Learn about BlobScriptions in one article

Author: Snow, Gate.io; Compiler: Paine, Snow

Foreword

Ethereum carried out the Dencun upgrade in March 2024, introducing a concept called Blob. Blob is a novel data storage concept designed to reduce the transaction costs of Layer 2 scaling solutions. The continued development of the Ethereum ecosystem is inseparable from technological innovation, among which the introduction of blob technology has brought new possibilities for blockchain data storage and transmission. The emergence of BlobScriptions not only demonstrates the application potential of this technology, but also triggers extensive discussions about its long-term impact.

What is Blob?

In various Rollup schemes, in order to ensure the availability of data, data must be uploaded to the Ethereum mainnet (Layer 1). This data needs to be publicly stored on L1 so that it can be verified when necessary. EIP-4844 aims to expand data availability on Ethereum in a forward-compatible way by introducing a new blob-carrying transaction type. These transactions are critical to Ethereum's scaling solution because they provide dedicated space for large blobs of data that are not executed but are critical to data availability.

The new Blob transaction type has two important characteristics:

The data in the Blob cannot be read directly within the contract: this data only needs to be stored, and no active reading and verification calculations are required.

The Blob has a shelf life of 18 days: this design philosophy is to ensure that nodes only need to be synchronized and only need short-term storage. The storage of the full historical data is undertaken by entities interested in this data. Currently Ethereum only stores 18 days of data.

Blob can essentially be regarded as a temporary storage space, allowing the data content of Layer 2 transactions to be moved to a new temporary Blob for storage, so that the data does not need to be permanently stored in Layer 1. This mechanism not only significantly reduces the storage cost of L1, but also makes the storage of large-capacity data more convenient and achieves expansion. Previously, Rollup needed to upload data to L1 in the form of calldata. After the Cancun upgrade, L2 data can be transferred to L1 in the form of Blob at a lower cost and does not need to be permanently stored like calldata.

What is Blobscriptions?

Blobscriptions is a type of Ethscriptions that uses EIP-4844 blobs to store additional data. Blobs were introduced in the Ethereum network upgrade in March as a cost-effective on-chain data storage solution. However, some developers used Blobs to create "Blobscriptions". This will allow Ethereum inscriptions to further reduce the cost of burning. According to @dumbnamenumbers, we can burn an Ethereum inscription of 768 kb for less than $5. Because Blob reduces the cost of data storage on Ethereum by 10 to 100 times.

What Blob means for Blobscription

Blobscription uses the blob space introduced by EIP-4844 to create a decentralized platform for data recording and persistence.

Decentralized Data Storage: Use blob space to permanently and securely store large data sets on the Ethereum blockchain.

Enhanced Scalability: Supports Ethereum's scalability by offloading large data requirements from the main chain, facilitating faster transaction processing and lower fees.

Features of Blobscription

• Data Persistence - Leveraging the blob space provided by EIP-4844, Blobscription ensures that the inscribed data remains permanently on the blockchain, accessible and unchangeable.

• Scalability - By using Blobs for data storage, Blobscription helps scale the Ethereum network, accommodating larger data sets at a lower cost than traditional on-chain storage methods.

• Security and Transparency - Every inscription is transparently recorded on the blockchain, providing a secure and verifiable record of data.

How to Understand Blobs and Inscriptions

Blobs: In EIP-4844, blobs are large packets of data stored within Ethereum blocks. They are designed to increase the network's data throughput without having to execute the data, providing an efficient method of blockchain scaling.

Inscriptions: Inscription refers to the act of permanently recording data on the blockchain. With Blobscription, this concept is extended to storing large data sets in blobs, enabling a new form of data immutability and persistence.

How do Blobscriptions work?

Blobscriptions are similar to Bitcoin inscriptions, allowing users to store a variety of data types on Ethereum's blobs, including images, text, and even tokens. Blobs are unique in that they do not interact with smart contracts and nodes only need to store them for 18 days, making them cost-effective.

