Inscriptions On-chain: The Renaissance of BTC

Culture forms the foundation of the consensus on the value of digital cryptocurrencies, and the dissemination of this consensus relies on the inherent culture of cryptocurrencies. The value consensus is essentially a Meme, and Bitcoin (BTC) cannot avoid this. BTC, as the earliest and largest Meme, embedded its core culture by reprinting a news article into the genesis block, ultimately achieving BTC’s self-bootstrap.

Reviving on-chain culture and decentralized traditions is a viable method for the spontaneous self-bootstrap of BTC. The emergence of Ordi and Sats inscriptions directly embeds code information into the BTC community, marking the start of BTC’s renaissance. The integration of crypto culture and technology connects crypto assets with culture by storing content on-chain, which will be a future development of Inscription 2.0.

01. Preface

At around 6:15 pm on January 3, 2009, the genesis block of Bitcoin was born on a small server in Helsinki, Finland. In this genesis block, Satoshi Nakamoto recorded a news item from The Times that day in the script area:

“On January 3, 2009, Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks.”

This marked the beginning of the era of the great voyage in the crypto world. Adventurers, visionaries, and capitalists set sail in pursuit of the treasures of the crypto world, seeking their own place.

Thirteen years have passed, and Satoshi Nakamoto has disappeared. The script area of BTC experiences another moment in the spotlight. The SegWit and Taproot upgrades bring the storage space back into view. The emergence of inscriptions mines the value of storage space on BTC: a space defended by a network with over 400 million TH/s of hash power. Using this space as a ledger, its security surpasses any other blockchain. The roadmap of inscription technology explores the technical route of BTC as a multi-asset financial certificate platform. The existence of inscription value highlights the value of BTC’s script space within this architecture.

However, this is just the starting point of BTC’s revival. Members of the crypto community began to reflect on the original perception of BTC: BTC can serve not only as the ledger for BTC but also as the ledger for other assets! This led to reflections on Satoshi Nakamoto’s actions. What is the significance of reprinting an article from a newspaper in the storage space of BTC? Replicating human-readable content from the off-chain world to the on-chain world raises questions about the purpose of on-chain social content.

The answer to this question will solve the product motivation for migrating social content to the chain.

02. Value Consensus = Meme!

Newcomers to the crypto world, especially those transitioning from the blockchain world, are often puzzled by projects like EOS, which are technologically advanced, user-friendly, but have dismal valuations. This confusion arises due to the failure to distinguish between technical consensus and value-oriented consensus.

2.1 Consensus can be divided into technical consensus and value-oriented consensus

The value of BTC was built from scratch and eventually achieved self-bootstrap. In the process of achieving self-bootstrap, the community not only needed to reach a technical consensus but also a value consensus. Achieving only technical consensus does not guarantee strong value consensus. Take EOS as an example; EOS faced valuation challenges despite having good technology. The technology and ecological advantages did not prevent the mass sale of EOS for BTC and ETH. When an asset forms a stereotypical impression in the eyes of investors, reversing the consensus requires a significant capital force. Without the backing of capital, coupled with the exit of core members, even the best products cannot support the valuation of EOS.

EOS Ecosystem Overview in 2018: A Flourishing Period

On the other hand, Doge, the originator of Meme coins, had no developers left even before Elon Musk endorsed it. Musk’s endorsement made most investors believe that with Musk’s social influence, Dogecoin would be seen, recognized, liked, and eventually held by more people. The consensus on the token diffused through Musk became a powerful catalyst for Dogecoin. This community consensus propelled Dogecoin’s price from $0.014 to $0.8.

In the two cases, EOS has good technology and products, but does not have a good price. Doge is a pure Meme, with no ecosystem and technology, but high valuation. Therefore, technical consensus is not the same as value consensus.

2.2 The process of reaching a consensus on value orientation is the process of forming a Meme

BTC’s technical consensus ensures that each account has complete control over its permissions and prevents double-spending. The technical consensus of BTC has been promoted since the publication of the BTC technical whitepaper. However, from stone-broke to costly, from someone participating in mining to truly enabling payments, it took about a year and a half. During this time, BTC community members constantly reflected not only on whether BTC was secure as a chain but also on whether BTC was valuable and how valuable it was. This is the value consensus. Value consensus is always subjective. The foundation of the value consensus of BTC is “The Denationalization of Money” and FUD about the centralization of money. The news headline inscribed in the genesis block by Satoshi Nakamoto is the seed and fuse of FUD.

