Spark airdrop lights the fuse on decentralized governance

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Spark, the DeFi protocol behind SparkLend and Spark Savings, has launched Ignition. This long-awaited airdrop campaign is designed to reward early ecosystem contributors and kick off decentralized governance via the SPK token.

The campaign will reach approximately 50,000 participants, spanning users of Aave, Pendle, Centrifuge, Morpho, Unichain, Lido and OP Mainnet, according to the Spark team. Eligibility is determined based on prior engagement with SparkLend or by holding select stablecoins, including USDS, sUSDS, DAI, sDAI and xDAI (the gas token of Gnosis Chain). Token recipients can check eligibility and claim their SPK at token launch via Ignitions official portal.

The token itself is not yet live, and no launch date has been announced — so watch out for phishing attempts!

The scope of eligibility is strikingly broad: Users who held stablecoins or interacted with platforms like Aave, Morpho, Pendle or Fluid as far back as 2023 — when Spark launched — may qualify. Users qualify from holding tokens and DeFi positions on Ethereum mainnet, L2s like Base, Arbitrum and Optimism, and even Gnosis and Polygon.

SPK tokens, however, will be claimable only on Ethereum Mainnet, regardless of the network where eligibility was earned. The claim window is expected to run for six weeks following token launch, after which unclaimed SPK will be redirected to the “Overdrive” phase.

Overdrive is the second planned campaign phase following Ignition, and establishes a staking-based rewards program allowing recipients to stake their SPK for additional yield. Participants from Spark Savings may receive boosted allocations during Overdrive, depending on their prior activity. Thats one way in which Spark aims to reward long-term alignment and meaningful participation across its financial stack.

“This airdrop campaign marks a key milestone in Spark‘s roadmap and is a foundational step toward a more interoperable and composable decentralized financial system,” said Sam MacPherson, CEO and co-founder of Spark’s core development team, Phoenix Labs.

Spark has expanded its role in the DeFi landscape through vertical integration, as Alea Research noted in a recent report.

“Spark offers high‑yield savings (SSR), low‑cost USDS borrowing (SparkLend), and deep cross‑chain liquidity (SLL) in a single stack.” This combination enables Spark to deliver capital efficiency at scale — without fragmentation. Together, SparkLend and SLL manage over $5.5 billion in liquidity, making Spark one of DeFis most heavily capitalized systems.

Source: Blockworks Research.

The SPK token will serve as the governance core of this ecosystem, shaping protocol upgrades, integration priorities and capital allocation via onchain voting. Its part of a massive 10-year emission roadmap outlined in the Spark Artifact from the Sky (formerly MakerDAO) Atlas.

Of the 10 billion total SPK tokens, 6.5 billion will be distributed via Genesis farming by Sky, and 3.5 billion will be allocated to the Spark Foundation. Emissions begin at 1.625 billion per year and taper down gradually to a long-term rate of 203 million SPK annually by year seven.