When sharing data using blobs, the data content itself and the content type need to be provided. Once the payload of the BlobScription is prepared, it needs to be split into one or more blobs, each consisting of 32-byte segments. These blobs are then sent to the Ethereum blockchain as transactions.

These blobs are then retrieved using the Ethscriptions indexer, etc. Through their version hashes, blobs can be associated with individual transactions.

After retrieving the blob of the transaction, it is decoded using a specific method. The decoded data includes the content and the content type, forming an "Ethscription attachment", also known as a BlobScription. The indexer can then provide the attachment content through its API.

For concerns that blobs are only stored for 18 days, the Ethscriptions indexer and other decentralized data stores also retain this data, ensuring that Blobscriptions can be used as long as someone retains the data.

Blobscriptions vs. Bitcoin Inscriptions

Similarities

• Data Storage Purpose: Both Blobscriptions and Ordinal Inscriptions allow users to embed data directly into the blockchain. This data can include text, images, or other digital content.

• Immutable Storage: Once data is embedded in a Blobscription or Ordinal Inscription, it becomes part of the blockchain's immutable ledger and cannot be changed or deleted.

Differences

• Blobscriptions and Bitcoin Ordinal inscriptions have similarities in data storage and immutability, but they differ significantly in blockchain platform, data storage method, introduction time, transaction type, cost, and data persistence.

Impact of Blobscriptions on Network Fees

When a Blob is submitted to the second-layer network, in addition to paying the regular gas fee, an additional Blob fee is required. In just a few days after the launch of Blobscriptions, users have created more than 4,500 Blobscriptions. According to Dune data, up to 50% of newly generated blobs are used for these inscription activities. This has brought the base fee of blobs to an abnormally high level.

On March 14, Middle March, co-founder of Ethscriptions, announced the successful generation of the first Blobbed Ethscription on X. On March 28, Middle March tweeted again to announce the official launch of Blobscriptions.

Within just one hour after Blobscriptions went live, Ethereum's Blob base gas price soared to 14,499,530 wei. Data shows that the highest gas fee caused by this activity reached 0.1 ETH (about $370), which is much higher than the average gas price of Blobscriptions.

However, as the popularity of Blobscriptions activities subsided, the Blob fee market quickly returned to a lower level.

Source: https://dune.com/0xRob/blobs

Blobscription Future Outlook

The main function of Blob is to significantly reduce the gas fee of Layer 2. Therefore, the competition around Blob block space will become the main theme in the future. For the Ethereum Foundation, projects that can adopt Blob on a large scale will dominate the ecosystem and become the real L2 leader. At present, only Blobscriptions has made significant progress in this regard, and Blobscriptions may continue to occupy Blob space for quite a long time. This is mainly because the issuance of inscriptions is usually minted by a large number of retail investors, which has also attracted the continued attention of Vitalik Buterin.

Because Blob has very low gas fees, it is particularly suitable for large-scale airdrops by projects, which is a great benefit to the utilization of Blob space. In summary, large-scale adoption of Blob is the biggest demand of the Ethereum Foundation at present, and no other project can achieve this goal except Blobscriptions.

However, if Blobscriptions continue to occupy this low-cost channel, the entire Ethereum ecosystem may feel the impact of this growth, and it may even have an impact on base layer transactions. This may undermine the goal of the Dencun upgrade, which is to significantly reduce the transaction costs of the second layer network.

Summary

Overall, the rapid rise of Blobscriptions has sparked a discussion about whether Ethereum can continue to provide low-cost cryptocurrency transactions. If the popularity of Blobscriptions continues, it may challenge Dencun's promise to reduce the cost of second-layer transactions, making the future of blockchain uncertain again. Ethereum needs to show a high degree of flexibility to cope with this complex reassessment period. Although the prospects need further observation, the success of BlobScriptions demonstrates the innovative potential of the Ethereum ecosystem and provides an important reference for future technology applications.