Ethereum Scaling Solution Raiden Network Will Launch Its Own ICO

The Raiden Network, an off-chain ethereum scaling solution, has announced it is going to launch an ICO this October.

According to the Raiden team, the investments raised in a crowdsale will be used to fund the completion of the network, which will allow users to transfer and receive payments at higher speed and volume. Besides, the funds will be spent on other projects, including the development of decentralized apps based on the Raiden technology.

The team has also announced the launch of its RDN token that will serve as a digital currency for off-chain machine-to-machine micropayments. After the ICO, they can be used to access the µRaiden system deployed on the Ethereum mainnet. RDNs, the team noted, are not necessary at the core of the protocol, what means anyone can use the Raiden Network without having the tokens.

Raiden is one of the most anticipated ethereum projects, which has been under development within the last two years. The solution, which is similar to the Lightning Network, is designed to increase the network’s scalability via second layer protocols. Once launched, it will expand the network’s capacity and significantly reduce transaction fees.

Last week, the Raiden Network announced the launch of a test version of µRaiden, a micropayment system allowing users to conduct instant micro transfers directly between each other. Instead of using bidirectional token payment channels employed by the Raiden Network, µRaiden will use unidirectional payment channels to enable quick and free payments between two parties. The system will also be used to pay auxiliary contributors for their services, including path finding or channel monitoring.

The distribution of tokens will be conducted in a Dutch auction format, what means the starting price is very high and gradually decreases until all tokens are exchanged.

“We are designing the auction to run for at least multiple days, by offering a fixed fraction of 50% of all tokens during the auction. This guarantees, that everyone who is happy with the offered exchange rate at a certain point in time, will be be able to acquire RDN tokens by sending ETH to the auction contract,” the project’s team explained.

“We assume that this leads to an accurate price discovery, avoids congestion on the Ethereum blockchain and allows anyone interested to be able to get tokens without having to rush.”

The Raiden Network is already in the final testing phase, however, the date of release is still unknown, especially in view of the upcoming ICO.