Bitcoin Ordinal Inscriptions have made a significant impact in the Web3 space since the introduction of the Ordinals protocol in January 2023. Millions upon millions of inscriptions have been minted, inspiring established projects to expand from Ethereum and Solana to Bitcoin.
Ordinals also seem to have inspired Ethscriptions – a recently launched (and quickly adopted) protocol that allows for the creation and sharing of digital entities on the Ethereum blockchain (as long as they’re under 96 kilobytes).
Created by Tom Lehmanco-founder of Genius.com, the innovation has generated a lot of interest since its launch on June 17, with more than Generated 130,000 Ethscriptions to date. To add to the excitement, Lehman also introduced Ethereum Punks, a collection consisting of 10,000 Punks that were all claimed within hours.
So what exactly are ethic papers? We dive into the new protocol, how it works and why Lehman thinks it’s necessary.
How do ethics theses work?
Ethscriptions work by using Ethereum “calldata” – the data passed in a token that allows us to send messages to other entities or communicate with smart contracts – to write non-financial data directly into the Ethereum backbone. According to Lehman, this creates a more affordable and decentralized alternative to contract storage.
It is cheaper and more decentralized than using contract storage.
Protocol also guarantees worldwide uniqueness of the content of all valid Ethscriptions!
Plus, it’s skating to where the puck is going in an L2 world.
— Middle March (@dumbnamenumbers) June 17, 2023
Ethscriptions work on the Ethereum platform in the following way:
- An Ethscription is created when an Ethereum transaction is successful and the input data (interpreted as UTF-8) forms a valid data URI. This URI must be unique, meaning duplicate content will be ignored. Ethscriptions support all valid mime types.
- The uniqueness of the URI is guaranteed by ensuring that no previous block or transaction within the same block has identical content to the Ethscription.
- The input data from any Ethereum transaction can also serve as a valid Ethscription transfer, as long as the data is the transaction hash of a valid Ethscription and the sender of the transaction is the legal owner of the Ethscription.
- When an Ethscription is created, the recipient becomes the primary owner, while the sender is designated as the creator of the Ethscription.
Currently, Ethscriptions can only be imagesbut Lehman says that will change in the future.
The future of Ethscriptions
Lehman believes that ethic theses are essential to the Web3 space. He laid out his reasoning in a tweet dated June 20, essentially explaining that they offer an affordable solution to those looking for decentralized solutions and unlocking the full potential of Ethereum.
The short version pic.twitter.com/5BPlVXDGRA
— Middle March (@dumbnamenumbers) June 20, 2023
Since Lehman has developed the protocol in a June 16 Twitter spacemost of the Web3 community has responded enthusiastically and interestof many questions whether Ethscriptions will see the same success as Ordinals. However, some have criticism of the new protocolwhile others point out that it really is nothing new.
Regardless of the initial reception of the launch, which Lehman sees as agreat success”, he intends to continue to innovate in the field of Ethscriptions. “I also have a lot of plans to expand the protocol and I can’t wait to share them, but the basics have to come first,” Lehman shared on Twitter.
Ethscripts represent a promising frontier in the crypto landscape. As a unique protocol that navigates the balance between decentralization and functionality, Ethscriptions opens a new path for accessible, affordable, and secure data transactions on Ethereum. Despite being in its early stages, Ethscriptions’ relevance and potential are just beginning.