Original | Odaily Planet Daily ( @OdailyChina )
Author: Golem ( @web3_golem )
Is Inscription, which once stood at the starting point of this bull market, about to be revived?
Amid the recent poor performance of the overall market, the sluggish altcoin market, and the lifeless junk market of Meme, the new inscription protocol HRC-20 on the BRC-20 and L1 rising star Hyperliquid chain has attracted attention in the community.
The total amount of BRC-20 truck token MASK, which needs to be minted 2.1 million times (10 per token), once raised the Bitcoin network gas to 14 satoshis/byte on the evening of February 23. It is one of the few inscription trucks that have been expected to be minted and have more than 10,000 addresses in the past few months. ( Odaily Note: Inscription trucks refer to BRC 20 tokens that are minted too many times and require a lot of money and time.)
At the same time, the first HRC-20 token HYPI on Hyperliquid L1 was minted at 5:00 on February 21, with a total of 21 million tokens, which took 5 hours to mint. The official has spent $109,154.01 to bid for the Hyperliquid spot trading quota, and opened trading at 5:00 this morning, and launched the corresponding packaged asset wHYPI on the Hyperliquid spot trading market.
Inscription revival or a reappearance?
The growth of short-term FOMO sentiment often creates illusions for people who are in it.
MASKs popularity comes and goes quickly
The BRC-20 token MASK was scheduled to be deployed on March 10, 2023. Even at the peak of the BRC-20 inscription, it was not minted, and some players were stuck at the highest position last year with a minting rate of 30 satoshis/byte.
Why is the “old antique” popular again? There are two kinds of speculations circulating in the community. One is that MASK is really a “miner conspiracy”. Miners mint a large number of MASK to create a false prosperity on the chain, so that players can FOMO and earn more Bitcoin fees. The second speculation is that MASK is a new “inscription ground promotion”, relying on the “mysterious oriental power”. No matter which one it is, as long as it can bring continuous traffic and popularity to the inscription, it is a good thing.
On February 23, the MASK minting progress reached 70%, and the unit price of MASK in the OKX inscription market was $0.3. It was originally thought that MASK would be minted on February 24 and continue to push up the price with the community sentiment, but the MASK enthusiasm faded faster than expected. As of today (February 25), its progress has only reached 88%, and the unit price of MASK has fallen to $0.1. Looking back at the price on February 23, it was already the peak.
Maybe MASK will eventually be minted, but its final outcome will most likely be the same as the inscription truck eorb, which also has 2.1 million copies, and it will gradually disappear.
HRC-20 performance is not as good as expected
HRC-20 is a homogeneous token standard launched by HPS Protocol on Hyperliquid L1. HPS Protocol introduced the concept of Hyperscriptions on Hyperliquid L1 and HyperEVM. HYPI is the first HRC-20 token officially issued and the only HRC-20 token currently, with 2231 holding addresses.
Currently, almost all functions of the HPS Protocol platform are unavailable, and users cannot deploy and transfer HRC-20 tokens independently. Therefore, in order to quickly start trading, HPS Protocol chose to first list HYPIs wrapped asset wHYPI on the Hyperliquid spot trading market. The address holding HYPI will receive a 1:1 wHYPI airdrop when trading is opened. After the official HRC-20 market is launched, users can directly redeem wHYPI for HYPI, and the total circulation of HYPI and wHYPI will always be maintained at 21 million.
The minting cost of a single HYPI (100 pieces per sheet) is US$2-3. Before it was launched on the Hyperliquid spot market, the highest double-pledge transaction price in the communitys over-the-counter market was as high as US$25 per sheet, with an estimated market value of US$5.25 million, which is about 10 times the minting cost.
I thought that after the launch of the Hyperliquid spot market, HYPI, as the first inscription on the Hyperliquid chain, would have some room for growth. But as disappointing as MASK, wHYPI started to fall after its launch. The current price is $0.024 (2.4 per piece), with a market value of $540,000, which has fallen below the minting cost. Players who bought it at $25 per piece off-site are now crying in the toilet.
Market vitality is waning, but speculative demand remains
This morning, the overall crypto market fell again, with BTC falling below 91,000 USDT (to a low of 90,888 USDT). The altcoin market was even more bloody, with ETH falling below 2,500 USDT and SOL falling below 140 USDT. The vitality of the meme market was even more horrible. On February 24, only one of the graduated tokens of pump.fun had a market value of more than 1 million US dollars in the past 24 hours. It seems like a lifetime ago that the meme market had several memes with a market value of tens of millions of US dollars every day last month.
However, I think that the more the market is depressed, the more hungry the funds in the market are, the stronger the speculative demand is, and the more eager the small and medium-sized players are to turn over . At this time, any new hype opportunities that are like the slightest disturbance may attract great attention, but the side effect is that if there is no return in the short term, the funds will quickly withdraw. BRC-20 inscriptions MASK and HRC-20 inscriptions on Hyperliquid L1 are a phenomenon in the context of the current market downturn and lack of hype opportunities.
At this point, inscriptions have become a very small angle in the market, so small that the number of people discussing them is far less than the inexplicable post published by SBF, who has been in prison, two years later. Only some diamond buyers who are passionate (or obsessed) are still persisting.
Only things that have failed can talk about revival. To put it cruelly, todays inscription is yesterdays meme. But as long as the demand for speculation on Web3 continues to exist, we will eventually wait for the next asset distribution model that will cause a sensation in the market. However, those who invest in it must remember not to fall in love with your investment project again.
