Ethscriptions offer a new method for minting NFTs on Ethereum, inspired by Bitcoin Ordinals.
With the introduction of a new protocol, Ethereum users now have a second option for creating nonfungible tokens (NFTs) and other digital assets on the blockchain.
The June 17 launch of the “Ethscriptions” protocol is a reference to the Bitcoin $26,409 Ordinals protocol, where assets are known as “inscriptions.”
Ethscriptions was created by Tom Lehman, the co-founder of the music website Genius.com, who employs the alias Middlemarch on Twitter. Lehman stated in a series of tweets on June 17 that the project was a “huge success” and that nearly 30,000 Ethscriptions had been created within the first 18 hours of the protocol going live.
According to Lehamn, Ethscriptions assets utilize Ethereum “calldata” — the data contained within a smart contract — to enable a “cheaper” and “more decentralized” minting process than conventional smart contract-based methods.
Currently, users are restricted to image-only inscriptions, but according to Lehamn, the protocol will enable users to upload additional file types in the future. Currently, users can “ethscribe” any image as long as it is smaller than 96 kilobytes.
The community responded positively to Lehman’s debut initiative on the Ethscriptions protocol, “Ethereum Punks”, as all 10,000 assets were claimed almost immediately.
Lehman added that the launch of the initiative generated so much user activity that the API interface on the official Ethscriptions website crashed temporarily.
Due to the pre-existing infrastructure on the Ethereum network that enables the creation of NFTs and other digital assets, it is uncertain whether Ethscriptions will achieve the same level of popularity as Bitcoin Ordinals.
In less than six months, the number of Ordinals minted on Bitcoin increased from zero to ten million. Users embracing the novelty of being able to mint assets, which later included wholly new tokens via the BRC-20 token standard, on the Bitcoin network drove a significant portion of the enormous increase in activity.
Content Source: cointelegraph.com
