Creating a new asset issuance protocol within the Bitcoin ecosystem is not particularly difficult. The real challenge lies in having a community and project teams that continuously engage and build around the protocol. Recently, the Bitcoin ecosystem has seen a wave of new protocol fever, with many anonymous projects showcasing their ideas to the market. However, most of these are essentially "new bottles for old wine," leveraging inscriptions without any infrastructure, development, or support.

But in this dark forest, there are still legitimate teams. On May 20, Magic Eden, a well-known Bitcoin ecosystem marketplace, announced its integration with the new Bitcoin L2 Spark and will co-host an event on May 26. Spark is a novel Bitcoin scaling solution. The project officially launched its mainnet test version on April 29, and the first LRC20 token, FSPK, was born on May 8. Despite a less-than-ideal minting experience, it has sparked FOMO (fear of missing out) within the Bitcoin ecosystem community. The current over-the-counter (OTC) price for the first FSPK is $12–20 per token (1 token = 0.001 units), with a cost of approximately $2 per token, representing a price increase of at least six times.

Spark: A Bitcoin Native L2 Designed for Payments and Settlements

Spark claims to be a Bitcoin-native L2 designed specifically for payments and settlements. However, Spark actually employs an off-chain scaling solution. It is neither an EVM-like chain nor a Rollup, does not support smart contracts, and lacks a virtual machine. Therefore, Spark enables users to conduct instant, low-cost, and unrestricted self-custody transactions for Bitcoin and other tokens (including stablecoins) off-chain, with native interoperability with the Lightning Network for token sending and receiving.

For Bitcoin, whether it is an on-chain or off-chain scaling solution, users are most concerned about the security of Bitcoin—specifically, whether Bitcoin can be safely and freely withdrawn from the L2. Currently, the Spark network has only two operators: the parent company, Lightspark, and Flashnet (with more operators to be added in the future, according to official statements). Therefore, theoretically, for any transaction on Spark, at least one operator and the user must jointly authorize it to succeed. This design naturally poses risks. If both operators go offline, user funds could be jeopardized.

However, even as an off-chain scaling solution, Spark still has non-custodial and Bitcoin-native characteristics. The core of Spark is a shared signature protocol based on Bitcoin, which operates in the form of a distributed ledger without any additional consensus mechanism. Users' Bitcoin deposits are directly mapped onto Spark without any bridging or wrapping. Moreover, users' funds remain in a non-custodial state. Even if Spark operators disappear, attempt to censor, or refuse to cooperate, users can still unilaterally force a withdrawal to the Bitcoin mainnet, ensuring fund security.

Lightspark: The Parent Company of Spark

The parent company of Spark is Lightspark, founded by David Marcus, who previously served as President of PayPal and Vice President of Messaging Products at Facebook. He was also invited to the first-ever White House Crypto Summit on March 8. In terms of financing, on May 13, 2022, Lightspark completed a Series A funding round of over $170 million, led by a16z and Paradigm, with participation from Coatue Management, Ribbit Capital, Thrive Capital, Felix Capital, Matrix Partners, and Zeev Ventures. The funding lineup is quite impressive.

On April 29, Spark launched its public test version of the mainnet, with core functionalities such as sending and receiving Bitcoin, creating tokens (e.g., stablecoins), and Lightning Network interoperability fully operational. Developers can also build applications using Spark's SDK.

Regarding network fees, users pay no fees for transactions on the Spark network. Depositing or withdrawing Bitcoin to/from Spark incurs some on-chain Bitcoin fees (with plans to charge certain fees after 6–12 months). Transferring Bitcoin from Spark to the Lightning Network requires a 0.25% fee plus routing fees.

Although the official statement clearly indicates that Spark does not have a token and will not have any airdrops or token TGE (Token Generation Event) plans, the LRC20 protocol was quickly discovered by the market shortly after the launch of Spark's mainnet test version.

