More than two years after starting work, the development team behind Raiden - a second-layer network for Ethereum, functionally similar to the Lightning Network on Bitcoin - has announced the mainnet launch of the alpha version of its product called Red Eyes. This tool is intended to at least partially solve Ethereum's scaling problem until this blockchain fully transitions to Proof-of-Stake consensus and sharding, which is expected no earlier than 2020. However, the developers warn that, despite the mainnet launch, Raiden Network Red Eyes still remains an alpha version and is intended only for testing transactions with ether and tokens, meaning it is not recommended to make large transactions through this network. They also announced a rewards program (bounty) for finding software bugs in their product.

The features of the first Raiden Network release include:
- Opening, depositing into, closing and settling payment channels;
- Single-hop and multi-hop token transfers;
- Automatic connection to the network and creation of payment channels;
- A REST API interface with endpoints for all functions;
- A redesigned web interface;
- The Raiden Explorer for visualizing the state of the network;
- Smart contracts redesigned to improve gas-usage efficiency;
- Protocol improvements for handling peak loads;
- Recovery in the event of an abnormal shutdown of a network node;
- Integration of the Matrix transport protocol for message transmission.

The latest version of Raiden Network is available for download on GitHub. Evidently, it was the launch of Raiden that caused the surge in the price of ETH, which over the past day rose by almost 17% against the dollar, exceeding $130 for the first time this month, and by more than 15% against bitcoin, returning to mid-November levels. Given the Constantinople hard fork scheduled for January, which will also introduce a number of improvements to the network, it can be assumed that the period of decline for Ethereum is coming to an end and that it will soon be able to return to second place in the ranking of the most capitalized cryptocurrencies.