Satoshi Nakamoto was a master of attention. Reviewing the successful launch of BTC, Satoshi Nakamoto consistently flattered the crypto elite in the crypto community. For example, he demonstrated to David that BTC had already implemented David’s concept of B-cash and received David’s praise offline. This kind of praise directly established the brand within the community, attracting community attention. On January 12, 2009, Hal Finney received the first Bitcoin transfer of 10 Bitcoins from Satoshi Nakamoto for a transaction test. After that, Satoshi Nakamoto often transferred mined BTC to friends in the crypto community, gaining attention from community members. This behavior later evolved into a unique way for crypto projects to build attention: airdrops!

Looking back at the first real-world transaction of BTC, Laszlo Hanyecz bought two pizzas for 10,000 BTC. In this exchange, BTC obtained a price for the first time. Both parties in the transaction were aware of BTC, and their consensus on the purchasing power of BTC was based on the shared understanding of BTC’s value narrative. Recognizing the value narrative is contingent upon being able to notice BTC’s value narrative. Satoshi Nakamoto inscribed a meaningful news headline into the genesis block, allowing every BTC believer to automatically convey BTC’s value narrative when recounting BTC’s history. This is the most direct and efficient way of value capture.

2.3 Fluctuations in token prices cannot escape the Meme trend

Everything is a Meme

Most of the coins are Meme coins. Looking back at other tokens in the crypto space, there are many mainstream tokens (UNI, ARB, OP) without clear value capture support. With more assets, rights and obligations are difficult to distinguish, and even effective value capture is difficult to find. The valuation of the crypto space cannot be explained using monetary theory, nor can it be explained using financial assets. BTC claims to be a peer-to-peer cash payment system, but how many people actually use BTC to pay today? Let’s boldly say that BTC is the biggest meme. The matters of coin price are matters of meme. It’s precisely because of the meme property that assets in the coin circle have a different attribute from traditional finance: attention. Its volatility cycle is also distinct from traditional finance.

Even in the value of utility tokens, there is a meme component. The pricing of financial assets ultimately depends on supply and demand. Supply and demand stem from changes in human decisions, decisions influenced by information and emotions. Behavioral finance has long been a consensus in the investment industry. The traditional financial value represented by tokens and memes are not mutually exclusive. Memes can boost the valuation of utility tokens and also diminish their value.

Therefore, we say that the matters of token price are matters of memes.

In the short term, token prices can be manipulated by patterns, but in the long term, the size of the community holding tokens, the willingness to hold tokens, depends on the success of the value proposition. Just like Apple phones, even if the cost-effectiveness is low, users still buy into it. Only long-term believers, long-term token holders, are the support for the token’s value. And these believers and holders are called upon by culture.

2.4 Reaching consensus requires cultural communication

The technical consensus of tokens and the value consensus of tokens are formed through different paths. Technical consensus contributes to the formation of the token’s value consensus. Whether it is technical consensus or value consensus, there is a sensory part, relying on people’s decision-making influenced by intuition. So, different from copying cold code on different computers, consensus is spread among people using warm content as a carrier. This warm content spread among people is what we commonly define as social content.

All Crypto projects build their brand and establish cognitive value consensus through social media and social content. There is almost no difference in this aspect among the project teams I know. Almost every project team has various social accounts and private communication spaces for dissemination. From community operations to mods in groups, the project team forms its own community ladder. Social accounts become sources of dissemination, and communities or a series of encrypted small circles become dissemination channels.

BTC’s technical whitepaper is calm and objective, but the news inscribed in the genesis block is warm. This news reflects the values that Satoshi Nakamoto wanted to promote to BTC followers. As full nodes deploy worldwide, as long as BTC exists, this excerpt advocating the value orientation of BTC will not stop spreading. Every time this excerpt is read, people are reminded again and again that the doomsday of central banks is approaching. If we take BTC as a religion, then “Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks” is the doomsday prophecy of that religion. And BTC is the Maitreya, the Messiah, the Noah’s Ark in the apocalypse.