LRC20: Spark's Native Token Protocol

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

LRC20 uses Bitcoin as the settlement layer, while Spark serves as the execution layer. Anyone can issue an LRC20 token. However, before issuance, users must 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, tokens can be minted on Spark.

LRC20 does not support a fair issuance model. After issuance, only the original issuing wallet can mint tokens. Other addresses can only obtain tokens through Dev airdrops or distributions. Additionally, LRC20 supports freezing and burning operations. The original issuing wallet can freeze tokens at any address, locking them and preventing the address from receiving or sending those tokens unless Dev unfreezes them. However, the original issuing wallet can only burn tokens held in its own address, and burning is irreversible.

These features indicate that LRC20 is designed for stablecoin issuance, granting significant power to the original issuing address. For other token-holding addresses, if the freezing power is not relinquished, there is a potential centralization risk. Nevertheless, several LRC20 tokens with strong consensus have emerged in the market. However, due to the initial need to use a computer terminal for minting and various Dev maneuvers, the tokens are somewhat chaotic. The following is an introduction to some of them.

FSPK (Ending in 8b93): The First LRC20 Token

• Total Supply: 21 tokens

• OTC Price: $12–20 per token

• Public Key: 02b1d59c286bb79b39d0b3f14dc2a532b1e97e5c32c6376caea41e0b8c39708b93

• Issuance Date: May 8

The FSPK ending in 8b93 is the first LRC20 token, issued by @fspk_spark. The original total supply was intended to be 21 million tokens, but due to an error by the project team in setting the token supply, the final total supply is only 21 tokens (the worst Dev in history). Therefore, one FSPK (ending in 8b93) currently represents 0.001 tokens, with a minting cost of 0.000021 BTC, equivalent to approximately $2.

However, since LRC20 itself does not support fair minting, the minting process essentially involves users sending money to the project team's wallet, after which the team manually distributes the tokens to users (quite a hassle). The total earnings from this process were 0.441 BTC, equivalent to approximately $47,187.

Currently, the OTC price for FSPK (ending in 8b93) is $12–20 per token.

FSPKS: Correcting the First FSPK (Ending in 8b93)

• Total Supply: 21 million tokens

• OTC Price: Not available yet

• Public Key: 029e4d50f931c170e100c1b7129e353cddd69c8ae50bf274e7a68b05144ef8b55e

• Issuance Date: May 12

This token was also issued by @fspk_spark. The project team realized that the total supply of the first FSPK (ending in 8b93) was too low at only 21 tokens. Therefore, to better support subsequent DEX AMM or Spark DEX swaps, the team announced the issuance of a new token, FSPKS, on May 21, to replace the first FSPK. The new FSPKS tokens were airdropped to FSPK holders at a ratio of 1,000 tokens per piece. The project team also declared that the old FSPK would no longer be valid and would not appear in future AMMs.

FSPK (Ending in 6c82)

• Total Supply: 21 million tokens

• OTC Price: $4–10 per token (1 token = 1,000 units)

• Public Key: 0374f5629ac68dbdf9600cc14c763b8be9f1ebb198b3c568b47f9811efbcf56c82

• Issuance Date: May 11

Due to the difficulties encountered by users when minting the first FSPK (ending in 8b93), such as unconfirmed transactions and tokens not showing up, and given that the total supply of the first FSPK (ending in 8b93) was only 21 tokens, the @Flashspark_ team decided to airdrop FSPK (ending in 6c82) to the first 21,000 users who transferred funds for the first FSPK (ending in 8b93), including both confirmed and unconfirmed transactions. Currently, the OTC price for FSPK (ending in 6c82) is $4–10 per token, but its consensus is relatively weak.

SAT

• Total Supply: 210 trillion tokens

• OTC Price: Not available yet

• Public Key: 02757529fa69b70e55cee583c03d58936c39fff134b83808745db1ff41c1603bdb

• Issuance Date: May 11

SAT is an airdrop by an anonymous Dev to all addresses that minted the first FSPK (ending in 8b93). Because it inherits the tradition of a massive SAT supply and is cost-free, it has garnered attention within the community, but there is currently no OTC price.

