Bitcoin Ecosystem New Protocol Spark and Its Ecological Exploration

In the Bitcoin ecosystem, creating new asset issuance protocols is not difficult; the key lies in whether it can attract continuous participation from the community and project teams. Recently, the Bitcoin ecosystem has once again sparked a wave of new protocol trends, but most projects merely utilize inscription technology to repeat old patterns, lacking substantial innovation and sustainable development.

However, in this fiercely competitive field, there are still teams that are seriously exploring. On May 20, a well-known trading platform announced a collaboration with the emerging Bitcoin L2 project Spark, planning to hold a joint event on May 26. Spark, as an innovative Bitcoin scaling solution, officially launched its mainnet test version on April 29. On May 8, the first LRC20 token FSPK was born, and although there were some issues during the minting process, it still sparked enthusiastic responses from the Bitcoin community. Currently, the over-the-counter trading price of FSPK has reached $12-20 per piece, increasing at least six times compared to the cost price of about $2 per piece.

This collaboration may indicate that the on-chain trading market for LRC20 tokens is about to open. In addition, Spark has established partnerships with multiple projects, and the ecological prototype is beginning to take shape. At the same time, the project is supported by well-known venture capital. This article will briefly introduce the Spark project, the currently issued LRC20 tokens, and its ecological development.

Spark: A Bitcoin Native L2 Focused on Payment and Settlement

Spark is positioned as a Bitcoin-native L2 solution specifically aimed at payments and settlements. In fact, Spark adopts an off-chain scaling solution, rather than an EVM-like chain or Rollup, does not support smart contracts, and has no virtual machine. Spark allows users to conduct instant, low-cost, and unrestricted self-custody transactions of Bitcoin and other tokens (including stablecoins) off-chain, while achieving native interoperability with the Lightning Network, supporting the sending and receiving of tokens through the Lightning Network.

For Bitcoin scaling solutions, users are most concerned about the security of funds, that is, whether Bitcoin entering L2 can be safely and unobstructedly withdrawn. Currently, the Spark network has only two operators, namely the parent company Lightspark and Flashnet (officially stating that more operators will be added in the future). In theory, all transactions on Spark require the joint authorization of at least one operator and the user to be completed. This design carries certain risks; if both operators fail simultaneously, the security of user funds may be threatened.

Despite being an off-chain scaling solution, Spark still retains the non-custodial and Bitcoin-native characteristics. The core of Spark uses a Bitcoin-based shared signing protocol, operating in the form of a distributed ledger without the need for an additional consensus mechanism. Users' Bitcoin deposits are directly mapped to Spark, without any intermediary bridges or wrapping. Users' funds are always in a non-custodial state; even if the Spark operators disappear, attempt to censor, or refuse to cooperate, users can still enforce one-sided withdrawals to the Bitcoin mainnet, ensuring the safety of their funds.

The parent company of Spark, Lightspark, was founded by David Marcus, who previously served as the president of a certain payment platform and the vice president of messaging products at a certain social platform. Marcus was also invited to attend the first cryptocurrency summit held by the White House on March 8. In terms of financing, Lightspark completed over $170 million in Series A funding on May 13, 2022, led by a well-known venture capital firm, with several famous investment institutions participating, making the financing lineup quite strong.

On April 29, Spark launched the public testnet, with core functionalities such as sending and receiving Bitcoin, creating tokens, and lightning interoperability fully operational. Developers can use Spark's SDK to build applications.

Regarding network fees, users are temporarily not charged fees for transactions on the Spark network. Depositing or withdrawing Bitcoin to/from Spark requires a certain amount of Bitcoin on-chain fee (a fee may be charged after 6-12 months). Depositing Bitcoin from Spark to the Lightning Network incurs a 0.25% fee and routing fees.

Although the official statement clearly indicates that Spark does not have a token and there will be no airdrop or token issuance plans, the LRC20 protocol received significant attention from the market shortly after the release of the Spark mainnet test version.

Spark Native Token Protocol LRC20

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

LRC20 uses Bitcoin as the settlement layer, while Spark serves as the execution layer. Anyone can issue LRC20 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.

LRC20 does not support a fair issuance model. After the token is issued, only the original issuance wallet can mint it. Other addresses can only obtain tokens through developer airdrops or distributions. At the same time, LRC20 also supports freezing and destroying operations. The original issuance wallet can freeze tokens on any address, and the tokens held by the frozen address will be locked, unable to be received or sent unless the developer unfreezes them. However, the original issuance wallet can only destroy tokens held by its own address, and the destruction is irreversible.