The crypto space has always had a deep understanding of cultural dissemination. The recent inscriptions, various small images, and slogans are aimed at letting more people understand the meme culture represented by the four letters. Unfortunately, the areas of dissemination still mainly rely on Web2 social media, and the meme itself, unlike BTC, does not have a strong value orientation. Many inscriptions in the dissemination lack their own positioning. And successful inscriptions, on the one hand, occupy the dominant position of the inscription, and on the other hand, form a unique culture in narrative, such as the “1 sats = 1 sats” in the Sats community.

In conclusion, cultural content is the carrier of value orientation. This understanding aligns with the theory of memes. Memes are information units in cultural dissemination. Here, culture broadly refers to thoughts, ideas, customs, artistic forms, etc. In order to support token prices, designers need to consider the relationship between culture and token price in the process of cultural dissemination. The meme contained in BTC has set a good example for the crypto space, but unfortunately, many tokens claiming to be “memes” often only pursue the dissemination cost of “memes” and abandon the relationship between “memes” and token value. After BTC, there may be tokens with meme names, but there will no longer be memes with narratives.

03. Put Content On-chain: Capture the Native Attention On-chain

Capturing native attention on the chain by uploading content to the chain is currently a very rare content uploading strategy. Other tracks have not formed a sustained economic cycle, and most of them are in the experimental stage.

3.1 Wide Consensus on Value Orientation Requires Capturing Attention

To achieve a consensus on values, reaching information is the first step. In modern society, the cost of content creation is almost zero, making attention a scarce commodity compared to the overwhelming amount of content. From mainstream media placements to KOLs’ positions, from Web2 to Web3, project operations cannot ignore the importance of attention. Attention has been a scarce commodity since the advent of the first-generation print media. As we entered the Web2 era, platforms controlling traffic considered traffic distribution as the source of platform monopoly profits.

In the traditional business world, advertisements for goods aim to make consumers aware of the product itself and promote its attributes and value propositions. However, high-end advertisements often use a values-oriented approach. Multinational giants like Apple and Huawei, providing differentiating products, are well-versed in this strategy. This values-oriented approach aligns with the values output of digital encrypted assets.

In the traditional domain, methods to capture attention in the crypto space are quite similar. There are event-based marketing strategies, such as the auction of an NFT for millions of dollars at Sotheby’s, activity-based marketing, like hosting parties on cruise ships, and brand marketing through naming rights for arenas.

The crypto space also has on-chain information channels. For example, BTC inscriptions, although only consisting of four characters, inject meme information directly into the core of the BTC community. Regardless of whether one agrees or disagrees with the inscription, its appearance requires members of the BTC community to express their stance. This on-chain information is eternal and open. Properly minted inscriptions can be inscribed on the BTC blockchain, ready to be read by others. The process of inscription is akin to endorsing a certain piece of information at an address, making a public statement of one’s attitude. However, traditional on-chain inscriptions have limited on-chain information, and the expression of community members’ attitudes is overly singular.

Undeniably, Satoshi Nakamoto’s content selection is exquisite. Perhaps no other content can pierce through the vulnerability of centralized finance like this news. In this extraordinary marketing campaign, we see the value of recording social content in the eternal genesis space of BTC. It is the eternal genesis space of BTC that has elevated this ingenious narrative material to the spotlight of the attention of the people in the coin circle, becoming more prominent with the growing consensus of blockchain and BTC.

On-chain media differs from traditional media, not only in terms of technological routes and business logic but also in the audience it covers.

3.2 Web3 Media Industry: Content on Chain as a Core Profitability-Based Content Filter

Throughout the history of blockchain, many projects have considered conducting traditional media-like businesses on the blockchain, but due to efficiency issues, whether in textual media, multimedia, or short videos, it’s challenging to gather attention comparable to that of the Web2 world. In terms of product form or the content precipitated within, Web3 media products lag far behind Web2 media, not by a small margin. Even with financial token subsidies, Web3 media products cannot compete with the attractiveness of Web2 products’ content algorithms. Products like TikTok, Instagram, YouTube have already reached the pinnacle of content algorithms.