SNOW

• Total Supply: 21 million tokens

• OTC Price: $19 per token

• Public Key: 0377abadfbab8cc1fd7382fab87835ab062fd72c3ae7662fa6b579210fca16cd59

• Issuance Date: May 17

SNOW is launched by Spark ecosystem project sparksat and is the first LRC20 token endorsed by a legitimate project team, which has led to higher community recognition. Currently, its OTC price is $19 per token, with a cost of only $1 (charged by the project team), representing a price increase of 19 times.

Early Ecosystem Projects and Tools

The biggest difference between Spark and other fleeting new protocols is that, despite being in its early stages, its ecosystem already has some committed builders, reminiscent of the early days of the BRC20 ecosystem. In addition to partnering with Magic Eden, Spark has also collaborated with stablecoin issuance protocol brale to launch a stablecoin on Bitcoin and with Web3 infrastructure provider Privy to help project teams build dApps on Bitcoin.

Sparkscan

Sparkscan is the block explorer for the Spark network. Users can enter a Spark network address on the website to view token balances and transaction records. They can also enter a token's public key to see the number of token holders, total supply, and transaction history.

SparkSat

SparkSat is the first fully functional web wallet tool on the Spark protocol and is also the project team behind the LRC20 token SNOW. It is not operated by Spark's official team. By importing a mnemonic phrase into SparkSat, users can clearly view their asset status and directly conduct deposits and withdrawals on the Bitcoin mainnet, as well as transactions on the Spark network and the Lightning Network through SparkSat's front end. Users can also use this tool to issue LRC20 tokens and view all LRC20 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 block explorer, sparkscan. On February 4, 2025, Flashnet completed a $4.5 million seed funding 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. It has already partnered with stablecoin issuance protocol brale to launch the Bitcoin stablecoin USDB.

Creating a new asset issuance protocol within the Bitcoin ecosystem is not particularly difficult. The real challenge lies in having a community and project teams that continuously engage and build around the protocol. Recently, the Bitcoin ecosystem has seen a wave of new protocol fever, with many anonymous projects showcasing their ideas to the market. However, most of these are essentially "new bottles for old wine," leveraging inscriptions without any infrastructure, development, or support.

But in this dark forest, there are still legitimate teams. On May 20, Magic Eden, a well-known Bitcoin ecosystem marketplace, announced its integration with the new Bitcoin L2 Spark and will co-host an event on May 26. Spark is a novel Bitcoin scaling solution. The project officially launched its mainnet test version on April 29, and the first LRC20 token, FSPK, was born on May 8. Despite a less-than-ideal minting experience, it has sparked FOMO (fear of missing out) within the Bitcoin ecosystem community. The current over-the-counter (OTC) price for the first FSPK is $12–20 per token (1 token = 0.001 units), with a cost of approximately $2 per token, representing a price increase of at least six times.

Spark: A Bitcoin Native L2 Designed for Payments and Settlements

Spark claims to be a Bitcoin-native L2 designed specifically for payments and settlements. However, Spark actually employs an off-chain scaling solution. It is neither an EVM-like chain nor a Rollup, does not support smart contracts, and lacks a virtual machine. Therefore, Spark enables users to conduct instant, low-cost, and unrestricted self-custody transactions for Bitcoin and other tokens (including stablecoins) off-chain, with native interoperability with the Lightning Network for token sending and receiving.

For Bitcoin, whether it is an on-chain or off-chain scaling solution, users are most concerned about the security of Bitcoin—specifically, whether Bitcoin can be safely and freely withdrawn from the L2. Currently, the Spark network has only two operators: the parent company, Lightspark, and Flashnet (with more operators to be added in the future, according to official statements). Therefore, theoretically, for any transaction on Spark, at least one operator and the user must jointly authorize it to succeed. This design naturally poses risks. If both operators go offline, user funds could be jeopardized.

