INSCRIPTION what is it?

Lately we have been excited by the presence of inscriptions that are present on various blockchains, what is an inscription on the blockchain? is it really valuable? how does it work? is it just spam for the blockchain? this time I will explain it.

what is this inscription?

Inscription is actually not a new technology. But it is a new idea. Inscription is considered as NFT without NFT, token without Smart contract. Inscription will be a pretty strong narrative in 2024. So, what is this inscription? Inscription is actually an idea to create a kind of NFT or even a fungible token on the Bitcoin chain. With the existence of this inscription coin or inscription token, it will be a new chapter for coins that do not support Smart contracts, like Bitcoin, Bitcoin cash, Litecoin, and many more. But why do many equate inscription with NFT and are considered NFT 2.0. Even though it's different. Now the difference is, NFT files are off chain, while inscription data is on chain.

NFT gas is expensive while inscription gas fee is cheaper because it is considered a regular coin or token. NFTs are considered more centralized than inscriptions which are considered more decentralized Now, it's not just inscription on the Bitcoin Network. But there is Ethcription on the Ethereum, Tronscription on the Tron, SPL-20 on Solana, Atomical or ARC-20 on Atom, NEAT inscription on Near Protocol, and there are many more chains that issue inscriptions.

Uniquely, this inscription is a token without a Smart contract and also an NFT without a Smart contract. although it is strange if this inscription is adopted by a chain that supports Smart contracts, It's strange because this is actually a solution from chains that don't support Smart contracts and users or developers are making sense of the system so they can have tokens or NFTs.

ETHSCRIPTION

Many chains are starting to follow suit even though they are not the solution for that chain. for example, we will discuss inscription on ethereum. Namely ETHSCRIPTION. ETHSCRIPTION is an inscription token on the ethereum network. It's an NFT without the NFT. In ETHSCRIPTION, we can share data in the form of images without the need to issue ERC-721 tokens, to create ETHSCRIPTION, users can convert data no more than 96 KB into a special code called base64 encoded data url and enter the hax data in the hax data field. different from NFT, ETHSCRIPTION data is stored onchain And to move it to another Wallet will be cheaper than NFT.

ETHSCRIPTION also doesn't have Smart contracts, which means its use cases are less than NFT. you can follow the development of ETHSCRIPTION through ethscriptions.com. but there is a barrier for ETHSCRIPTION there is a proposal, namely EIP-4444. This proposal aims to cut transaction call data and potentially reduce the size of storage that can be used by ethscriptions, It's actually kind of funny and just following the popular narrative.

SPL-20

Now I will talk about inscription in solana, namely SPL-20. Although minting NFTs in solana is already very cheap when compared to ethereum. This solution also sparked the same debate because inscription was considered to burden the chain and the truth is that there is no need to follow Bitcoin's BRC 20 because there is already an NFT solution, even with cheap minting fees. even the SPL-20 market cap has exceeded 1 million US dollars And I'm sure this figure will continue to increase, Solana daily active users and daily revenue increased by 77%. Although this is not a solution for chains like solana, inscription is proof that it can bring users and can bring revenue.

In conclusion, the inscription is very useful for chains that do not support smart contracts, but if the inscription is in a chain that supports smart contracts, it is a little strange and needs to be questioned what its usefulness.

Best Regards. Pangrango