Ethereum Venture Claims Off-Blockchain First

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While the FinTech industry is exploring the potential of blockchain technology, some are taking another path and exploring how another distributed ledger, Ethereum, could also make disruptions.

One group of Ethereum developers said they have successfully completed the first-ever transactions that are off-blockchain.

A payment was made from Denmark to India on Ethereum, initiated by the developers behind Raiden. There are five developers on the Raiden team, according to reports by CoinDesk on Thursday (Aug. 11). The company is said to be inspired by the Lightning Network, another off-blockchain initiative.

Reports added that the biggest challenge for these groups is to scale their real-world applications.

“We now have the alpha of a system to do scalable, fast and extremely cheap token transfers off-chain in Ethereum,” said Raiden Network Head of Development Heiko Hees. He’s also the CEO of Brainbot Technologies, the outlet said.

With one successful transfer in the books, reports said the company will be exploring how to scale up and use Ethereum for other use cases, including micropayments sent in seconds across borders or transfers of bandwidth or data between two Internet of Things-linked machines.

Ethereum was developed with a focus on transferring smart contracts in addition to payments, reports said, which could also have significant implications for identity authentication.