What is Songbird (SGB)?
Songbird is the canary network for the Flare blockchain. Flare is a layer 1 blockchain that offers trustless dApp development and cross-chain interoperability. It uses the Spark (FLR) token. Songbird is used as the network’s testing environment that has its own native token SGB.
A canary network is used as a blockchain testnet. The name comes from the idiom “canary in the coal mine”. Miners would take canaries to the coal mines to help detect danger. If the canary died, it meant that dangerous gases had accumulated in the mine. Similarly, canary networks are used to spot system vulnerabilities before the mainnet launch. All Songbird price updates can be observed in the chart above.
How Was Songbird Created?
The Flare Network was co-founded by Hugo Philion, Dr. Naïri Usher, and Sean Rowan. Phillion is the CEO, as well as the Chair of the Global Esports Federation Metaverse Council. Dr. Usher is a quantum machine learning researcher and Flare’s Chief Scientist. Rowan is the company’s CTO and a machine learning engineer.
The Songbird crypto testing platform went live in September 2021. At this time, the SGB price was $0.29. The value recorded roughly a year after the asset's launch saw a 14x decline to $0.02.
The goal of the platform was to provide a testing environment in preparation for the Flare launch. The code development process is rarely flawless, and without QA testing, some high-risk vulnerabilities can be overlooked. By first testing new projects on Songbird, users can patch the issues before the code goes live.
Within the first six months, the asset experienced significant volatility, although it did not exceed the $1 threshold. The peak Songbird price recorded during the final quarter of 2021 was $0.72 in September, days after the launch.
Despite its relatively short run compared to some of the biggest blockchains, Songbird has shown susceptibility to market trends. The SGB price climbed upwards in November, around the time when Bitcoin (BTC) was seeing significant growth. However, from December up to the first half of 2022, Songbird was on a decline, dropping to just $0.02 in May.
What Are the Uses of Songbird?
Unlike basic testnets, canary networks typically have a limited token supply. According to the platform’s tokenomics, the starting supply of Songbird coins was 15 billion. The maximum supply is programmed to increase by 10% each year.
While the asset is not strictly deflationary, the limited supply creates a more realistic simulation of the Mainnet. The Songbird price may gradually increase over time; however, its position may depend directly on the Spark market performance.
Songbird provides support for Ethereum-based technology, such as ETH smart contracts. The canary network runs the Ethereum EVM, enabling interconnectivity between Flare and ETH. Additionally, users are able to mint non-fungible tokens (NFTs) using the Songbird platform.
The Flare Mainnet itself launched in July 2022, after some delays. While the Songbird price was not significantly affected by the FLR launch, the volatility was notably not as high as during the Songbird release.
Songbird is primarily used to test out the functionality of new Flare features. Therefore, some of the features available on Songbird may not be available on the live Flare chain, or may never be launched due to system incompatibilities or security flaws. The platform is focused on Web3 development and decentralized integration with Web2.
According to the developers, the Flare Mainnet offers low-cost transactions, cross-chain dApp development, and trustless bridging of layer 1 blockchains. The platform is suitable for blockchain developers working on multi-chain projects. It uses the Spark (FLR) token. Songbird token holders can also receive FLR tokens for an equal SGB price value.
Both Flare and Songbird use their own unique consensus mechanism known as the Flare Consensus Protocol (FCP). It’s an asynchronous method that aims to reduce the energy inefficiency experienced by Proof-of-Work (PoW) and Proof-of-Stake (PoS) networks.
