As the inscription craze continues to spread from Bitcoin to other chains, many inscription projects have recently emerged in a series of public chains such as ETH, Solana, AVAX, TON, and even APT, SUI. This article will introduce the inscriptions of major public chains and discuss the subsequent development of inscriptions. Bitcoin inscription
introduction
On January 11, BTC ETF finally passed the SEC's approval. Currently, 11 BTC ETFs are officially listed for online trading in the US stock market, which can be described as a milestone moment in the history of encryption. With the arrival of the Bitcoin halving cycle, the Bitcoin ecosystem is expected to gain greater vitality.
In 2023, a new concept emerged in the field of digital assets - inscription. The rise of inscription mainly benefited from a series of protocols in the Bitcoin ecosystem. Among them, ORDI, represented by the Ordinal protocol, once became the leader in the field of inscription.
However, the reason why Inscription is able to stand out is more due to the concept of Fair Launch. Taking ORDI as an example, its issuance model abandons pre-mining and private placement and distributes tokens equally to community members, stimulating extensive community participation. This model of fair distribution has largely contributed to the popularity of inscriptions.
Inscription market background
market background
Since January 2023, Bitcoin’s Ordinals protocol has spawned a frenzy on the Bitcoin chain with far-reaching consequences. Many BRC20 and Ordinals assets emerged, bringing a carnival of "retail investors". The Inscription project of the BRC20 protocol adopts the Fair Launch model, so that all chips are cast by retail investors themselves, eliminating institutions and project parties, and bringing true fairness. Among them, the casting cost of Ordi is about 1 knives per piece. After being listed on the Gate exchange, it rose to 30,000 knives per piece. As the value of ORDI continues to be discovered at the end of 2023, its price has also risen to nearly 90,000 knives per piece. Some early inscriptions Users also take this opportunity to achieve financial freedom.
This exaggerated increase not only promoted the popularity of the BRC20 protocol, but also attracted many Ordinals players to join the BRC20 camp.
Data overview
However, this has also led to the continuous rise of Gas on the Bitcoin chain. According to the 3-year block rate data of Mempool.space, in May 2023 and November 2023, the block rate has soared, with the lowest confirmed Gas in At the peak, it even soared to 600 s/vb, setting the highest level in the past three years.
Source: https://mempool.space/graphs/mining 2024.1.14
According to the Mempool.space three-year total block fee data, in May and November 2023, the total block fee in a single day was close to 3.5 BTC, which was the highest record in three years.
Source: https://mempool.space/graphs/mining 2024.1.14
Judging from the casting data of Inscriptions, the number of castings tends to be stable and remains at a high number.
Source: https://dune.com/cryptokoryo/brc20 2024.1.14
Track analysis
This article will take stock of popular public chain leading inscriptions and take a look at the market performance of these inscriptions.
Bitcoin chain
Ordinals
In January 2023, Bitcoin developer Casey Rodarmor released the Ordinals protocol, which is an asset issuance protocol based on Bitcoin, mainly composed of two core components: Ordinals ordinal theory and Inscription inscription.
Specifically, the Ordinals protocol takes advantage of the unique characteristics of Satoshi to extend a single serial number to include data such as text, images, videos, and contracts. This makes each Satoshi a carrier of unique information and stores the data on the Bitcoin link, ensuring its non-tamperability.
BRC20 protocol
On March 8, 2023, anonymous developer Domo launched BRC-20 based on the Ordinals protocol, which is a Bitcoin ecological token issuance protocol similar to ERC-20. The special point of Brc20 is that it is a set of JSON text-like inscriptions with fixed rules and formats. $ORDI is the first BRC-20 token deployed by Domo. Taking $ORDI as an example, it stipulates the protocol rules, name, number of each piece, and maximum amount. However, BRC-20 needs to rely on a third-party index to record the ledger off the BTC chain, which adds extra workload to the system and becomes a weak point of the system.
https://ordinalscan.net/inscription
Atomic
Atomics is a protocol built on the Bitcoin network. Its purpose is to realize the creation, transfer and upgrade of various digital items on the Bitcoin network, including native digital NFTs, game NFTs, digital identities, domain names, social networks, etc. At the same time, the protocol also supports the creation of exchangeable Tokens, making it possible to issue and trade Tokens on the Bitcoin network.
The protocol uses Satoshi, the smallest unit of Bitcoin, as the basic unit of Token. Each Satoshi UTXO represents an independent Token, that is, 1 Token is equal to 1 Satoshi. By binding UTXO to Token, the Atomics protocol successfully circumvents the complexity of Ordinals off-chain indexing and improves the decentralization of the entire system.
However, Atomics still faces some problems at present. One of the significant problems is the introduction of proof of work (POW) in the minting process of ARC20 Token. Minters need to run a full node of the Bitcoin network to participate in the minting. Although this ensures the fairness and decentralization of minting, it also limits the participation of most people due to the high technical threshold. In addition, the imperfection of the underlying technology makes it easy for users to lose ARC20 Tokens when making Bitcoin transfers.
Ethereum Inscription
Ethscriptions
Ethscriptions are an alternative to smart contracts and L2 protocols that allow users to share information and perform calculations at low cost on Ethereum L1. It enables decentralized computing by applying rules to Ethereum call data to bypass smart contract storage and execution. In August 2023, Ethscriptions introduced a virtual machine (ESC VM) to enhance its functionality and make it a general computing engine.