However, even as an off-chain scaling solution, Spark still has non-custodial and Bitcoin-native characteristics. The core of Spark is a shared signature protocol based on Bitcoin, which operates in the form of a distributed ledger without any additional consensus mechanism. Users' Bitcoin deposits are directly mapped onto Spark without any bridging or wrapping. Moreover, users' funds remain in a non-custodial state. Even if Spark operators disappear, attempt to censor, or refuse to cooperate, users can still unilaterally force a withdrawal to the Bitcoin mainnet, ensuring fund security.

Lightspark: The Parent Company of Spark

The parent company of Spark is Lightspark, founded by David Marcus, who previously served as President of PayPal and Vice President of Messaging Products at Facebook. He was also invited to the first-ever White House Crypto Summit on March 8. In terms of financing, on May 13, 2022, Lightspark completed a Series A funding round of over $170 million, led by a16z and Paradigm, with participation from Coatue Management, Ribbit Capital, Thrive Capital, Felix Capital, Matrix Partners, and Zeev Ventures. The funding lineup is quite impressive.

On April 29, Spark launched its public test version of the mainnet, with core functionalities such as sending and receiving Bitcoin, creating tokens (e.g., stablecoins), and Lightning Network interoperability fully operational. Developers can also build applications using Spark's SDK.

Regarding network fees, users pay no fees for transactions on the Spark network. Depositing or withdrawing Bitcoin to/from Spark incurs some on-chain Bitcoin fees (with plans to charge certain fees after 6–12 months). Transferring Bitcoin from Spark to the Lightning Network requires a 0.25% fee plus routing fees.

Although the official statement clearly indicates that Spark does not have a token and will not have any airdrops or token TGE (Token Generation Event) plans, the LRC20 protocol was quickly discovered by the market shortly after the launch of Spark's mainnet test version.

LRC20: Spark's Native Token Protocol

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

LRC20 uses Bitcoin as the settlement layer, while Spark serves as the execution layer. Anyone can issue an LRC20 token. However, before issuance, users must 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, tokens can be minted on Spark.

LRC20 does not support a fair issuance model. After issuance, only the original issuing wallet can mint tokens. Other addresses can only obtain tokens through Dev airdrops or distributions. Additionally, LRC20 supports freezing and burning operations. The original issuing wallet can freeze tokens at any address, locking them and preventing the address from receiving or sending those tokens unless Dev unfreezes them. However, the original issuing wallet can only burn tokens held in its own address, and burning is irreversible.

These features indicate that LRC20 is designed for stablecoin issuance, granting significant power to the original issuing address. For other token-holding addresses, if the freezing power is not relinquished, there is a potential centralization risk. Nevertheless, several LRC20 tokens with strong consensus have emerged in the market. However, due to the initial need to use a computer terminal for minting and various Dev maneuvers, the tokens are somewhat chaotic. The following is an introduction to some of them.

FSPK (Ending in 8b93): The First LRC20 Token

• Total Supply: 21 tokens

• OTC Price: $12–20 per token

• Public Key: 02b1d59c286bb79b39d0b3f14dc2a532b1e97e5c32c6376caea41e0b8c39708b93

• Issuance Date: May 8

The FSPK ending in 8b93 is the first LRC20 token, issued by @fspk_spark. The original total supply was intended to be 21 million tokens, but due to an error by the project team in setting the token supply, the final total supply is only 21 tokens (the worst Dev in history). Therefore, one FSPK (ending in 8b93) currently represents 0.001 tokens, with a minting cost of 0.000021 BTC, equivalent to approximately $2.

However, since LRC20 itself does not support fair minting, the minting process essentially involves users sending money to the project team's wallet, after which the team manually distributes the tokens to users (quite a hassle). The total earnings from this process were 0.441 BTC, equivalent to approximately $47,187.

