TL;DR: The Raiden Network token launch is approaching quickly and is planned for next Wednesday, October 18th around 3pm UTC.

What is the Raiden Token (RDN) Launch about?

The Raiden Network aims to provide fast, cheap and scalable token transfers. This is possible by taking token transfers off-chain and avoiding the global consensus bottleneck of blockchains (explainer video).

There are multiple proposed blockchain scalability solutions. But in our view, only payment channel networks like Raiden seem to combine the low cost, low latency and scalability properties which are necessary for making blockchain-based payments viable.

In an earlier blogpost we described the Raiden token model, how RDN can be used with µRaiden and how it is envisaged to become the default token to pay for third parties in a Raiden Network.

While the Raiden project has its roots in the Ethereum ecosystem, it is not an Ethereum Foundation project and it is also not limited to Ethereum. The Raiden Network aims to become the default payment channel network for Ethereum, as well as for other upcoming EVM compatible blockchain systems such as Polkadot, Cosmos, Dfinity and others.

The following describes the token allocation, the format of the token launch and outlines how to participate.

Initial RDN Allocation

A total (fixed) supply of 100,000,000 tokens will be generated which will be allocated as follows:

Public auction (50%)

Tokens which are offered during the auction. We aim for a broad distribution of tokens and the auction format should prevent whales from quickly buying up the offered supply early on. Instead everyone should have a fair chance to acquire tokens.

Retained by brainbot labs (34%)

Retained RDN tokens are envisaged to be used to sustain the long term development and maintenance of the protocol as well as its ecosystem. Parts of the tokens may also be used to indirectly incentivise the contributors to the Raiden project over a long term. A small fraction is allocated for early-supporters, who helped to bridge funding gaps and who provided the necessary advices to set up a robust legal entity.

External Development Fund (16%)

The External Development Fund will be used to fund projects that help build and grow the Raiden ecosystem. Development grants are intended to be for instance given to: 3rd party researchers and developers of alternative client implementations, helper service providers or other external projects that provide complementary or foundational components or applications that help bootstrap the Raiden ecosystem.

Notably, the Raiden project neither did a pre-sale nor directly granted tokens to any team members.

Format of the Token Launch

The token will be distributed via a uniform price Dutch auction which combines certainty of participation with certainty of valuation. The auction should run for at least a couple of days, therefore there should be no reason to rush.

A Dutch auction starts with a very high price and cap which continuously decline with every block over time, based on a predefined formula. During the auction, participants can send in ETH to bid at a point in time where they find the price reasonable. The auction ends once the price multiplied with the number of offered tokens equals the total ETH amount sent to the auction. All participants receive their tokens at the same final price.

Our previous blog post explained in greater detail how the auction is set up to discover a fair price, while providing certainty of participation.

Participating

We will provide detailed information on how to participate in an upcoming blogpost. For now, note that there has not and will not be a pre-sale. There will also be no individual caps or minimum amounts. However, there will be a KYC process for bids exceeding a certain threshold. We plan to offer US citizens to participate.

Stay Tuned

We will soon release the terms and conditions for the auction as well as publish a blogpost with the details on how to participate in the auction.



The Raiden project is led by brainbot labs Est.