One month after the launch of the Spark Mainnet, LRC20 Token has risen by 600%! Will Magic Eden getting on board trigger the next wave of fear of missing out (FOMO)?

Reprint: Daisy, Mars Finance

In the Bitcoin ecosystem, creating a new asset issuance protocol is actually not difficult; the challenge lies in having a community and project team to continuously "do things" around that protocol. Recently, the Bitcoin ecosystem has witnessed a wave of new protocol enthusiasm, with many anonymous projects showcasing their creativity to the market. However, in reality, most are just using inscriptions to "put new wine in old bottles," lacking infrastructure, development, and takeovers.

But in this dark forest, there are still serious teams. On May 20, the well-known Bitcoin ecosystem trading market Magic Eden announced its integration with the new Bitcoin L2 Spark, and will hold a joint event on May 26. Spark is a new type of Bitcoin scaling solution, and the project officially launched its mainnet test version on April 29. On May 8, the first LRC 20 token FSPK was born. Although the minting experience was not great, it still caused FOMO in the Bitcoin ecosystem community. The current off-market trading price for the first FSPK is $12-20 per piece (1 piece = 0.001), with a cost of about $2 per piece, and the price has increased at least 6 times.

The collaboration between Magic Eden and Spark may also indicate that the on-chain trading market for LRC 20 is about to go live. In addition to Magic Eden, Spark has also partnered with several projects, and the ecological prototype is already apparent, with well-known VC a16z backing it. Odaily Planet Daily will briefly introduce Spark, the currently issued LRC 20 tokens, and its ecological projects in this article.

Spark: A Bitcoin native L2 designed for payments and settlements

Spark claims to be a Bitcoin-native L2 designed specifically for payments and settlements, but in reality, Spark employs an off-chain scaling solution, not an EVM-like chain or Rollup, does not support smart contracts, and lacks a virtual machine. Therefore, Spark enables users to carry out instant, low-cost, and unrestricted self-custody transactions of Bitcoin and other tokens (including stablecoins) off-chain, while having native interoperability with the Lightning Network, allowing for token sending and receiving through the Lightning Network.

For Bitcoin, whether it is on-chain or off-chain scaling schemes, the most important concern for users is nothing more than the security of Bitcoin, that is, whether the Bitcoin that crosses into 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.

Spark's parent company is Lightspark, founded by David Marcus, who previously served as president of PayPal and vice president of messaging products at Facebook, and was invited to the inaugural Crypto Summit at the White House on March 8. In terms of financing, on May 13, 2022, Lightspark completed a Series A financing of more than $170 million, led by a16z and Paradigm, with participation from Coatue Management, Ribbit Capital, Thrive Capital, Felix Capital, Matrix Partners, and Zeev Ventures.

On April 29, Spark launched its public testnet, with core features such as sending and receiving Bitcoin, creating tokens (e.g., stablecoins), and lightning interoperability fully operational. Developers can also use Spark's SDK to build applications.

In terms of network fees, users are charged 0 fees for transactions on the Spark network, while depositing or withdrawing Bitcoin to/from Spark requires a certain on-chain Bitcoin fee (which will incur a fee after 6-12 months). Transferring Bitcoin from Spark to the Lightning Network incurs a 0.25% fee and routing fees.

Although the official statement clearly indicates that Spark has no tokens and there will be no airdrops or token TGE plans, shortly after the release of the Spark mainnet test version, LRC 20 has been fully explored by the market.

Spark native token protocol LRC 20

LRC 20 is a native token protocol launched by Spark in the summer of 2024, which is also compatible with the Bitcoin mainnet and the Lightning Network, but is still in development. Currently, LRC 20 only supports operation on the Spark network.

LRC 20 uses Bitcoin as the settlement layer, while Spark serves as the execution layer. Anyone can issue LRC 20 tokens, but before issuing, users need to broadcast a transaction on the mainnet, embedding the token's identifier and metadata (name, supply, decimal places) into the OP_RETURN output. Once the broadcast is successful, the tokens can be minted on Spark.

