Will PING recreate the inscription craze? The "Pandora's Box" of the x402 protocol has been opened.

Recently, everyone has been talking about the Meme coin PING on the x402 protocol, saying it is very similar to the wave of BTC inscriptions in 2023. In what way is it similar? Will it follow the same path as the inscription market?

To get straight to the conclusion: Yes. Let's look at the specifics below.

Why say it's like this? The key is two words: rules

First, let's look at how inscriptions are played. You send a transaction to the BTC mainnet, occupying a certain UTXO, but BTC itself actually cannot determine which transaction counts - what really matters is the Ordinals protocol, this indexer. It acts as a third-party referee, scanning all transactions on the chain and, according to its own “First is First” rule, determining who the true inscription is.

What about PING? The formula is about the same. You transfer USDC to a specified address on the Base chain (this address is dynamically given by x402scan), which is equivalent to sending a “payment request”. But neither the Base chain nor the x402 protocol knows that you are minting $PING—it's just an ordinary ERC20 transfer in their eyes.

What truly turns this transfer into a “mint” is the x402scan indexer. It scans all USDC sent to a specific address on the Base chain, determines which transactions are “valid” based on the rule of 1 USDC exchanging for 5000 $PING, and then keeps records off-chain, issuing coins through the contract.

Where are they? They are all “unwelcome” existences.

When inscriptions first emerged, the Bitcoin Core team was quite resistant. The reason is simple: apart from clogging the BTC mainnet with dust transactions, there seems to be no value.

The situation of PING is similar. But just like the BTC mainnet, the x402 protocol, as an open standard, cannot be dealt with in the short term either.

The reasoning is quite clear. When creating inscriptions, at least the assets still lie on the BTC mainnet, and if you stop trading, you can still get back some BTC. But minting PING? All the money goes into the treasury wallet designated by x402scan. While the team is crowdfunding, they are also issuing tokens, and the x402 protocol has been thoroughly “exploited”.

Don't rush to criticize me. This behavior is actually a “charge” that has a significant impact on the exposure and dissemination of the x402 track. It forcibly creates usage scenarios for the x402 protocol, and the effect is quite evident, also serving as a pressure test. In a sense, it is the “singularity of x402 narrative”, which may foster a series of opportunities for improvement and ecological prosperity.

Will it evolve like the inscription market? It is highly likely.

As mentioned earlier, the significance of PING actually lies in the x402scan indexer. But the problem is also obvious:

Assets are custodied under their own centralized entity, which is contrary to the original intention of the x402 protocol to open payment channels for AI Agents. It may not be seamlessly compatible with other x402 protocols, and there are even no unified standards for minting, transferring, and burning operations.

Therefore, following the evolutionary path of BRC20→ARC20→SRC20→Runes, there will definitely be a bunch of new gameplay that claims to be more “orthodox” emerging later.

For example, changing the custody method, changing the minting form, obtaining support from the native protocol, etc. To take an extreme case, even if the x402scan protocol runs away and the treasury embezzles funds, this trend has already begun, the Pandora's box has been opened and cannot be closed.

Emphasizing once again: the x402 narrative explosion is inevitable. $PING is just the call to charge, and there are many possibilities for how the market will evolve afterward. The above sharing is purely a logical sorting of cognition and does not constitute any investment advice. But there's no need to be too anxious; the upcoming excitement is still worth joining in on.