Not sure if this has any relevance but I keep seeing December 12th, 2020 referenced in random places. It keeps making an exclamation point appear over my head because it is Ripple/XRP's Flare token snapshot date.

Long story short, Ethereum uses smart contracts to set up "code is law" financial contracts. Ie. in a lending situation, the contract's terms (length, interest, etc) are established in advance on the blockchain that all parties submit to. It could prevent tomfoolery on loans among many other uses. 2008 housing market collapse was routed in this kind of term changing and tomfoolery.

"Flare" is kind of a Ripple launch of Ethereum style smart contracts on XRP.

Dec 12th is relevant because Ripple will take a snapshot of your XRP amounts and send you a corresponding amount of Flare tokens. The process requires certain wallets and a process (look it up), but an airdrop is an airdrop. Free stuff is cool, I'm gonna try it.

Do your own research, though.