from stable at the moment, it is clear that Ethereum is attracting developers, which to us is the leading indicator for scalability.  To build further on this point of critical mass, the talent working on Ethereum is extensive.  As the developer base grows, the quality of developers has also become significantly higher.  This is demonstrated by the dozens of proven tools, protocols, and frameworks on Ethereum and readily available out of the box today — Mist, MetaMask, Web3.js, Truffle, OMISE, some elements of EOSIO, etc.  No other system today has such a committed base of applications and tools already integrated for usage by the general public.  It helps that former Ethereum Foundation heavyweights continue to push the Ethereum vision through their own initiatives; Joe Lubin/Consensys being the lead example.  Similar logic also applies to the tokens.  If anything can be called a standard in this industry, it’s ERC20.  From protocols to DApps, ERC20 has proven to be reliable for two key components of cryptocurrencies: 1) Smart contracts that are flexible in providing functionality and customization for a wide range of development on Ethereum; and 2) a standard of security and trustlessness so that major exchanges are comfortable listing without much audit.  This is great because we’re here to build the future of work, not to build new token contracts.  And in line with the philosophical nature of decentralization, Ethereum doesn’t sacrifice security for scalability.  Detractors are quick to point out the limitations of the Ethereum network’s computation speed; that it’s low number of transactions per second (approximately 15) makes it incompatible for serious applications.  But what they don’t mention is that “faster” solutions come at the cost of decreasing the number of distributed nodes, which is less secure.  Not all applications are focused on speed, and many of us prefer working with more security. 

At Quidli, we’re building a protocol to transfer equity so that businesses can increase liquidity in order to compensate talent for work.  This is important data and we must ensure our users that trust is a non-issue; that the network where their information is distributed, will not and cannot be shut down.  Therefore, we must build on a core layer we know is trustless and secure.  All other “features” are bells and whistles we can develop on the outer layers of our system.  But an ideal blockchain doesn’t need to solve everything, it just needs to be stable and have a good community to lean into every once in a while to collaborate with for larger issues. 

Ultimately, we’re not trying to argue that Ethereum is perfect or that other blockchains don’t have their own merits.  There are issues on Ethereum that need to be addressed, particularly to encourage greater applications and adoption outside blockchain communities.  But for Quidli, it’s a simple matter of fully leveraging the strength and advantages of blockchain.  The critical mass that Ethereum has built so far is significant — there’s a real core to build on and it’s no accident that developers are voting with their fingers.  And we believe this growing community of developers will help each other build the solutions necessary to take Ethereum and its ecosystem to the next level. 

Let’s rework work together!  Follow us to learn more about the future of work, equity-for-labor, blockchain protocols, and to stay updated on Quidli’s progress. 

Interested in supporting Quidli?  Whether it’s our promotion bounties or our development missions, help us out (in exchange for tokens, of course)!