Currently, the OTC price for FSPK (ending in 8b93) is $12–20 per token.

FSPKS: Correcting the First FSPK (Ending in 8b93)

• Total Supply: 21 million tokens

• OTC Price: Not available yet

• Public Key: 029e4d50f931c170e100c1b7129e353cddd69c8ae50bf274e7a68b05144ef8b55e

• Issuance Date: May 12

This token was also issued by @fspk_spark. The project team realized that the total supply of the first FSPK (ending in 8b93) was too low at only 21 tokens. Therefore, to better support subsequent DEX AMM or Spark DEX swaps, the team announced the issuance of a new token, FSPKS, on May 21, to replace the first FSPK. The new FSPKS tokens were airdropped to FSPK holders at a ratio of 1,000 tokens per piece. The project team also declared that the old FSPK would no longer be valid and would not appear in future AMMs.

FSPK (Ending in 6c82)

• Total Supply: 21 million tokens

• OTC Price: $4–10 per token (1 token = 1,000 units)

• Public Key: 0374f5629ac68dbdf9600cc14c763b8be9f1ebb198b3c568b47f9811efbcf56c82

• Issuance Date: May 11

Due to the difficulties encountered by users when minting the first FSPK (ending in 8b93), such as unconfirmed transactions and tokens not showing up, and given that the total supply of the first FSPK (ending in 8b93) was only 21 tokens, the @Flashspark_ team decided to airdrop FSPK (ending in 6c82) to the first 21,000 users who transferred funds for the first FSPK (ending in 8b93), including both confirmed and unconfirmed transactions. Currently, the OTC price for FSPK (ending in 6c82) is $4–10 per token, but its consensus is relatively weak.

SAT

• Total Supply: 210 trillion tokens

• OTC Price: Not available yet

• Public Key: 02757529fa69b70e55cee583c03d58936c39fff134b83808745db1ff41c1603bdb

• Issuance Date: May 11

SAT is an airdrop by an anonymous Dev to all addresses that minted the first FSPK (ending in 8b93). Because it inherits the tradition of a massive SAT supply and is cost-free, it has garnered attention within the community, but there is currently no OTC price.

SNOW

• Total Supply: 21 million tokens

• OTC Price: $19 per token

• Public Key: 0377abadfbab8cc1fd7382fab87835ab062fd72c3ae7662fa6b579210fca16cd59

• Issuance Date: May 17

SNOW is launched by Spark ecosystem project sparksat and is the first LRC20 token endorsed by a legitimate project team, which has led to higher community recognition. Currently, its OTC price is $19 per token, with a cost of only $1 (charged by the project team), representing a price increase of 19 times.

Early Ecosystem Projects and Tools

The biggest difference between Spark and other fleeting new protocols is that, despite being in its early stages, its ecosystem already has some committed builders, reminiscent of the early days of the BRC20 ecosystem. In addition to partnering with Magic Eden, Spark has also collaborated with stablecoin issuance protocol brale to launch a stablecoin on Bitcoin and with Web3 infrastructure provider Privy to help project teams build dApps on Bitcoin.

Sparkscan

Sparkscan is the block explorer for the Spark network. Users can enter a Spark network address on the website to view token balances and transaction records. They can also enter a token's public key to see the number of token holders, total supply, and transaction history.

SparkSat

SparkSat is the first fully functional web wallet tool on the Spark protocol and is also the project team behind the LRC20 token SNOW. It is not operated by Spark's official team. By importing a mnemonic phrase into SparkSat, users can clearly view their asset status and directly conduct deposits and withdrawals on the Bitcoin mainnet, as well as transactions on the Spark network and the Lightning Network through SparkSat's front end. Users can also use this tool to issue LRC20 tokens and view all LRC20 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 block explorer, sparkscan. On February 4, 2025, Flashnet completed a $4.5 million seed funding 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. It has already partnered with stablecoin issuance protocol brale to launch the Bitcoin stablecoin USDB.