Last week, we announced the launch of Escription, the first-ever smart inscription marketplace on the Elastos Smart Chain (ESC). Escription introduces an innovative platform for creating and trading ESC-20 inscriptions, with plans to further integrate Bitcoin Elastos Layer 2 (BeL2) technology to enable BRC-20 inscriptions to interact with smart contracts for a host of benefits. Today, we will outline key questions and answer prevalent queries about smart inscriptions. Let’s get stuck in!
Why Are Smart Inscriptions a Significant Advancement?
Smart Inscriptions represent a significant advancement because they enhance the functionality of the BRC20 protocol, originally used for issuing assets on the Bitcoin mainnet. While the BRC20 protocol mirrors Bitcoin’s attributes, including high costs and limited programmability, it also requires off-chain verification and calculations for utilisation. Smart Inscriptions aim to address these limitations by leveraging EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) smart contracts. This integration not only reduces costs and enhances efficiency but also allows the use of smart contracts to build a fully decentralised indexer for BRC20 assets. This development facilitates the issuance of BRC20 assets “at the BTC layer,” operating efficiently on Elastos’ second layer.
Why Is the Parent-Child Model Preferred for Inscriptions?
The parent-child model is preferred for inscriptions due to its efficiency and cost-effectiveness. When a BRC20 inscription is cross-chained from the Bitcoin main network to Elastos (ela), a ‘shadow inscription’ is generated on Elastos’ side chain. This shadow inscription maintains a one-to-one correspondence with the original BRC20 assets, which is why they are termed as father-son inscriptions.
Operating on Elastos’ side chain, the Shadow Inscription benefits from the lower cost, increased transaction speed, and enhanced programming capabilities of the Elastos platform. This model provides a more practical and scalable solution for managing inscriptions, making it a preferred choice in the blockchain environment.
Why Might an Organisation Choose to Use Smart Inscriptions?
Organisations may opt to use Smart Inscriptions to reap the benefits mentioned above. This choice is optional and does not impact their previous usage patterns.
How Is BeL2 Organically Connected to Smart Inscriptions?
BeL2 can generate zero-knowledge proofs for BTC transactions, allowing EVM contracts to verify transactions on the Bitcoin network. This makes Bitcoin the settlement layer for both parties in a transaction. BeL2 extends this capability to recognise inscription transactions and BRC20 transactions, thereby generating zero-knowledge proofs for BRC20 transfers. This approach enables the creation of a BRC20 ledger via zero-knowledge proofs in the contract, offering a more decentralised and reliable solution than an inscription indexer. BRC20 assets can be traded using BeL2, just like BTC assets.
How Will the Decentralised Bridge Work?
The decentralised bridge consists of several validators who manage cross-chain assets through multi-signature. The verifier is divided into three parts:
- Validators pledging assets without needing permission.
- Ela’s CR committee member or DPoS node.
- Agent entrusted by the development team. Each part accounts for one-third of the quota, and asset management requires multi-signature approval by a two-thirds majority. If abnormal asset transfer operations occur, users can use BeL2 technology to generate cheating certificates to punish malicious nodes.
How Will Smart Inscriptions with BeL2 Extend Bitcoin’s Capabilities?
BeL2 technology can generate credible zero-knowledge proofs for Bitcoin transactions, allowing contracts to monitor Bitcoin chain transactions. This capability can be used to generate transfer certificates for BRC20, thereby establishing a decentralized indexer for BRC20 on the ela side chain and addressing its centralised indexer issue.
How Will Smart Inscriptions Integrate with Elacity?
Smart Inscriptions can integrate with Elacity through the parent-child inscription model. BRC20 assets on Bitcoin can be mapped to the ela side chain at a 1:1 ratio and cast as inscriptions. Users can exchange ela sidechain inscriptions for BRC20 assets on BTC. This allows for payment and use of BRC-20s on the ela side chain.
What Will the Costs of Smart Inscriptions Be?
Issuing inscriptions on the ela side chain incurs minimal costs, less than 1 cent in gas fees. However, issuing BTC father and son inscriptions requires payment of dynamic BTC gas fees.
What Are the Main Benefits of Smart Inscription?
Smart Inscription offers a decentralised, efficient, and cost-effective way to issue and manage assets on the Bitcoin network, expanding the capabilities and applications of BRC20 assets.
Will Satoshi ID (From Ordinal Theory) Be Used or Have Any Function on ESC?
Ordinals are not used on the ela sidechain as it operates on an account model, unlike the UTXO model for which Ordinals are designed.
Head over to Escription today and join the team on their journey as they integrate BeL2 and support making everything on Bitcoin Smart! Follow our X account for the latest updates, including upcoming airdrops, passed by the Cyber Republic DAO, to support interactions.