Web3 media can only challenge Web2 by taking a different approach. BTC inscriptions are a unique form of on-chain content. Although on-chain, they consist of only four characters, yet these characters are deeply rooted in the BTC community. Taking the example of the Sats inscription, the creation of the inscription cost millions of dollars in total. The community, by burning real money, highlighted the cultural value of Sats. According to the current data in the Unisats market, there are fewer than 1800 BTC inscriptions recorded, compared to traditional Web2 media where a significant amount of content is filtered out. From this perspective, content on-chain through inscriptions serves as a core profitability-based content filter. Only those who can afford it and believe in the potential of cultural memes can secure a place in the inscriptions market.

Content filters also serve as focusers of attention. In a scenario where attention remains constant, reducing the overall quantity of content by increasing its cost allows the same content to attract more attention.

3.3 Attention Focus: How On-Chain Content Participates in the Battle for Attention

As mentioned earlier, on-chain content, compared to Web2, is like code, seemingly dull and uninteresting. Can on-chain content really compete with Web2 media content for the scarce resource of attention? The answer is affirmative.

3.3.1 Profit-driven Attention Collection

On-chain content may seem like a code, but it is a code of wealth. The enormous price fluctuations act as hooks for attention, enticing those who wish to strike it rich. For an individual seeking the code to wealth within inscriptions, it can be a transformative journey. Instead of struggling to find information in traditional media, one can directly explore the rankings on these inscription exchanges, follow the clues, and gain more information. Trading volume and the rise and fall of floor prices are the industry’s secret language. Those who are interested will conduct more detailed investigations into the culture, community, and even personnel distribution corresponding to the inscription, based on the inscription’s code, joining various Web2 media and real-life circles.

The success of the inscription ecosystem tells us that on-chain content can collect attention through profit-driven means. BTC follows a similar pattern; as the price of BTC rises, more people pay attention to BTC, gaining insights into the genesis block and the plight of the UK Chancellor in 2009, thus developing a vivid understanding of the urgency of decentralization.

Profit-driven attention also has another layer of meaning. The value of attention should be related to its wealth dominance, rather than the number of people involved. Suppose an on-chain media can only reach 1% of the world’s population, but this portion of people can control 50% of society’s wealth. In that case, the advertising value of such media is undoubtedly much higher than that of a media advertisement that can reach 50% of the world’s population but only influences 10% of social wealth. High-end circle marketing follows this path. On-chain content media fully leverages this advantage. When a person’s interests are more tied to a specific on-chain asset, they will pay more attention to information related to that asset.

3.3.2 Attention Collection in Web3’s Closed Traffic

On-chain content exhibits a certain degree of closedness. Observing Unisats and users of the OK wallet, they are focused users, and their attention does not easily shift due to entertaining videos or texts. In the closed space of on-chain, content is extremely limited. Even though attention may not be as abundant as in traditional Web2, different attention-guiding methods determine the relative closedness of this attention. Life on-chain is in a gradual development process, with more and more people opening Web3 accounts and entering the Web3 world. This portion of attention will grow with massive adoption. One end is closed attention, and the other end is the continuously growing attention flow. The battle for attention in on-chain content holds promise for the future.

The closedness is also evident in the independent and tamper-proof nature of on-chain content spaces. When much media information has been inundated by information waves, only on-chain information remains relatively clear, searchable, and unafraid of deletion or tampering. This attribute is particularly suitable for maintaining the core characteristics of Meme culture.

3.3.3 Comprehensive Coupling of Assets and Content

By putting the content on the chain through inscriptions, the content becomes entwined with token transactions, making it difficult to separate. This data structure ensures sufficient spatial proximity between content and assets. This brings us back to the successful theory of BTC and BTC inscriptions. It is the inscription of The Times digest in the genesis block of BTC that empowers BTC believers repeatedly against the vulnerability of centralization. The implantation of JSON codes resembling “dust” into BTC scripts allows the Meme culture of inscriptions to connect with the BTC community. This is a content delivery aimed at the community and assets, and the attention pursued is also precisely targeted.

