PING made the x402 protocol popular: Why does this trap gameplay resemble the BTC inscription from back in the day?

Recently, there has been a phenomenon being discussed in the community: the Meme coin PING on the x402 protocol, which plays very similarly to the BTC inscription from back in the day. What exactly is similar? I thought about it and realized that this might really repeat history.

Core Mechanism: On-chain Data + Off-chain Arbiter

First, let's talk about how inscriptions work.

You send a transaction to the BTC mainnet, occupying a UTXO, but the mainnet itself does not care whether this transaction counts as a “valid inscription”—the referee is the Ordinals indexer. It scans through all transactions like a scanner, marking those that meet the criteria as true inscriptions according to the “First is First” rule.

PING plays almost the same formula: you transfer USDC to a designated address on the Base chain (the address is dynamically generated by x402scan), but the Base chain and the x402 protocol have no idea that you are “minting tokens”; to them, this is just a regular ERC20 transfer.

The real decision-maker is still the x402scan indexer—it scans all USDC transactions to a specific address on the blockchain, determines which are “valid mints” based on the rule of 1 USDC = 5000 PING, and then records off-chain and distributes contracts. The on-chain data is legitimate, and the interpretation rights off-chain are in hand; the logic is exactly the same.

Unpleasant but Unstoppable

When the inscription first came out, the Bitcoin Core team was very unhappy - the mainnet was filled with dust transactions, and there was no value other than speculation. But as an open standard, there was nothing they could do about it in the short term.

PING is also in this vein. At least with inscriptions, the assets are still on the BTC mainnet, and if you stop trading, releasing UTXO can still recover a bit. But minting PING? Your USDC has all gone into the treasury wallet specified by x402scan, while the team is crowdfunding and issuing tokens, the x402 protocol has just been “whitewashed” from beginning to end.

It sounds a bit wild, but this is precisely the “charge”. Forcibly creating use cases for x402 has an immediate effect, serving as a pressure test for the protocol, and it's also the singularity moment of the narrative—subsequent improvements and ecological prosperity are likely to start from here.

Will the history of inscription evolution be repeated?

The answer is yes.

The core of PING is the x402scan indexer, but the problems are obvious: assets are held under a centralized entity, which goes against the original intention of the AI Agent payment channel; it may not be seamlessly compatible with other x402 protocols; there are no unified standards for minting, transferring, and burning.

Following the evolutionary path of BRC20→ARC20→SRC20→Runes, there will definitely be more self-proclaimed “orthodox” new protocols emerging. Improving custody methods, changing minting formats, striving for native support… the tricks are all ready-made.

To exaggerate a bit, even if x402scan runs away and treasury absconds with the money, this trend cannot be stopped. The Pandora's box has been opened.

Reiterate a judgment: the outbreak of x402 narrative is a deterministic event, PING has only sounded the horn. It is still early to conclude how it will evolve and what new gameplay will emerge.

The above is purely a logical deduction and does not constitute investment advice. However, one thing is certain – this upcoming wave of excitement is worth joining in.