Inscriptions on EVM Chains

Origins of Inscriptions

The concept of inscriptions originated from Bitcoin Ordinals. Since the Bitcoin blockchain lacks smart contract functionality, it is not possible to create and support NFTs and other tokens.

For nearly a decade, Bitcoin developers have worked to integrate NFTs into the blockchain. The first ever Ordinals, Inscription 0, inscribed on Bitcoin, occurred at sat 1252201400444387 on 2022-12-14, 20:32:00 UTC.

Every satoshi, the smallest denomination of a Bitcoin (BTC), is assigned a serial number based on the order in which it was mined. These numbers, known as ordinals, assist the blockchain in tracking the location and ownership of each satoshi. Ordinals can also include additional data (text, images, videos, etc.) through a process called inscribing.

The Significance of Inscriptions

The concept of inscription has empowered Bitcoin developers and users to write data to a satoshi, enabling the creation of unique and scarce digital assets, such as NFTs, even without smart contract functionality.

According to Galaxy Research, the first 200 days of image-based Ordinals Inscriptions have shown more activity compared to NFT mints on Ethereum, Solana, and Polygon during their respective early days.

As of September 2023, there are over 33 million total inscriptions, with text files being the most common file type, accounting for approximately 95% of all inscriptions. This prevalence is largely attributed to the BRC-20 token standard. Transaction fees on Bitcoin have been on the rise since May 2023, coinciding with the increased interest in Ordinals.

You can view the latest Bitcoin Inscriptions on ordinals.com.

With the success of inscriptions on Bitcoin, people soon realized they could replicate the process on Ethereum and its equivalent EVM-chains. Instead of inscribing additional data on individual Wei, the smallest denomination of Ether, inscriptions on EVM-chains are performed within transaction input data.

Spotting BRC-20 Type Inscription Transactions on Ethereum

BRC-20 type Inscription transactions on Ethereum are typically represented in JSON format. Consequently, the token rules are not enforced by smart contracts but rely on offchain indexers to interpret the actions of an Inscription token transaction.

The screenshot below illustrates an example of minting BRC-20 type tokens on Ethereum:

Click image to view Inscription transaction on Etherscan

It can be broken down as below:

Source: https://domo-2.gitbook.io/brc-20-experiment/#mint-brc-20

As Inscription on Ethereum writes arbitrary text data in the input data field, it remains read-only and cheaper to use, particularly when compared to storing data in smart contract state, which incurs higher gas fees. View screenshot examples below:

Gas used when minting an ERC-20 token via smart contract
Gas used when minting an ERC-20 token via Inscription method

The Inscriptions Phenomenon Across EVM-chains

Inscriptions have been sporadically created across various EVM-chains starting from mid-November 2023.

Major EVM-chains have witnessed a notable surge in daily transaction counts, resulting in skyrocketing gas fees, even on Layer 2 (L2) chains where fees are expected to be low. This led to transactions taking an extended amount of time to process on the affected chains and resulted in a temporary outage for some of these chains.

Chains that encountered a spike in daily transaction counts due to the surge in Inscriptions transactions include:

Source: https://blockscan.com/chart/tx-count

In a way, the Inscriptions phenomenon can be seen as a good stress test for teams to assess the limits of the chain:

Read more on the Inscriptions phenomenon here:

Teck Yuan Lee
Teck Yuan Lee
Last updated:

Related Articles

Address Poisoning Attacks
ENS Text Records
Discontinuation of a Block Explorer
Proxy Contracts
Featured Listing
Domain Names on Etherscan

Still Have Questions?

Contact Us

Our support team's ready for your questions, anytime.

Priority Support

A Paid Service for priority handling of your needs and queries.

Developer Docs

In-depth explanations on technical issues faced by developers.