Ethereum inscription: A new era of blockchain art

Ether inscription ( Ethscriptions ) is an innovative way to create and share digital artworks on the Ethereum network. It achieves this by using transaction calldata, making it more cost-effective and decentralized than traditional NFTs. Unlike NFTs that rely on specific contracts to store data, Ether inscriptions write data directly onto the Blockchain, avoiding the risks of single point control.

This concept is inspired by the Bitcoin ordinal (Bitcoin Inscriptions) and is also influenced by a famous early transaction on Ethereum. Compared to Bitcoin ordinals, Ethereum inscriptions do not require running a full node to participate, making the entry barrier lower. Additionally, the popularity of Ethereum wallets provides a strong user base.

How It Works

The creation and transfer of Ethereum inscriptions follow the rules below:

1. Any successful Ethereum transaction that has its input data ( parsed as UTF-8) is a valid and unique data URI, which will create an inscription. All valid MIME types are supported.

2. The uniqueness of the data URI means that there are no identical contents in previous blocks or earlier transactions within the same block.

3. Ethereum transactions containing valid inscription transaction hashes as input data can be considered valid inscription transfers, provided that the transaction sender is the owner of the inscription.

Creation Method

Users can create Ethereum inscriptions in the following two ways:

1. Official website one-click minting: directly upload image ( maximum 96KB ) and complete minting with one click.

2. Manual Operation:

   • Convert the image to a Base64 encoded data URI
   • Convert data URI to hexadecimal
   • Send a transaction of 0 Ether, fill in the converted data in the "Hexadecimal Data" field

Transfer Method

Transferring an inscription requires the following steps:

1. Find the ID( of the target inscription, which is the transaction hash for creating that inscription ).
2. Send a 0 ETH transaction to the recipient, filling in the inscription ID in the "hexadecimal" field.

Track Inscription

Currently, inscriptions can be tracked through the following methods:

• Visit the official website to view the latest minted inscription.
• Use the indexer to query ( The official indexer has not been open-sourced )
• Retrieve historical data from BigQuery and use the Alchemy API to get real-time data.
• Query through the Ethereum inscription dashboard built with Dune

Latest Update

The founder of the protocol, Middlemarch, announced three important updates on June 20:

1. Inscription Number: Introduce a numbering system to reflect the creation order of the inscriptions.

2. Indexer Rewrite: Achieve stable and consistent numbering, improve indexing efficiency.

3. Double-check: The page creation now automatically checks if the content has been inscribed, avoiding invalid minting.

Community Development

After the launch of Ethereum inscription, the community quickly emerged with various innovative gameplay.

1. EthereumPunk: The first Ethereum inscription project collection, actively traded on OpenSea.

2. Token inscriptions: Similar to the BRC-20 token engraving method, such as $eths, $gwei, $fomo, etc.

3. Historical inscription: such as Satoshi Nakamoto's message in the Bitcoin genesis block.

Despite the emergence of Ethereum inscriptions causing some controversy, it has brought new possibilities for blockchain art and digital assets. Whether it's innovation or exploration, Ethereum inscriptions provide new perspectives and opportunities for the blockchain ecosystem. With the continued development of the community, we look forward to seeing more interesting and creative application scenarios.