It was recently made known that the Raiden Network developers have decided to create a special token (RDN) that is to be used for fees payed on the Raiden Network. The Raiden Network is an essential part of the Ethereum ecosystem and one of the most important scaling solutions. The existence of this Raiden Network Token means that for most users, every transaction on the Raiden network will require the users to pay a fee that that can only be payed using these special tokens. This is BAD.
With success of the Raiden Network, most users of the Ethereum Network will be required to hold both ETH and RDN in the future. This is unnecessary complication and thus harmful to the Ethereum ecosystem that is easily avoided by using just ETH to pay Raiden Network fees rather than this unnecessary token.
Raiden Network is important, and the developers deserve to get paid for their efforts. However, I believe they can achieve this funding another way.
Vitalik recently announce that he would be donating his OmiseGo and Kyber Network tokens to fund second layer technologies. Perhaps this funding can be donated to the Raiden Network team to prevent this unnecessary ICO? I'm will be more than OK with that.
They could seek donations the old fashion way. Even as a college student with debt, I would be willing to donate to prevent this ICO and I've seen a lot people say that they would be willing to donate as well.
Perhaps they could still hold an ICO, but find a different use for the token that is not as detrimental to the ecosystem but still benefits the holders. What if RDN holders received a percentage of the fees payed on the Raiden Network while still allowing those fees to be payed in ETH? I'd be okay with slightly higher Raiden Network fees if it meant ETH can be used to pay those fees. (Not sure if this is a technically viable solution)
The Ethereum Foundation has more than enough funding for the development of Ethereum. Maybe we can urge the Ethereum Foundation to grant funding to the Raiden Network team?
