An updated version of the Raiden payments channel network has gone live on the main ethereum blockchain.

The launch comes months after µRaiden – known more as “microraiden” – initially launched on an ethereum test net.

The idea behind the endeavor, which is a take on the being developed Raiden network, is to offer a mechanism for micropayments identical to bitcoin’s Lightning network.

Similar to Lightning, Raiden is imagined to be a way to scale the ethereum network by building a second layer that would exist above the blockchain.

With the second layer, participants could fashion payment channels that permit them to transact at a lower cost.

This is whether they are sending ethers or ERC-20 compatible tokens.

With Microraiden, the development team sought to create tools for decentralized application (dapp) developers to open up payment channels.

This would eschew some of the more complex features intended for the full Raiden launch.

“Talking to dapp developers, we noticed that many of them just want to use the Raiden Network as a robust many-to-one payment channel system.

“One service provider offering services to many recurring customers,” the team said back in September.

On Github, developer Lefteris Karapetsas wrote that the version being published is aimed at purging any bugs in the code.

He added that a limit has been placed on the maximum amount of Raiden tokens (RDN) that can be deposited for making payments.

“This is a bug bounty main net release We recommend using only small amounts of RDN as channel deposits.

“To that end, we have limited the maximum deposit to 100 RDN,” he wrote.