After launching the first “off-chain” transaction solution for blockchain, Raiden Network (RDN) has significantly ramped up its business with a string of major partnerships.

“The pace of adoption of Raiden’s technology has exceeded expectations,” says Yubo Ruan, Co-Founder of Off-Chain Technology Group, an organization that develops blockchain transaction solutions. “We knew uRaiden made history by enabling blockchain to scale beyond ‘several transactions per second’ to millions per second.  And by reducing the time a blockchain transaction takes from a few minutes to under a second.  But we didn’t expect some of the largest and most promising crypto projects to embrace uRaiden so rapidly after launch.”

Raiden’s payment channel framework, uRaiden, launched on November 30, 2017.  In addition to scaling transactions on Ethereum, uRaiden makes possible “instant” transactions and cost-efficient micropayments.  It also significantly drives down machine-to-machine transaction costs.  

Key Partnerships in the Energy Sector and Computer Gaming

Grid+ (symbol: GRID), which raised over $40 million to enhance its always-on appliance that processes payments for electricity in real-time, will be using Raiden’s technology to accelerate use of blockchain in the energy industry.  “Electricity sales to consumers will be settled instantaneously every 15 minutes which makes Grid+ a perfect use case for uRaiden,” says Alex Miller, Grid’s Chief Technical Officer.   Rather than having to register a transaction on Ethereum every few seconds, Grid+ will batch transactions for electricity usage and submit them just once every 15 minutes, substantially reducing expenses for Grid when it comes to Ethereum transaction gas costs.  

Grid+ believes Raiden will give them the upper-hand on other energy marketplaces by cutting costs for its users.  With uRaiden, Grid+ expects that its costs will be 30 times less than they would be for a Visa transaction and 20 times less than the cost of an Ethereum transaction.

Raiden has signed additional partners in the energy industry including Energy Network Foundation, whose blockchain solution features nodes operated by energy giants such as Royal Dutch Shell, the sixth-largest company in the world, measured by revenue.  

In the computer gaming industry, Enjin (symbol: ENJ) will incorporate uRaiden into their ​smart contract ​platform ​that ​enables management of virtual goods for computer games.  With 18 million users, Enjin is the largest gaming community creation platform in the world.  It hosts over 250,000 gaming communities and sees 60 million views each month.  Enjin recognized early on the challenge of accepting in-game crypto transactions and processing them fast enough to make the digital good available to the player in real-time.  According to the company, “Enjin ​will be ​testing ​the ​Raiden ​Network ​for ​lightning-fast ​asset ​confirmation ​speeds.”  Enjin’s Chief Technical Officer, Witek Radomski, confirmed Enjin will begin implementation of uRaiden in Q1 2018.

Signs China Partnership & Important Partners in the Finance Sector

Raiden has also signed partners in Asia.  China-based SmartMesh will make off-Internet instant transactions possible by utilizing both Raiden technology and their own mesh network.  As for the advantages of partnering with Raiden, SmartMesh points to its “scalability, fast transaction, confidentiality, interoperability, and low cost”.  SmartMesh has begun implementation using uRaiden and, separately, plans to roll out a SmartMesh Raiden Light Node for Raiden Network in Q2 2018.  

In the finance sector, Raiden has signed on board Trade.IO, which facilitates asset trading and investment banking on the blockchain.  Raiden enables Trade.IO customers to trade tokenized assets peer-to-peer in a low-latency manner.   Raiden reduces Trade.IO’s cost structure by batching multiple transactions before sending them as “one bill” for settlement on Ethereum, as opposed to paying an Ethereum gas fee for each individual transaction.  Also in the finance industry, Raiden has signed on board MoxyOne, which will incorporate Raiden into its white-label financial infrastructure.

The Path Forward for Raiden

Called a “billion dollar coin” by Hacked.com, Raiden has delivered on the ambitious expectations set by crypto analysts during its ICO by shipping blockchain’s first “second layer” transaction network, uRaiden, on schedule.  Now with partnerships across key industries within weeks of launching, it shows why media outlets such as Crush Crypto described Raiden as likely being a “top-10 most valuable token because of the expected heavy usage”.   

“The quality of partnerships Raiden has secured right out of the gate shows its explosive market potential. It also suggests that a critical mass of companies have been waiting for a solution like Raiden to scale on Ethereum cost-effectively,” says Jorge Sanchez, Co-Founder of Off-Chain Technology Group.  “We expect additional announcements with major companies in the weeks ahead.”

This is a sponsored press release and does not necessarily reflect the opinions or views held by any employees of The Merkle. This is not investment, trading, or gambling advice. Always conduct your own independent research.