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I give a more detailed comparison of Arkade and Spark here: 📝 b283a580… Per that thread, it's possible to use Arkade in a manner that qualifies as a self-custodial layer two. But it's not possible to use Spark in that manner (actually, it probably could be, with some design changes; see note below). Since Arkade users have a self-custodial option, I think Arkade is superior to Spark. I also prefer Spark to Liquid for the following reasons: Spark is designed in such a way that, if the server is not malicious but merely shuts down, users all get their money back via a presigned transaction that they already have a copy of. Liquid is not designed that way. If Liquid suddenly stops working, all of its users lose their money; they do not have a presigned withdrawal transaction, not even a timelocked one, so they just have to hope Liquid starts working again or at least that enough people in the Liquid multisig can access their backup keys (if they have any) and start responding to withdrawal requests. It also doesn't help that the members of the Liquid multisig are not known. A few paragraphs ago I said Spark "probably could be [self-custodial], with some design changes." A couple of years ago I came up with a protocol called "insured statechain." This protocol allows a third party, or even a statechain server operator, to insure your ability to withdraw from a statechain, such that if you can't get your withdrawal transaction confirmed (e.g. because the statechain server became malicious and stole the utxo you're trying to spend), you can take a utxo from the insurer instead. In the insured statechain protocol, the insurer's utxo is stored in a 2 of 2 multisig, and you don't pass around the private key to it like you do with a statechain, so there's no risk of the insurer revoking the insurance contract. Spark could theoretically be modified to support this protocol, and then they themselves could sell insurance for a fee, and thus offer their users the option to use their service as a "real" second layer, i.e. in a verifiably self-custodial way. More details about my insured statechain protocol are in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5iT12een1Y