In summary, on-chain content can challenge Web2’s attention capture in terms of value, closedness, and precise user targeting.

Therefore, on-chain content is not only feasible but has already succeeded in the era of BTC bootstrap. During the subsequent period of on-chain ICOs, the continuously hatching Meme has been repeating the success of on-chain content. However, we are engrossed in learning the ways of on-chain content from traditional Web2 media, turning a blind eye to the continuously successful cases of on-chain content.

04. Social Inscriptions: The Renaissance of BTC

4.1 Fighting with Courage and Determination

For a token to establish its consensus on value, cultural dissemination and the formation of Meme are essential, irrespective of whether it is a utility token forming a direct economic cycle. Unlike later tokens that establish Meme through offline media and communities, BTC also used on-chain space as a media space. A piece of news put centralized currency on the historical gallows.

How many in the crypto space can successfully address the challenge? The development history of BTC tells us that concerning content related to coins, transmitting information is elementary, while outputting value is advanced. This is no different from traditional brand strategies. Content should carry culture, and culture supports values. Satoshi Nakamoto has definitely made unprecedented achievements.

From the end of 2023, the industry has been proclaiming the artistic revival of Bitcoin. Narratives tend towards the resistance against the orthodoxy of ETH. Without discussing culture, where is the Renaissance of the arts?

Social inscriptions focus on the establishment of community culture, coupling assets with community culture, representing a revival of the way value consensus is established.

4.2 Social Inscription: The Confluence of Crypto Culture and Crypto Technology

Social inscriptions are a new concept of inscriptions. By adding attributes in the JSON, inscriptions are given more on-chain space to showcase unique cultural aspects. With each forging, each forger can write what they consider important content for the inscriptions. By increasing the display space for on-chain content, social inscriptions might replicate the successful cases of creating FUD on the BTC chain. Although social inscriptions, as a nascent species, are still exploring, their rules, mechanisms, gameplay, and token incentives are in the exploration stage. As long as there is a glimmer of success like BTC, the costs of various experiments are worthwhile.

On the other hand, social inscriptions inherit the attitude of inscriptions towards BTC script space. This attitude maximizes the value of BTC inscriptions’ space. I believe that with various Layer 2 adaptations compatible with BTC mechanisms entering the stage, we can see the resolution of the impossible triangle plaguing the Web3 industry under asynchronous consensus. This is a direction in the development of cryptographic technology.

Social inscriptions may be the victorious meeting between crypto culture and technology after 16 years, possibly bearing fruitful results.

05. Possibilities and Limitations of Social Inscriptions

Social inscriptions are a completely new entity, exploring the fusion of human nature and technology. In this new perspective, imagination plays a crucial role. If high-quality content can be created that aligns with meme culture, social inscriptions might disrupt the current value creation model of meme tokens.

Most religions worldwide have apocalyptic doctrines because, in the face of doomsday, religion becomes the sole salvation. For believers, religion is a basic need. The financial relief provided by the UK Chancellor is set under the BTC religion as a predetermined doomsday. Therefore, the cultural structure of BTC is vastly different from other memes, achieving heights that other memes find challenging to reach.

In addition to the cultural aspect emphasized in this article, social inscriptions are also considering the possibility of an on-chain social graph. On-chain transactions reflect relationships between accounts, and rationalizing these relationships into financial terms is another aspect that social inscriptions can explore.

While social inscriptions have realized the potential of technology, whether they can create content that carries culture determines the height of social inscriptions. The ecosystem of social inscriptions on BTC, despite benefiting from the consensus of BTC, is constrained by BTC’s technological limitations. With scarce on-chain space resources on the BTC chain, the cultural formation resulting from content on-chain will be restricted.

06. Conclusion

The Web3 industry encourages innovation and inspires explorers. Social Inscription continues the successful case of BTC and explores a more comprehensive path to Meme construction. Therefore, I call it the BTC Renaissance. In the context of a bull market, this innovative currency issuance mechanism with case studies has the opportunity to obtain excessive market rewards.

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