While Bitcoin Ordinals are making headlines, inscriptions on Ethereum Virtual Machine blockchains have gained traction in recent weeks, according to a Dragonfly data analyst.
Inscriptions on EVM chains have been gaining traction.
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Posted December 6, 2023 at 2:05 pm EST.
While Bitcoin inscriptions continue to gain headlines and spur debates, inscriptions on Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) chains have gained traction in the past month, particularly on the Polygon network, according to a X thread from Hildobby, a data analyst at crypto-native venture capital firm Dragonfly.
Gas fees spent on inscriptions peaked at about $800,000 two weeks ago before retreating, but inscriptions have remained stronger on Polygon, representing 72% of overall transactions on the chain in the past week. Hildobby attributes much of this activity to Polygon-focused inscription marketplace POLS Market.
“Polygon seems to be where most inscriptions are thanks to @PolsMarket who’s inscription “pols” has seen the most minters with ~100k addresses,” Hildobby wrote.
1/ Inscriptions have gained traction on EVM chains over the past month, most notably on Polygon where they account for 20% of gas spent & 72% of transactions 📝
more below pic.twitter.com/1s78sUqyik
— hildobby (@hildobby_) December 6, 2023
Inscriptions on EVM chains work by storing small amounts of metadata in the call data for a blockchain transaction. Similarly to Bitcoin Ordinals, EVM inscriptions essentially form smart contract-based non-fungible tokens (NFTs). And, like Ordinals, EVM inscriptions have raised concerns, including about whether the technology is scalable.
But Hildobby noted that he isn’t advocating for EVM chain inscriptions, writing tweeting, “FYI: Inscriptions go against every EVM design decisions, with gas costs being the only benefit, at the expense of indexing, non-compatibility, integration challenges…”
