Ethereum Inscription: Continuation of Bitcoin Ordinal or Regression of History?

Introduction to Aether Inscription

Ethions is a new way to create and share digital artwork on Ethereum using transaction calldata. This method is cheaper and more decentralized than NFTs. In contrast, NFTs often rely on data stored in specific contracts, which may be controlled by a single person.

While Ethereum Inscription takes significant inspiration from Bitcoin Inions, it is also inspired by the famous proto-Ethion in this transaction. Unlike Ordinals at the beginning, there is no need to run the full node to synchronize data, and you can get started more quickly. Moreover, for Bitcoin wallets, the public is more familiar with Ethereum wallets.

How Inscription Works

Any successful Ethereum transaction whose input data (when interpreted as UTF-8) is a valid data URI will create an Ethion, provided the data URI is unique. All valid mimetypes are supported. The only meaning for a URI is that no transaction from a previous block or earlier in a block can have the same content. Any Ethereum transaction whose input data is the transaction hash of a valid Ethion is a valid Ethion transfer, provided the sender of the transaction is the owner of the Ethion.

Create inscription method

1. Upload pictures directly through the official website creation page, one-click casting, and the maximum size of the picture is 96kb

2. If you want to operate step by step, you can follow the steps below

Use a service like base64-image.de data:image/png;base64,... to convert an image (max size: ~90KB) to a Base 64 encoded data URI ( ). The Ethions protocol supports all data URIs, but images work best.

Use an online tool like hexhero to convert the data URI to hex.

Send a 0 eth transaction to the person you want to own Ethion using the previously converted hex data in the "Hex Data" field

After the transfer is successful, it should appear on the My Ethions page of the official website, provided that no one has Ethscribed the same data, and the duplicates will not be displayed!

transfer inscription method

Find the id of the Ethion you want to transfer. The id of Ethion is the transaction hash of the transaction that created Ethion. You can get this id from Etherscan or the official website.

Send a transaction of 0 ETH to the recipient and write the Ethion ID in the "hex" field.

How to Track Inscriptions

At present, you can view the recently minted inscriptions through the official website or through the indexer. Currently, the official indexer is not open source. Users can obtain historical data from BigQuery and use Alchemy API to obtain real-time data.

At present, some users have built etheric inscription panels from Dune, and the search box can query related inscriptions.

Create a team

The original Ethion was created in 2016, but the official protocol, this website, and the indexer supporting it were developed by Middlemarch aka Tom Lehman @dumbnamenumbers on Twitter.

Tom Lehman: Co-founder and CEO of Genius, an online media platform that brings music intelligence to the public. The company has received $15 million in financing from A16Z in its A and B rounds.

the latest update

According to the founder Middlemarch’s latest tweet on June 20, he released 3 major Ethereum inscription updates:

Inscription (Ethion) number

Ethions now display a number representing the order in which they were created. What is #0 - Genesis Ethion is the creator of the protocol, an image uploaded by Middlemarch

Rewrite indexer

To achieve stable and consistent numbering, the ethions indexer had to be rewritten. The new indexer takes great care to index blocks quickly and never index blocks out of order. The old indexer was not built for this, and as a result of this change, 91 previously valid ethions (85,876 in total) will be correctly identified as invalid due to duplicates.

double check

A core part of the Ethion protocol is that no duplicates are allowed. Because when you do something successfully, you know you're the first to do it! Unfortunately, due to a lack of tools, it can be difficult to determine whether the feature you want to mint is minted or not. Now, when you're on the create page, we'll automatically check if your content has been ethscribed before and warn you, so you don't waste gas creating invalid ethions!

Aether Inscription Gameplay

After Ethereum Inscription went online, the first collection of Ethereum Inscription project, Ethereum punk, was sold out quickly. Currently, the floor price on Opensea is 0.065eth, and the transaction is still active.

After EthereumPunk, on encrypted Twitter, community members quickly appeared a token play method similar to Brc20. The first representative is $eths.

data:,{"p":"erc-20","op":"mint","tick":"eths","id":"1234","amt":"1000"}

This string of codes is converted into a hexadecimal string through the code conversion website, and then 0 eth transfer is made to your own address through the wallet for casting. Because the inscription cannot be repeated, the ID needs to be modified by yourself, and the limit is below 21000. As shown below

At present, the token standard on the Ethereum inscription has not yet been constructed. Everything on the Ethereum inscription, any minted in the form of data is valid, but it is interpreted as plain text. As for the transfer and construction of tokens, it depends on The subsequent development of the agreement.

At present, the transaction method of $eths is also carried out through OTC, and the cost is about 0.8U per piece. At present, the OTC price once reached tens of dollars to 100 dollars. In the case of insufficient liquidity, there is no reference standard , It is difficult to distinguish between true and false, and more attention should be paid to risks in field diplomacy.

In addition to $eths, $gwei $fomo and other pure digital games have appeared one after another. I also inscribed two pieces of information related to Satoshi Nakamoto on the Ethereum inscription, which I think is quite interesting.

1.The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks.

This is a sentence that Satoshi Nakamoto annotated in the BTC genesis block, and this sentence was the headline of the article on the front page of The Times that day.

2.If you don't believe me or don't get it, I don't have time to try to convince you, sorry.

In July 2010, BM pointed out that compared with banks, Bitcoin's 10-minute transaction confirmation time is too long, and it needs to be as fast as swiping a credit card, and changing the consensus mechanism can achieve this.

而中本聪回应：If you don't believe me or don't get it, I don't have time to try to convince you, sorry.

Summarize

Recently, from recursive inscriptions to Ethereum inscriptions, hotspots have changed and appeared extremely fast. This is also the so-called speed of the currency circle. One day in the currency circle is ten years in the world. After the emergence of hotspots, there are many people discussing them, just like after the appearance of Bitcoin inscriptions, The biggest faction of Bitcoin and the faction of open innovation have emerged. The same is true after the appearance of the Ethereum inscription. Many people think whether this is innovation or a retrogression. After all, the smart contracts on Ethereum are so mature. In fact, for a hot concept or innovation, many people will think that it is nothing more than that, and even think that there is no need to do so much. What is the use and significance of this thing?

When a new thing or concept comes out, even if it is hype, its existence is reasonable. Bitcoin is not the first cryptocurrency. It is also a product that has been developed after summarizing experience from the failure of multiple cryptocurrency pioneer experiments.

It provides a new way or a new form of existence, enriches the ecology of the entire blockchain, gives you one more choice, or provides you with a different perspective to think about the problem or gives you a lesson , there is more emotional value and an opportunity for low-cost participation.