Vitalik Buterin and Joseph Poon are going to Launched Plasma Project.
There is a model called Raiden which is a lightening Network for Ethereum.
The Idea behind this is to Switch from a model where all Transactions hit the shared ledgers on the Blockchain to a model where users can privately exchanges message which sign the transfer of value.
Raiden is implemented as an extension to Ethereum. A Raiiden node runs alongside an Ethereum node and communicates with other Raiden nodes to facilitate transfers and with the Ethereum Blockchain to manage deposit.
Raiden uses a network of p2p payment channels and deposit in Ethereum to preserve the guarantees expected from a Blockchain system.
In this way you can send Million of transaction off-chain, and you need only small number of on-chain transaction to secure the settlement. So you fees are very low.
Now Plasma is a series of contracts which runs on Top of a root Blockchain that is Main net Ethereum Blockchain and similar to Lightening Network, that is Blockchain under Blockchain.
The root network contract process only very small amount of commitment from child Blockchain which can do a huge number of computation.
The special things is that all commitment are broadcasted periodically on the root Blockchain time to time from the child.
The Blockchain are hierarchically arrange in a trees. This will create a well balanced system to maximize data security and data availability and minimise cost.
The mining is done only on root network and proofs flowing from the roots.
Each child network can introduce a token
Scaling is eliminated by this as everytime no need to watch the all chains, when there is a need then check the all chains and correct the system.
Transactions capacity increased in huge amount with this, as channels are net-setteled on the Blockchain.
Payments can be routed across a network of these channels.
Plasma can be decrease the Smart Contract Scaling.
Plasma protected by False proof Rules and when Fraud withholding attack or data availability problem is detected then the deposit/bond is lost by rogue validator.
All states within this child Blockchain are enforced via fraud proofs (smart contract logic) which allows any party to enforce invalid blocks, presuming block data availability. The fraud proofs ensure that all state transition are validated. Also these fraud proofs enforce an interactive protocol of fund Withdrawal.
Plasma is one of the many solution to the Blockchain scaling problem( shrading, Pos, LN, etc).
Plasma will be Released By Vitalik Buterin very soon.
The Source: https://medium.com/chain-cloud-company-blog/plasma-in-10-minutes-c856da94e339