9 Best Blockchain Inscriptions of 2024

In the dying days of 2022, the Bitcoin community witnessed a mini-revolution with the introduction of the Ordinals protocol. Created by blockchain developer Casey Rodarmor in December 2022, it enables the unique identification of individual satoshis — the smallest units of a Bitcoin — and lets you attach pieces of data to them. These pieces of data — text, programming code, images or video — are called inscriptions. They’re enabled by the Bitcoin Ordinals protocol, and are an innovative way of creating unique digital artifacts, essentially NFTs, on the Bitcoin blockchain.

The concept of Bitcoin-based NFTs is so intriguing that it didn’t take long for inscription functionality to be introduced on other popular blockchains, such as Ethereum (ETH), Solana (SOL) and Dogecoin (DOGE), as well as a number of smaller chains. On the Bitcoin chain itself, a new token standard inspired by the Ordinals protocol, BRC-20, was also launched in early 2023. By now, inscriptions are among the hottest topics being discussed by NFT enthusiasts, blockchain developers and crypto investors.

Key Takeaways:

• Blockchain inscription technology allows you to attach pieces of data — text, programming code, image or video — to individual tokens created and stored on-chain.

• Inscriptions were introduced by the Bitcoin Ordinals protocol in January 2023 to create non-fungible, distinct assets on its blockchain. Soon after the Ordinals launch, the BRC-20 token standard was developed to facilitate the deployment of inscribable fungible tokens on Bitcoin.

• Throughout 2023, inscriptions for both non-fungible and fungible use cases were introduced on several other blockchains besides Bitcoin.

What Are Inscriptions?

Inscriptions originally appeared on the Bitcoin blockchain thanks to the Ordinals protocol, which was made possible by the Bitcoin Taproot upgrade in November 2021. On Bitcoin, Ordinals represent pieces of data, such as an image, text or video, attached to individual satoshis. Since the Ordinals protocol lets you uniquely identify every satoshi, attaching inscriptions to each one makes it a distinct, NFT-like token. Introduced in December 2022, the Ordinals protocol quickly became a popular tool for creating Bitcoin NFTs.

Throughout 2023, Bitcoin inscriptions spurred the creation of similar protocols by numerous other blockchain platforms. The precise method of implementing inscriptions may vary depending upon the underlying chain. Still, the concept remains the same — inscriptions simply allow you to attach various data and media within blockchain transactions. They’re largely used as an alternative to NFTs or to create meme coins, although future use cases might appear as the technology matures and gains wider appreciation.

For some chains, such as Bitcoin or Dogecoin, inscriptions are the only viable way of creating a non-fungible or distinctly identifiable asset. Meanwhile, chains with built-in NFT functionality might offer certain benefits over standard NFTs. For instance, the implementation of inscriptions on Ethereum — Ethscriptions — is widely touted as a cheaper alternative to Ethereum-based NFTs.

Top Inscriptions

1. Ordinal Inscriptions (BRC-20)

BRC-20 is an experimental token standard on Bitcoin that allows you to create fungible cryptocurrencies with inscriptions attached to their tokens. It was inspired by the Ordinals protocol, and introduced by the pseudonymous developer Domo in March 2023. While Ordinals make it possible to produce unique NFT-like assets on Bitcoin, the BRC-20 standard introduced the concept of leveraging inscriptions by using fungible cryptocurrencies.

BRC-20 tokens attach data in a JSON format to ordinal inscriptions in order to facilitate the minting and transfer of these assets on the Bitcoin chain. Inscriptions attached to BRC-20 tokens have a block size limit of 4MB.

There are hundreds of BRC-20 cryptocurrencies on the Bitcoin network by now, nearly all of them meme coins. Despite their limited use cases beyond a good dose of laughs, the top BRC-20 tokens are among the most hotly discussed crypto assets these days, and some have achieved remarkable ROI figures.

2. Ethscriptions

Ethscriptions is Ethereum’s own way of creating on-chain assets with inscribed media attached. On Ethereum, ethscriptions are created during a transaction by using a piece of transaction data known as calldata. Using this calldata and a unique Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) featured in each Ethereum transaction, anyone can create an inscription on Ethereum’s blockchain.

Launched in June 2023, the Ethscriptions protocol facilitates the minting of Ethereum-based inscribable tokens. Compared to Bitcoin's Ordinal inscriptions and BRC-20 tokens, Ethscriptions have a much lower size limit — up to 96 KB per inscription/token. Currently, Ethscriptions only support image data, but other data formats will likely be introduced in the future.

Despite their size limitation, Ethscriptions have emerged as a cost-efficient alternative to standard Ethereum NFTs, owing to their data storage at the transaction level.

3. POLS

POLS is the name given to the implementation of inscription technology on the Polygon (POL) blockchain. The Polygon ecosystem operates an on-chain POLS Market that facilitates trading of these assets. Polygon has also implemented the equivalent of Bitcoin’s BRC-20 standard for fungible inscription-based tokens, known as PRC-20. POLS can be split into multiple transferable inscriptions and converted into PRC-20 tokens, which allows them to be listed on exchanges. In late 2023, Polygon became the most actively used EVM-compatible chain for inscription transactions.

