Radar, the team of decentralized exchange protocol Radar Relay, today announced Radar ION, which introduces users to the Lightning Network, helps them select and fund a Lightning wallet with testnet bitcoin, and recommends apps for experiencing Lightning payments firsthand.

ION currently features wallets and apps on the Bitcoin testnet; mainnet recommendations will be coming soon. Also, the Radar team will be announcing more Lightning Network tools and resources over the coming weeks.

Lightning Network

The Lightning Network is a permissionless peer-to-peer network of thousands of nodes—computers, phones, websites, point-of-sale systems—that can complete a bitcoin payment from any node to any other node in seconds and with negligible fees. Nodes arrange themselves into a mesh by forming two-party agreements called “payment channels” on the Bitcoin blockchain; nodes that are directly or distantly connected by this web of channels can exchange payments by routing through the nodes and channels that connect them.