These characteristics indicate that LRC20 is indeed designed for the issuance of stablecoins, granting significant power to the original issuing address. However, for other addresses holding tokens, if they do not relinquish freezing authority, there are also hidden centralization risks. In any case, several strongly consensus LRC20 tokens have already emerged in the market, but due to the need for computer terminals for minting and various operations by developers in the early stages, the situation with the tokens is somewhat chaotic, which will be introduced separately below.

FSPK (ending with 8b93): The first LRC20 token

• Total token supply: 21 coins
• Over-the-counter trading price: $12-20 per piece
• Public Key: 02b1d59c286bb79b39d0b3f14dc2a532b1e97e5c32c6376caea41e0b8c39708b93
• Issuance date: May 8

The FSPK with a public key ending in 8b93 is the first LRC20 token. The total supply of this token was originally 21 million coins, but due to an error in setting the token supply by the project team, the final total supply is 21 coins. Therefore, currently, one FSPK (ending in 8b93) amounts to 0.001 coins, with a minting cost of 0.000021BTC, approximately 2 dollars.

Since LRC20 itself does not support fair minting, the minting process actually involves users transferring funds into the project party's wallet, and then the project party manually distributes tokens to users, collecting a total of 0.441BTC, approximately 47187 dollars.

Currently, the OTC price of FSPK (ending with 8b93) is 12-20 USD per piece.

FSPKS: Correct the error of the first FSPK (ending with 8b93)

• Total supply of tokens: 21 million coins
• OTC trading price: Not available
• Public Key: 029e4d50f931c170e100c1b7129e353cddd69c8ae50bf274e7a68b05144ef8b55e
• Release date: May 12

This is a new token issued by the project team after realizing that the total amount of the first FSPK, which is 21 coins, is too small. To better support subsequent DEX AMM or Spark DEX trading, on May 21, the project team announced the issuance of the new token FSPKS to replace the first FSPK. The new FSPKS tokens will be airdropped to FSPK holders at a ratio of 1000 coins per one token. At the same time, the project team stated that the old FSPK will no longer be valid and will not appear in future 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

Due to the difficulties users encountered when minting the first FSPK (ending in 8b93), such as transactions taking a long time to confirm and tokens not arriving, and considering that there are only 21 FSPK in total, a certain team decided to airdrop FSPK (ending in 6c82) to the first 21,000 users who transferred the first FSPK (ending in 8b93) in the order of transaction time, including users with both confirmed and unconfirmed transactions. Currently, its off-market price is between 4-10 USD per piece, but the level of consensus is relatively weak.

SAT

• Total supply of tokens: 210 trillion coins
• OTC trading price: N/A
• Public Key: 02757529fa69b70e55cee583c03d58936c39fff134b83808745db1ff41c1603bdb
• Release date: May 11

The SAT was also airdropped by anonymous developers to all addresses that minted the first FSPK (ending with 8b93). Because it continues the tradition of a large total supply for SAT and is at zero cost, it has attracted community attention, but currently, there is no off-market price.

SNOW

• Total token supply: 21 million coins
• OTC trading price: 19 USD/piece
• Public Key: 0377abadfbab8cc1fd7382fab87835ab062fd72c3ae7662fa6b579210fca16cd59
• Issuance date: May 17

SNOW is launched by the Spark ecosystem project sparksat and is the first LRC20 token endorsed by a legitimate project team, which has led to a high level of community recognition. Currently, its over-the-counter transaction price is 19 USD per piece, with a cost of only 1 USD (this fee is charged by the project team), and the current price has risen 19 times.

Early Ecological Projects and Tools

The biggest difference between Spark and other ephemeral new protocols is that, although it is still in the early stages, there are already some determined builders in its ecosystem, resembling the early BRC20 ecosystem. In addition to collaborating with a well-known trading platform, Spark has also established a partnership with the stablecoin issuance protocol brale, planning to launch a stablecoin on Bitcoin; and has partnered with the Web3 infrastructure Privy to assist project teams in building decentralized applications 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 see 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, not operated by Spark officially. By importing the mnemonic phrase into SparkSat, users can clearly view their asset situation and can directly deposit and withdraw Bitcoin on the mainnet and conduct transactions on the Spark network and Lightning Network through SparkSat's front end. Additionally, users can directly use this tool to issue LRC20 tokens and view all LRC20 tokens in one place, making it a "universal wallet" for 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 financing with multiple investment institutions participating.

Flashnet is dedicated to building a permissionless, non-custodial, Bitcoin-native decentralized exchange, and may also launch the 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.