4. Solinscription (SRC-20)

In November 2023, the Solana blockchain joined the inscription race with Solinscriptions, which implements the SRC-20 protocol on the Solana blockchain by leveraging its memo feature, an optional input field that lets users attach data to a transaction. As opposed to the Ethscriptions protocol’s inscription process, this memo function is more lightweight and doesn’t entail transferring funds or adding data to the input field. Thanks to Solana's negligible transaction fees and the lightweight nature of memos, Solinscriptions presents a quicker and more cost-effective way to create inscribable non-fungible tokens.

5. ASC-20

ASC-20 is the token standard used for creating inscription tokens on the Avalanche (AVAX) chain. It follows the logic of the BRC-20 standard on Bitcoin, enabling the minting and deploying of fungible cryptocurrencies. Known as Avascriptions, this protocol is used to deploy, mint and transfer ASC-20 tokens.

The Avalanche blockchain boasts over 40 of these cryptos as of February 2024. Its largest token, AVAV, has a market cap of over $12 million.

6. Doginal (DRC-20)

As the majority of cryptos inspired by Ordinals are meme coins, it was only a matter of time before the world's ultimate meme coin chain, Dogecoin, introduced its own inscription-based tokens. In May 2023, Dogecoin implemented the DRC-20 token standard, which enables Dogecoin nodes to inscribe each shibe (or “dogetoshi”) with rich data to create a Doginal.

The Doginal Indexer is a tool that gives each shibe a unique ID by assigning numbers to these tiniest units of DOGE, based on the order in which they were mined and transferred.

In the true spirit of the Dogecoin community, the chain has become the absolute leader among all platforms by the number of inscribable cryptocurrencies hosted on it. As of February 2024, Dogecoin features a whopping 1,700+ DRC-20 tokens. For comparison, there are currently fewer than 700 BRC-20 tokens on Bitcoin, and a little more than 40 ASC-20 tokens on Avalanche, per data from Coinranking. If there’s one chain where inscriptions have been met with lots of love, it’s Dogecoin.

7. Arbscription (ARB-20)

A leading Ethereum Layer 2 solution, Arbitrum (ARB) has also introduced its own variation of Ordinals to facilitate the launch of inscribable fungible cryptocurrencies. The Arbscriptions protocol comes in the ARC-20 token standard, and the process of creating Arbscriptions is similar to that of minting Ethscriptions, using a calldata component. However, unlike Ethscriptions, which currently support only images, Arbscriptions can handle a variety of data that includes text, image, video and HTML. Other enhancements include insignificant gas fees and support for recursive inscriptions (see below).

8. STX-20

The Stacks chain, a Layer 2 solution for Bitcoin, has launched STX-20, its own token standard for inscribable, fungible cryptocurrencies. Unlike BRC-20, which facilitates the creation of fungible tokens on the Bitcoin chain, STX-20 primarily aims to enhance the smart contract functionalities of Stacks. Launched in December 2023, the standard has already been used to mint hundreds of meme coins on the Stacks blockchain. 

9. Recursive Inscriptions

Recursive inscriptions are a modification to the Ordinals protocol that allows token issuers to "roll over" data from previous inscriptions into newly minted tokens. By introducing this functionality, recursive inscriptions surmount the hard limit of 4 MB that applies to standard Bitcoin inscriptions. Transaction fees could also be reduced as a result of decreased data size.

Removing the size limitation and potentially decreasing transaction fees opens up vast opportunities. Thanks to recursive inscriptions, large amounts of data can be inscribed onto tokens, enabling use cases such as video games and movies on the Bitcoin blockchain. The technology is still new, but many developers and industry observers already foresee the introduction of visually rich 3D games on Bitcoin — a development that could signify an entirely new era for its blockchain and the crypto world in general.

The Future of Inscriptions

Inscribable fungible and non-fungible tokens are still new and highly experimental concepts in blockchain R&D. Throughout 2023, we witnessed the spread of the technology from Bitcoin to numerous other chains. For now, inscription-based non-fungible tokens are viewed as a viable and often cost-effective alternative to NFTs. As for inscription-based fungible tokens, nearly all are meme coins, and have next to no (other) functionality.

However, innovative use cases for these assets will undoubtedly emerge as we move through 2024 and beyond. Although these tokens are viewed with skepticism by some in the crypto world, the concept of inscriptions could potentially become revolutionary in the world of blockchain. For example, recursive inscriptions have already inspired many developers to work on projects that will bring video gaming and rich media to the Bitcoin platform. Many new use cases, particularly on smart contract chains, will also surface, and we probably won't have to wait too long for them.

For many years, storing large-scale, rich media directly on blockchains — whether smart ones or dumbest to the core — was infeasible, at least without decentralized data storage solutions like IPFS or Arweave (AR). Inscription technology is beginning to dismantle this limitation, which will have tremendous implications for how blockchains are used. Inscriptions have arrived, and are ready to kick off a new revolution in the crypto world!

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