The PING on the x402 protocol has become popular. How is this similar to the inscriptions on BTC back in the day?

Recently, the Meme coin PING on the x402 protocol has become popular, and many say this is very similar to the 2023 BTC inscription craze.

What does it look like? How is it similar? Will it follow the same old path as inscriptions?

My answer is: Yes.

Why is it similar? The core is two words—rule-based game

How do inscriptions work?

You send a transaction on the BTC mainnet, occupying a UTXO position. But the BTC mainnet itself doesn’t care whether this transaction “counts” or not. The real decider is the Ordinals indexer—it acts like a referee, scanning all transactions on the chain and determining which ones are inscriptions based on its own rules (e.g., “first come, first served”).

PING? Its formula is almost identical.

You transfer USDC on the Base chain to an address provided by x402scan (which is dynamically generated). This is like sending a “payment request.” But neither the Base chain nor the x402 protocol itself knows you are “minting PING”—to them, it’s just a regular ERC20 transfer.

What truly turns this transfer into a “minting action” is the x402scan indexer. It monitors all USDC sent to the specified address on the Base chain, and according to its own rules (e.g., 1 USDC exchanges for 5000 PING), it determines which transactions are “valid,” then records this in its database and distributes tokens to you via a smart contract.

The on-chain data is real, but the interpretation is in someone else’s hands—that’s the core logic.

Where is the similarity? Both are “unpopular but unavoidable”

When inscriptions first emerged, the Bitcoin Core team was very annoyed. Why? Because besides filling the BTC mainnet with spam transactions, they saw no legitimate use.

The same applies to PING.

But the problem is, the x402 protocol, like the BTC mainnet, as an open standard, can’t be easily controlled in the short term.

The reasoning is simple: the money used to create inscriptions still remains on the BTC mainnet; if inscriptions fade, the assets can be released back. But USDC used to mint PING? It all goes into the treasury wallet designated by x402scan. The team is crowdfunding and issuing tokens at the same time, and the x402 protocol is essentially just being “free-ridden”.

Don’t rush to criticize—this is actually a kind of “call to arms”.

It forcibly creates use cases for the x402 protocol, with immediate results, acting as a stress test. For exposing the x402 track, the benefits far outweigh the drawbacks. This is a narrative inflection point that will inspire a lot of improvements and ecosystem innovations.

Will it evolve like the inscription market? Yes

As mentioned earlier, the core of PING is the x402scan indexer.

But it has significant issues: Assets are held under centralized entities, which contradicts the original intention of the x402 protocol to open payment channels for AI Agents. It may not seamlessly integrate with other x402 protocols, and there’s even no unified standard for minting, transferring, or burning.

Therefore, following the evolution path from BRC20 → ARC20 → SRC20 → Runes, a bunch of new protocols claiming to be more “orthodox” will inevitably emerge.

People will try to improve custody methods, change minting forms, and seek native protocol support—various approaches will be attempted.

Exaggerating a bit, even if one day x402scan disappears or the treasury wallet runs off with the funds, this trend won’t stop.

The Pandora’s box has already been opened.

Reiterating a point: The burst of x402 narratives is inevitable.

PING has just sounded the charge; how the market will evolve next is anyone’s guess. The above is purely a logical analysis and does not constitute any investment advice.

But there’s no need to panic—what’s coming next is worth paying attention to.