Flare

Flare was established by Hugo Philion (CEO), Sean Rowan (Chief Product Officer, former CTO), and Naïri Usher (Chief Scientist). All founders have strong educational backgrounds in fields like machine learning and quantum computing from University College London (UCL).

The team initially introduced the network and its then-named Spark token in their August 2020 whitepaper. The primary intent was to offer smart contract functionality to blockchains that lacked it, particularly Ripple's XRP Ledger. In 2019, Flare received a substantial initial investment from Xpring, Ripple Labs' investment arm. Subsequently, in 2021, they raised $11.3 million from various venture capital firms and individual investors.

In December 2022, an updated whitepaper (Flare v2.0) was published, officially renaming the Spark token to FLR and refining multiple aspects of the project.

Flare Network is a layer 1, Proof-of-Stake (PoS) blockchain that uses the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) to support smart contracts and host decentralized applications (dapps). Its interoperability goals are achieved through two primary protocols: the State Connector and the Flare Time Series Oracle.

The State Connector enables the network to offer blockchain interoperability by reliably recreating the state of a connected blockchain on Flare. It uses a request-commit-reveal (RCR) protocol for information verification and a branching protocol to ensure the decentralized acquisition of data.

The Flare Time Series Oracle (FTSO) addresses the challenge of interacting with off-chain data. It is an assembly of data providers that offer on-chain information. Data providers must stake FLR tokens to participate and may face penalties for malicious actions. Other users can delegate their FLR to trustworthy data providers. Rewards are earned based on data accuracy.

Flare's canary network, Songbird, is a fully functional blockchain designed to develop new features for Flare. It was launched in 2021 with its governance system and native token, SGB.

The FLR token is used for incentivizing FTSO use, acting as collateral in third-party dapps, participating in governance, securing the network through staking, and paying transaction fees. Out of the total 100 billion FLR, 58% is allocated to the community, 19% to the development team, advisors, and backers, and 22.5% reserved for companies/funds associated with Flare.

In essence, Flare is a layer 1 blockchain committed to blockchain interoperability. It uses its main protocols - the State Connector and the FTSO - to provide accurate cross-chain information. The FLR token secures the network, incentivizes FTSO use, and facilitates network governance.