LRC 20 does not support a fair issuance model, only the original issuance wallet can be minted after the token issuance, and other addresses that want to obtain tokens can only be airdropped or distributed by Dev. At the same time, LRC 20 also supports freezing and burning operations, the original issuing wallet can freeze tokens on any address, and the tokens held by the frozen address will be locked, and the tokens cannot be received and sent unless Dev unfreezes; However, the original issuing wallet can only burn the tokens held by its own address, and the destruction is irreversible.

From the above characteristics, it can be seen that LRC 20 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 rights, there is also a hidden centralization crisis. Nonetheless, there are already several LRC 20 tokens with strong consensus in the market, but due to the need for various complicated operations involving computer terminals and Dev during the early stages, the tokens are somewhat chaotic. The following will introduce them separately.

FSPK (ending in 8b93): The first LRC 20 token

Total supply of tokens: 21

OTC trading price: 12-20 USD per piece

Public Key: 02b1d59c286bb79b39d0b3f14dc2a532b1e97e5c32c6376caea41e0b8c39708b93

Release date: May 8

The FSPK with a public key ending in 8b93 is the first LRC 20 token, issued by @fspk_spark. The original total supply of this token was 21 million, but due to an error by the project team in setting the token supply, the final total supply is only 21 (the worst Dev in history). Therefore, the current quantity of one FSPK (ending in 8b93) is 0.001 tokens, with a single minting cost of 0.000021 BTC, approximately 2 dollars.

However, LRC 20 cannot be fairly minted by itself, so the minting process is essentially users depositing money into the project team's wallet, and then they manually distribute tokens to users (which is also quite hard work), earning a total of 0.441 BTC, approximately 47187 USD.

Currently, the over-the-counter price for FSPK (ending in 8b93) is $12-20 per piece.

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

Total supply of tokens: 21 million pieces

OTC trading price: Not available

Public Key: 029e4d50f931c170e100c1b7129e353cddd69c8ae50bf274e7a68b05144ef8b55e

Release 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 pieces, 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 pieces. 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 (ending with 6c82)

Total supply of tokens: 21 million

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

Public Key: 0374f5629ac68dbdf9600cc14c763b8be9f1ebb198b3c568b47f9811efbcf56c82

Release date: May 11

Because players have encountered too many difficulties in playing the first FSPK (ending in 8b93), such as the transaction has not been confirmed, the tokens have not been received, etc., the total amount of the first (ending in 8b93) is only 21, so the @Flashspark_ team airdropped FSPK (ending in 6c82) to the first 21, 000 users who transferred the first FSPK (ending in 8b93) according to the order of transaction time, including users who confirmed and unconfirmed transactions. It is currently trading at $4-$10 per lot, but its consensus is weak.

SAT

Total supply of tokens: 210 trillion

Over-the-counter trading price: None

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 zero cost, it will also attract community attention, but currently there is no off-market price.

SNOW

Total supply of tokens: 21 million

Over-the-counter trading price: 19 USD per piece

Public Key: 0377abadfbab8cc1fd7382fab87835ab062fd72c3ae7662fa6b579210fca16cd59

Release date: May 17

SNOW is launched by the Spark ecosystem project sparksat and is the first LRC 20 token backed by a legitimate project team, which has led to a high level of community recognition. Currently, its off-market trading 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 has partnered with 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, where users can enter the Spark network address on the website to view token balances, transaction records, etc. Users can also enter the token public key to view the number of token holders, total supply, transaction history, and more.

SparkSat

SparkSat is the first fully functional web wallet tool on the Spark protocol, and it is also the project party of the LRC 20 token SNOW, not operated by Spark official. By importing the mnemonic phrase into SparkSat, users can clearly view their asset status and directly perform deposits and withdrawals on the Bitcoin mainnet and transactions on the Spark network and Lightning Network through the SparkSat front end. It also allows users to issue LRC 20 tokens directly and view all LRC 20 tokens in one place, making it the "Unisat" of the Spark protocol.

Flashnet

Flashnet is one of the two operators of the Spark protocol and the developer of the Spark browser sparkscan. On February 4, 2025, Flashnet completed a $4.5 million seed round of financing, 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 the stablecoin issuance protocol brale to launch the Bitcoin stablecoin USDB.