Original Title: "a16z Support, PayPal 'Gang' Establishment, Understand the New Bitcoin L2 Spark and Its Ecosystem in One Article"

Original author: Golem, Odaily Star Daily

In the Bitcoin ecosystem, creating a new asset issuance protocol is actually not difficult; the challenge lies in having a community and project team that continuously "do things" around that protocol. Recently, the Bitcoin ecosystem has seen a wave of new protocol trends, with many anonymous projects showcasing their ideas to the market. However, in reality, most of them are just repackaging old concepts with inscriptions, lacking infrastructure, development, and any takers.

But in this dark forest, there is still a serious team. On May 20th, Magic Eden, a well-known bitcoin ecological trading marketplace, announced its integration with the new bitcoin L2 Spark and will jointly host an event on May 26th. Spark is a new type of Bitcoin scaling scheme, the project officially launched the mainnet beta version on April 29, and the first LRC20 token FSPK was born on May 8, although the minting experience is not good, it still caused FOMO in the Bitcoin ecological community, and the current OTC transaction price of the first FSPK is $12-20 per piece (1 piece = 0.001), the cost is about $2 per piece, and the price has increased by at least 6 times.

The collaboration between Magic Eden and Spark may also signify that the on-chain trading market for LRC20 is about to launch. In addition to Magic Eden, Spark has collaborated with multiple projects, and the ecosystem's initial form is already apparent, supported by the well-known VC a16z. Odaily Planet Daily will briefly introduce Spark, the currently issued LRC20 tokens, and its ecosystem projects in this article.

Spark: A Bitcoin native L2 designed for payments and settlements

Spark claims to be a Bitcoin-native L2 designed for payments and settlements, but in reality, Spark uses an off-chain scaling solution, not an EVM-like chain or Rollup, does not support smart contracts, and has no virtual machine. Therefore, Spark allows users to perform instant, low-fee, and unrestricted self-custodial transactions of Bitcoin and other tokens (including stablecoins) off-chain, while having native interoperability with the Lightning Network, enabling token sending and receiving through the Lightning Network.

For Bitcoin, whether it is an on-chain or off-chain scaling scheme, what users are most concerned about is nothing more than the security of Bitcoin, that is, whether the Bitcoin that crosses L2 can be safely and unhindered. At present, there are only two operators on the Spark network, namely the parent company Lightspark and Flashnet (the official statement is that more operators will be added in the future), so theoretically all transactions on Spark must be authorized by at least one operator and user to be successful. Such a design naturally carries risks, and if both operators go down, the safety of user funds is threatened.

But even as an off-chain scaling solution, Spark is still non-custodial and Bitcoin-native. At its core, Spark uses a shared signature protocol based on Bitcoin, which operates in the form of a distributed ledger with no additional consensus mechanism, and users' Bitcoin deposits are mapped directly to Spark without any bridges or wrapping; At the same time, users' funds are always in a non-custodial state, and even if the Spark operator disappears, tries to censor, or refuses to cooperate, users can still force unilateral withdrawals to the Bitcoin mainnet, ensuring the safety of funds.

The parent company of Spark is Lightspark, founded by David Marcus, who previously served as the president of PayPal and vice president of messaging products at Facebook. He was also invited to attend the first crypto summit held at the White House on March 8. In terms of financing, on May 13, 2022, Lightspark completed over $170 million in Series A funding, led by a16z and Paradigm, with participation from Coatue Management, Ribbit Capital, Thrive Capital, Felix Capital, Matrix Partners, and Zeev Ventures, making for an impressive funding lineup.

On April 29th, Spark launched a public beta of its mainnet, with core features such as sending and receiving Bitcoin, creating tokens (e.g., stablecoins), and Lightning interoperability fully operational, and developers can also build apps using Spark's SDK. In terms of network fees, users are charged 0 fees for transactions in the Spark network, there are on-chain fees for depositing or withdrawing bitcoins to Spark (after 6-12 months), and 0.25% fees and routing fees for depositing bitcoins from Spark into the Lightning Network. Although it is officially clear that Spark does not have tokens, there will not be any airdrops or token TGE plans. But shortly after the launch of the Spark mainnet beta, LRC20 was fully exploited by the market.

Spark native token protocol LRC20

LRC20 is the native token protocol launched by Spark in the summer of 2024, which is also compatible with the Bitcoin mainnet and the Lightning Network, but it is still under development. Currently, LRC20 only supports operations on the Spark network.

LRC20 uses Bitcoin as the settlement layer, while Spark acts as the execution layer. Anyone can issue LRC20 tokens, but before they can be issued, users need to broadcast a transaction on mainnet, embedding the token's identifier and metadata (name, supply, number of decimal places) into the OP_RETURN output, and then minting the token on Spark.

LRC20 does not support a fair issuance model; after the token is issued, only the original issuance wallet can mint tokens. Other addresses can only obtain tokens through airdrops or distributions by the Dev. At the same time, LRC20 also supports freezing and burning operations. The original issuance wallet can freeze tokens on any address, and the tokens held by the frozen address will be locked, preventing them from receiving or sending tokens unless the Dev unfreezes them. However, the original issuance wallet can only burn the tokens held in its own address, and the burning is irreversible.

From the above characteristics, it can be seen that LRC20 is indeed born for the issuance of stablecoins, granting significant power to the original issuance address. However, for other addresses holding tokens, if they do not relinquish the freezing power, it also hides a centralization crisis. Nevertheless, there are already several LRC20 tokens with strong consensus in the market, but due to the need for computer terminals for minting and various operations by Dev in the early stages, the tokens are somewhat chaotic. The following will introduce them separately.

