Copper appointed as official custodian for Flare Networks and Spark token distribution

Copper.co, the London-based digital asset infrastructure provider, today announced it will serve as an official custodian for Flare Networks. 

Flare is building the world’s first Turing-complete Federated Byzantine Agreement-based smart contract network. Its native asset, the Spark (FLR) token, will be distributed to XRP holders over a 36-month period, based upon a snapshot taken at 12:00am UTC on Saturday 12 December 2020.

As custodian, Copper will be responsible for securely holding Spark (FLR) tokens on behalf of the Flare Networks and the Flare Foundation.

At the instantiation of the network – which is scheduled for launch between Q1 and Q2 2021 – 100 billion Spark tokens will be created. 45 billion of these 100 billion tokens will be claimable by existing XRP holders, excluding Ripple Labs.

The amount of Spark to which an XRP holder is entitled will depend upon the 12/12/20 snapshot. The amount of Spark receivable will directly correlate with the amount of XRP held as at the snapshot, based on a formula devised by Flare Networks.

Copper’s role as a custodian will support Flare’s vision for the emergence of alternative Proof of Stake, or staking, mechanisms – which, in their current form, can scale up transaction throughput but cannot scale for value. 

Flare will benefit from Copper’s vast experience providing institutional-grade multi-party computation (MPC) cold storage and the business processes required by asset managers to safely acquire and store more than 150 digital assets. 

This partnership follows Copper’s November launch of the first decentralised finance (DeFi) tool for institutional investors, Copper Connect.

Dmitry Tokarev, CEO of Copper.co, said: “We are proud to be supporting the launch of the pioneering Flare Networks, by providing highly secure custody of its native Spark token. The Flare Networks team share Copper’s innovative spirit for developing solutions which will pave the way for cryptoassets to enter the mainstream.”

“Underpinned by our industry-leading security, we recently launched a DeFi tool for institutions, called CopperConnect. Providing custody to the Spark token, which aims to scale up transaction value as well as volume through the power of smart contracts, is a perfect example of how Copper’s infrastructure can be used to facilitate the adoption of cryptocurrency at an institutional level. It also demonstrates our ability to quickly adapt and support the latest tokens on the market.”

Hugo Philion, CEO of Flare Networks, said: “Copper’s proven ability to assure the safety of all the tokens it looks after, coupled with their track record for launching their own innovative tech, made choosing Copper as an official custodian an easy choice. We are confident that when Flare goes live, Copper will keep the Spark (FLR) token in their custodianship secure. We look forward to working with the team and harnessing their expertise in MPC cold storage, DeFi and staking mechanisms.”

-ENDS-

Notes for Editors

For more information, please contact

Chanice Smith

[email protected] | +44 (0) 7850 229 457

About Copper 

Founded in 2018 by Dmitry Tokarev, Copper provides a gateway into the cryptoasset space for institutional investors by offering custody, prime services, and settlements across 150 digital assets and more than 25 exchanges. It is committed to providing flexible solutions for institutional investors that can adapt to the changing cryptoasset space, while enabling far greater transparency and control for asset managers.

Copper’s fully integrated products are unique in the cryptoasset space. Underpinned by multi-award-winning custody, Copper has built the comprehensive and secure suite of tools and services required to safely acquire, trade, and store cryptocurrencies, including access to margin lending trading facilities and the DeFi space. 

At the core of Copper’s infrastructure is ClearLoop, a framework that connects the universe of exchanges in one secure trading loop — with real-time settlement across the Networks.  Integrated with market leading spot and derivative crypto exchanges, ClearLoop has already transformed the way in which institutional investors can engage in the cryptoasset space since launching in May 2020. 

For more information, please visit: www.copper.co

About Flare Networkss

Flare is the world’s first Turing complete smart contract platform based on Federated Byzantine Agreement. In short this means that it allows for the operation of fully programable smart contracts whilst not using capital and economic incentives to secure the Networks. Recent scaling algorithms based around proof of stake require capital locked in the Networks to increase as the value expressed on the Networks increases. This presents a new scaling barrier in capital availability and efficiency. In not using capital to secure the Networks Flare puts forward a scalable smart contract platform that can scale for both transaction speed and value.

In not requiring its native asset to act as a safety mechanism, Flare instead assigns Spark (FLR) a Networks utility role as a collateral asset to underpin the trustless issuance of value onto the Networks from other blockchains and simultaneously as a tool in creating a native oracle system that provides external prices to the Networks in a decentralized manner. Flare is launching with the trustless issuance of XRP on to the Networks as FXRP. The protocol behind FXRP is generally extendable to other tokens from other blockchains, such as Bitcoin and is well suited to tokens that do not have native smart contracts. This comprises about 70% of the entire value of Blockchain. Flare adopts the Ethereum Virtual Machine for smart contracts such that existing Ethereum projects may serve new value sources, such as XRP, on Flare whilst continuing to serve the Ethereum Networks directly.

Flare is growing rapidly and the Flare team is comprised of individuals with backgrounds in distributed Networks engineering & consensus, Networks security, smart contract engineering, wallet engineering, quantum computing and finance. 

For more information, please visit: https://flare.xyz