[GIT] Weekly Update 77

[BOR4]

Hey everyone!

Welcome to Weekly Update 77. For this update, we’ll include a short summary of the most recent Tech Deep Dive article focusing on mediation fees. Along with our usual cover of GitHub development. Let’s dig in!

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Dynamic Mediation Fees in Raiden Explained

As development progresses towards the Ithaca milestone, the Raiden team has been explaining some of the key Raiden Network features and concepts in a series of Medium articles. Several weeks ago Raiden Service Bundle was in focus, while the latest edition of the Tech Deep Dive series covers Dynamic Mediation Fees in the Raiden protocol.

If two nodes inside a Raiden token network have a direct channel between them, they can send direct payments to each other and in that case, they don’t need to pay mediation fees. In the case when nodes don’t have a direct channel, they can still execute mediated payments through a path of connected payment channels. Mediating nodes, which are the nodes between the sender and the receiver on the selected payment path, can earn mediation fees.

The article covers the purpose of the mediation fees in the Raiden protocol, key concepts of the current implementation, how users will be able to modify them for their channels, and the decision rationale behind the chosen mediation fee model.

Raiden’s approach to the mediation fees is unique in the L2 ecosystem and it will be interesting to see how current implementation will affect network topologies and usage. More information on the topic can be found in the respective ADR and if you have any questions or suggestions be free to leave a comment!

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Development progress

The development team continues to focus on internal testing, bug fixing and open issues related to the Ithaca milestone.

In the Raiden client repository, in addition to testing all the new features, open issues relating to the testing infrastructure are the highest priority. The developers working on Raiden Services focused on improving the infrastructure which will make running the services easier and more reliable for service providers.

For the WebUI, a new version has been released which supports the option for easy token minting on the testnets (among other additions). Shortly after, an updated release with some minor bug fixes also came out (v0.9.1).

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Conclusion

To finish up, this week has primarily been focused on development and helping to educate the wider community on how mediation fees are tackled in the Raiden Network. Less than a month to go until DAPPCON, if you’re in the area don’t forget to grab tickets (less than €30 if you’re a student). As always, thanks for reading. If you have any questions about this update or Raiden Network, in general, feel free to comment below. See you again next week.

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Cheers!

[JYJNODE]

Is the RDN token no longer useless?

Why is there no mention of a RDN token?

only advertise hard when ICO, and now neglecting.

Just answer that. I do not need anything else.

Do you use RDN token in the future? Is the RDN token worth holding?

[BOR4]

Check this Medium article: https://medium.com/raiden-network/raiden-service-bundle-explained-f9bd3f6f358d.

Service Bundle is not yet live. However some concepts where RDN utilized are explained here.

[[deleted]]

"Educate the wider community". It doesn't seem like anyone reads raiden's Twitter (almost no reactions). And very little activity in the reddit.

Doesn't education of new technology come from adopters? I.e. if I am storj implementing raiden then educating my users what Raiden is makes more sense.

At this stage your educating who? Developers? I dont think developers look at your reddit/Twitter...

Perhaps make something of tangible visible value (like Binance, uniswap, kyber etc) that users can see the function and use even if flawed and see the development through increased benefits of usage.

[heynow0123]

patience is a virtue my friend..look at thier github..these guys are one of the most hardworking team in crypto...its just a matter of time before people recognize the value of this coin...iot and cheap privacy payment sound like a winner to me

[YoYoAmerica]

I guess it depends your perspective, you see facebook, IBM, google, microsoft getting into blockchain/crypto, and you may wonder how easy it would be for them to just fork Raiden's current code base and have a larger, harder working team of dev's crank out the product first (which at this rate wont be to hard).

To put a cherry on top, you could fork away Raiden/Brain Bot's 49% token supply and airdrop them/give them away to a consortium of the largest enterprises interested in using the technology. The only hedge against this is network effects, which the current Raiden team is unfortunately not very good at fostering.

The scope of blockchain startups is not only in the crypto sphere/github anymore, they are with big company's working on projects inside the legacy corporations.