FSPK (8b93 ending): The first LRC20 token

· Total supply of tokens: 21 coins

· OTC trading price: 12-20 USD/piece

· Public Key: 02b1d59c286bb79b39d0b3f14dc2a532b1e97e5c32c6376caea41e0b8c39708b93

· Release Date: May 8

FSPK, whose public key ends in 8b93, is the first LRC20 token, issued by @fspk_spark. The total number of tokens was originally 21 million, but because the project team set the token supply incorrectly, the final total amount was 21 (the worst Dev in history), so the current number of FSPK (ending in 8b93) is 0.001 tokens, and the cost of a single mint is 0.000021 BTC, which is about $2. However, LRC20 itself cannot be minted fairly, so the essence of the minting process is that users put money into the wallet of the project team, and then they manually distribute tokens to users one by one (which is also hard), earning a total of 0.441BTC, or about $47,187. Currently, the over-the-counter price of the FSPK (ending in 8b93) is $12-$20/piece.

FSPKS: Correcting the first FSPK (ending with 8b93)

· Total supply of tokens: 21 million coins

· OTC trading price: Not available

· Public Key: 029e4d50f931c170e100c1b7129e353cddd69c8ae50bf274e7a68b05144ef8b55e

· Issue Date: May 12

This is also a token issued by @fspk_spark. The project team realized that the total supply of the first FSPK, which is 21 coins, is indeed too small. Therefore, to better support subsequent DEX AMM or Spark DEX swap, on May 21, the project team announced the issuance of a new token FSPKS to replace the first FSPK. The new FSPKS tokens are airdropped to FSPK holders at a ratio of 1000 coins per token. At the same time, the project team stated that the old FSPK will no longer be valid and will not appear in subsequent AMMs.

FSPK (6c82 ending)

· Total supply of tokens: 21 million coins

· Over-the-counter trading price: 4-10 USD per piece (1 piece = 1000 coins)

· Public Key: 0374f5629ac68dbdf9600cc14c763b8be9f1ebb198b3c568b47f9811efbcf56c82

· Release date: May 11

Because players encountered too many difficulties in getting the first FSPK (ending with 8b93), such as transactions not being confirmed and tokens not arriving, the total amount of the first one (ending with 8b93) is only 21 pieces. Therefore, the @Flashspark_ team decided to airdrop FSPK (ending with 6c82) to the first 21,000 users who made transfers of the first FSPK (ending with 8b93) in chronological order, including users with confirmed and unconfirmed transactions. Currently, its off-market transaction price is 4-10 USD per piece, but its consensus is relatively weak.

SAT

· Total supply of tokens: 210 trillion coins

· OTC trading price: Not available

· Public Key: 02757529fa69b70e55cee583c03d58936c39fff134b83808745db1ff41c1603bdb

· Release Date: May 11

SAT is also an airdrop conducted by anonymous Dev for all addresses that minted the first FSPK (ending in 8b93). Due to its inheritance of the massive total supply tradition of SAT and its 0 cost, it will also attract community attention, but currently, there is no off-market price.

SNOW

· Total supply of tokens: 21 million coins

· OTC trading price: 19 dollars/piece

· Public Key: 0377abadfbab8cc1fd7382fab87835ab062fd72c3ae7662fa6b579210fca16cd59

· Release Date: May 17

SNOW is an LRC20 token launched by the Spark ecosystem project sparksat, and it is the first token backed by a serious project team, which leads to a higher recognition in the community. Currently, its off-market transaction price is 19 USD per piece, with a cost of only 1 USD (this fee is also charged by the project team), and the current price has increased 19 times.

Early ecological projects and tools

The biggest difference between Spark and other ephemeral new protocols is that, although it is still in its early stages, there are some steadfast builders in its ecosystem, reminiscent of the early BRC20 ecosystem. In addition to collaborating with Magic Eden, Spark has also established a partnership with the stablecoin issuance protocol brale, planning to launch stablecoins on Bitcoin; and partnered with the Web3 infrastructure Privy to help project teams build dApps on Bitcoin.

The following is an introduction to early projects and tools in the Spark ecosystem:

sparkscan

sparkscan is the browser for the Spark network. Users can enter the Spark network address on the website to view token balances, transaction records, etc., and can also enter the token public key to view the number of token holders, total supply, transaction history, etc.

SparkSat

SparkSat is the first fully functional web wallet tool on the Spark protocol, and it is also the project party of the LRC20 token SNOW, which is not operated by Spark official. By importing the mnemonic phrase into SparkSat, users can clearly view their asset situation, and can also directly conduct deposits and withdrawals on the Bitcoin mainnet and transactions on the Spark network and Lightning Network through the front end of SparkSat. This tool can also be used to issue LRC20 tokens directly and view all LRC20 tokens in one place, making it the "Unisat" of the Spark protocol.

Flashnet

Flashnet is the only operator of the Spark protocol and the developer of the Spark browser, sparkscan. On February 4, 2025, Flashnet closed a $4.5 million seed round with participation from UTXO Management, Accomplice, Soma Capital, and others. Flashnet is committed to building a permissionless, non-custodial, Bitcoin-native DEX, and may also launch a Spark ecosystem DEX in the future. At the same time, it has partnered with brale, a stablecoin issuance protocol, to launch the Bitcoin stablecoin USDB.

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