Source: https://dune.com/tyler3/ethscription-indexer 2024.1.14
Dune data shows that as of January 14, 2024, the number of Ethscriptions inscriptions exceeded 3.593 million, the total number of users exceeded 165,000, and the cumulative number of transactions exceeded 320,000. Judging from the increasing number of daily active users and inscriptions, Ethscriptions has grown at a relatively stable rate since October 2023.
iERC20
iERC20 is a new Ethereum-based token protocol that provides a low-cost token ecosystem that allows anyone to deploy, mint, and trade tokens on it.
The uniqueness of the iERC20 protocol is that it not only develops the Swap function, but also integrates the EVM cross-chain function, building a bridge between Ethereum Inscription and traditional Layer 2. This feature allows the protocol to introduce more mainstream coins and stable coins, thereby expanding the TVL of the Inscription ecosystem and providing more development possibilities for the entire system. In addition, the iERC20 protocol also introduces PoW and DPOS mining to make IERC20 more decentralized and democratized. This strategy is expected to bring new impetus to the development of the Ethereum ecosystem.
Source: https://x.com/EthinscXYZ/status/1745254515169997173?s=20
Solana chain
SOLS, the first inscription-based token of the Solana chain, was created based on SPL-20 similar to the Ordinals protocol BRC20, with a total supply of 21,000. SPL20 is also a set of JSON text inscriptions with fixed rules and formats. It differs from BRC20 in that it changes the protocol name of the "P" field to "P": "spl-20".
Source: https://www.libreplex.io/fairlaunch/deployments
Although the casting process of Sols is relatively complicated, it is still very popular. In addition to the innovative form of inscriptions engraved on NFT, the effectiveness of the inscriptions is also increased through multiple stages of casting, double locking, migration and verification. Data from NFT platform Magic Eden shows that as of January 14, 2024, Sols ranked third on the trading list, with a floor price of 42.43 SOL (cost 0.1 SOL) and a total trading volume of 590,800 SOL.
Source: https://magiceden.io/marketplace/sols_spl20?activeTab=items
AVAX chain
AVAL is an inscription based on ASC20, with a total volume of 21 million, and has received the attention and support of Ava Labs CEO Emin Gun Sirer. ASC20 is also a set of JSON text inscriptions with fixed rules and formats. It differs from BRC20 in that it changes the protocol name of the "P" field to "P": "asc-20".
Source: https://docs.avaxmarket.xyz/
According to DeFiLlama data, on December 20 alone, the Avalanche network generated $9.72 million in revenue, mostly from the gas fees consumed by the community in inscription casting.
Source: https://defillama.com/chain/Avalanche 2024.1.14
SUI chain
ISSP is the first infrastructure project on SUI Network that integrates Inscription Launchpad, Marketplace and Swap. Relying on the natural advantages of Sui Network's unique Inscription system object model, it has initially launched the Sui-20 standard protocol Inscription on Sui Network and improved it through The infrastructure allows more developers and communities to participate in the ecological construction of Sui Network Inscription and jointly promote the ecological development of Sui Network. ISSP uses the indexer that comes with the Sui chain node to index inscription data to obtain the highest performance and most stable inscription experience. At the same time, ISSP supports Inscription seamless docking with CEX, without the need for CEX to develop additional docking protocols with Inscription.
Source: https://issp.io/
Polygon
The first Polygon inscription pols are minted based on PRC-20. The token protocol is based on the Ordinals protocol. The total amount is 2100. It is also the first inscription on the EVM chain. The over-the-counter price of Pols once soared, and it was even sold on the second-hand trading platform Xianyu.
According to the DUNE platform, the popularity of PRC-20 once caused the Polygon network GAS to soar. On November 16, 2023, the single-day GAS consumption reached the highest level, which was 88,000.
Source: https://dune.com/satsx/pols-exclude-internal-tx
Other POW chains
Dogechain
The Drc-20 protocol is a protocol based on Ordinals on the Dogecoin chain. Its function is similar to the Bitcoin chain, but it is popular due to its low transfer fees and strong meme attributes.
$UNIX is the first UTXO-based Dogecoin exchange to support transactions between inscriptions. There are currently 36,200 holders, and the total trading volume is 109,576.
Source: https://unielon.com/drc20/UNIX
summary
To sum up, in this inscription craze, although the data usually promoted by major public chains look very eye-catching, under the impact of inscriptions, those public chains that have always advertised high speed, low cost, and high performance have suffered setbacks one after another. The performance was less than satisfactory and showed true levels under extreme stress testing.
It is worth noting that Bitcoin and Ethereum have performed very steadily. Although their mainnet have faced congestion and transaction fees have skyrocketed, they have remained healthy while executing transactions.
Summarize
Although investors are pouring into the inscription ecology driven by the wealth effect, the fair distribution and first-come-first-served characteristics of inscription also make it face a series of challenges, including high network fees and script issues. In addition, most inscriptions currently on the market still rely on factors such as institutional support, community participation, and Meme culture to stimulate market sentiment, while also facing long-term difficulties such as weak application narratives, insufficient infrastructure, and lack of liquidity. Although the controversy over the value of inscriptions has not yet subsided, innovators are always moving forward, and the field of inscriptions will also usher in broader possibilities.
Author: Snow
Translator: Sonia
Article reviewer: Piccolo, Wayne, Elisa, Ashley, Joyce
Copyright: Gate.io