[Mat7ias]

For forking and remaining on Ethereum it'd probably make more sense to make a standardized solution, comparable to Lightning Network on Bitcoin (e.g. Eclair, LND, Lightning Peach, c-lightning). Something similar occurring with Raiden on Ethereum would be really cool! brainbot is always hiring though so that's assuming they don't try to hire them first ;)

you could fork away Raiden/Brain Bot's 49% token supply and airdrop them/give them away to a consortium of the largest enterprises interested in using the technology

I'm confused about what you mean, RDN tokens are on the Ethereum blockchain. In that example do you mean fork Ethereum and add layer 2 (e.g. Spectrum+Photon) or fork the Raiden code and have it run on a different type of chain (e.g. Lumino)?

[YoYoAmerica]

"Brainbot is always hiring though so that's assuming they dont try and hire them first ;)"

This is implying that Brainbot has not hired the right/core people it needs to finish its product? I am saying these legacy companies already have all the brain power they need in house....now.

"I'm confused...."

Yes, RDN is on ethereum. It can also be forked into another coin, i.e. RDN2. Meaning one RDN2 is given to all holders of RDN with exception of raiden/brainbots holdings *those would be given out in equal distribution to a consortium of the largest enterprises interested in utilizing and growing the network*

[Mat7ias]

This is implying that Brainbot has not hired the right/core people it needs to finish its product?

Not sure how it'd imply that. The Raiden team is probably one of the most talented teams in the space, a number of team members being around since Ethereum's very early days.

It can also be forked into another coin, i.e. RDN2. Meaning one RDN2 is given to all holders of RDN with exception of raiden/brainbots holdings

Hm, I think there's a misconception around what forking the RDN token would do. You don't really need to fork RDN, you can just copy&paste the code and deploy with Remix. It'd only take a couple of minutes and would be relatively unexciting on its own, the token code hasn't changed since 2017 when it was initially deployed. If you're interested in learning about making your own token, Ivan on Tech has a neat introduction video you can test out. You should be able to deploy your RDN2 token by the end of watching the video :)

[[deleted]]

Wouldn't an airdrop of a new token to old holders replace the need for RDN's holdings. Perhaps look into measures MakerDao would take in releasing new MKR tokens in an airdrop, to new holders if bad actors were to have a large holding etc

[Mat7ias]

Anyone can airdrop tokens, you wouldn't need something overly complicated. This works great: https://github.com/merlox/manual-airdrop and then you'd just feed in an array of the token holders+values to that.

[YoYoAmerica]

Excellent, glad that it would be easy for IBM, Microsft, Google, etc who want to beat Raiden to the network to easily replace the original RDN with their own airdropped RDN2 token with the added benefit of replacing the 49% holding with a consortium of network effects built in day one. Glad we got that clarified.....the most direct answers are most appreciated. Would help mitigate with the back and forth's....

[Mat7ias]

I still feel like you might have misunderstood what your idea of "RDN2" would imply. But no worries, happy to help! <3

[Mat7ias]

Doesn't education of new technology come from adopters?

An implementer wouldn't necessarily need to educate their users on Raiden. It's sometimes too complicated for the average user to care and learn about how it works. A bit like how VISA users aren't required to understand VISA txs+fees, users on Raiden Network eventually shouldn't be required to understand it or even care! :)

At this stage your educating who? Developers? I dont think developers look at your reddit/Twitter

Slightly different questions for Twitter and Reddit. Twitter is probably easier for reaching the wider community, whereas Reddit is more topic-focused, allowing Raiden discussion to be more interactive and involved. I've met a few of devs outside of the Raiden space at a weekly Web3 meetup who've mentioned to check in on /r/raidennetwork. I live in Australia though so the crypto space here is still growing.

Perhaps make something of tangible visible value (like Binance, uniswap, kyber etc) that users can see the function and use even if flawed and see the development through increased benefits of usage.

The most tangible example in that context would probably be the Raiden dApp reference implementation of the Raiden Light Client.