Coinbase to Support Spark Token Airdrop to XRP Holders

Coinbase announced Saturday it plans to support an upcoming airdrop that has been seen as a factor in boosting XRP’s price in recent weeks.

The San Francisco-based exchange said in a blog post that Coinbase customers with XRP balances as of midnight UTC on Dec. 12, 2020, will receive Spark tokens from Coinbase at a later date.

"The amount of Spark you'll receive depends on how much XRP you had in your account at the snapshot time," Coinbase wrote. Details about the airdrop will be posted this week, a company spokesperson told CoinDesk.

Spark is the native token of the Flare Network, a system meant to bring Ethereum-like functionality to the XRP Ledger.

“Flare’s token, Spark is created through what may be the first-ever utility fork whereby the origin network, in this case the XRP Ledger, benefits through increased utility,” the team behind the smart-contract project wrote in August.

XRP is up nearly 10% over the last 24 hours as of press time, according to CoinDesk data.

"Supporting new networks and their projects is important for not only meeting customer interest, but also the continued growth of the crypto ecosystem," said Coinbase spokesperson Crystal Yang.