Why does the emergence of x402 and PING closely resemble the BTC inscription craze? Will it happen again?

Many people are saying that the Meme coin PING under the x402 protocol looks similar to the wave of enthusiasm for BTC inscriptions in 2023. It does look alike. So, where does it resemble? Can it also follow a development trajectory like the inscriptions?

The answer is: Yes.

Core Similarities: On-chain Data + Off-chain Adjudication

How to play inscription?

Users send transactions to the BTC mainnet, occupying specific UTXOs. But there is a problem here— the BTC mainnet has no ability to determine whether a transaction is a “true inscription”. What really counts is the Ordinals indexer. It acts as a third-party arbiter, scanning all transactions on the BTC chain and deciding which ones are valid inscriptions according to its own rules (for example, “First is First”).

PING? It's pretty much the same routine.

Users send USDC to a specific address on the Base chain. This address is dynamically returned by x402scan, equivalent to the user making a “payment request” to the x402 protocol. The problem is that the Base chain and the x402 protocol itself know nothing about this matter — to them, it is just a regular ERC20 transfer.

So who grants the identity of this transaction “mint $PING”? It's the indexer x402scan. It scans all USDC transfers on the Base chain that point to a specific address, determines which transactions count as “valid mints” according to its own rules (1 USDC = 5000 $PING), records them in an off-chain database, and finally distributes the tokens through a contract.

Similarities of Fate

When inscriptions first came out, the Bitcoin Core team had a lot to say against them. Their reasoning was quite straightforward: this thing would only clog the BTC mainnet with dust transactions and has no real value.

Following this logic, the existence of PING is also quite awkward. But there is a key point here — the x402 protocol, as an open standard, cannot change the current situation in the short term, even if it is not popular now.

Why? The assets inscribed are at least still on the BTC mainnet. After the hype around inscriptions cools down, a portion of the assets can still be released to exchange for BTC. But the money for Mint PING is different; it all flows into the treasury wallet specified by x402scan. While crowdfunding and issuing tokens, the entire x402 protocol has been completely exploited—from another perspective, this is actually promoting PING as a rallying cry.

But don't be quick to criticize. This way of playing has significant value for exposure and spreading the x402 track. It's equivalent to forcibly creating a usage scenario for the x402 protocol, with immediate results. At the same time, it is also a stress test for the x402 protocol. This is indeed a singularity in the x402 narrative, which may lead to a series of improvements and ecological prosperity.

Will the evolution of inscriptions be replayed? Definitely.

As mentioned earlier, the essence of PING is the x402scan indexer. However, the issues it exposes are quite obvious—

Assets are held under the name of this centralized entity, which goes against the original purpose of the x402 protocol to open payment channels for AI Agents. There is also no seamless compatibility between tokens, let alone any unified standards for minting, transferring, and burning.

So the script that follows should be like this:

Following the evolutionary logic of BRC20 → ARC20 → SRC20 → Runes, various new “inscriptions” claiming to be “more orthodox” will definitely emerge one after another. Some change the custody method, some alter the form of trading minting, and some strive to gain official support from the native protocol.

Exaggerating a bit, even if x402scan runs away one day and the Treasury's money gets stolen, this trend cannot be stopped. Pandora's box has already been opened. Once this model is validated as feasible, the potential for subsequent innovations and evolutions is enormous.

To summarize: the x402 narrative explosion this time is a certainty. PING was just the sounding of the charge. How the market plays out next has many possibilities. These are just shared cognitive logics and do not constitute any investment advice. However, that being said, this upcoming wave of excitement is still worth joining if there’s an opportunity.