Original Author: Haotian, Crypto Researcher

Editor's Note: In the past two days, one of the biggest movers is perhaps the $PING on Base. It is the first token minted through the x402 protocol. x402 is an open payment protocol developed by Coinbase, enabling AI agents to autonomously execute transactions. The minting process is reminiscent of the rituals from two years ago. For more information on PING and the x402 protocol, please refer to: "Like a Ritual, but 30 Times Bigger: What Is the x402 Protocol?".

Currently, the market cap of PING has exceeded $30 million, with a 24-hour surge of over 8x, sparking expectations of a second "Ritual Mania." Crypto researcher Haotian has also provided his analysis of this craze. The following is the original passage:

Everyone is saying that the emergence of $PING is very similar to the BTC Ritual Mania of 2023. Why is it similar? Where is the resemblance? Will it evolve in a manner reminiscent of the Ritual market? Let's start with the answer: Yes. Now, let's elaborate on the specific logic:

1. Why the Resemblance? The Core Lies in On-chain Legitimate Data + Off-chain Interpretation Rights.

The operation logic of the Ritual is as follows: Users send transactions to the BTC mainnet and possess specific UTXOs, but the BTC mainnet does not have the authority to determine which transactions are valid. The Ordinals protocol serves as the judge to determine the validity of the Ritual as an indexer. It acts as a third-party referee, scanning all on-chain transactions and, based on its defined rules, such as "First is First," adjudicates which are valid true Rituals.

The operation logic of PING is almost the same recipe: Users send USDC on the Base chain to a specific address, which is dynamically provided by x402scan. This is akin to users initiating a "payment request" to the x402 protocol. However, both the Base chain and the x402 protocol itself do not recognize this as "minting $PING." In their view, this is merely a regular ERC20 transfer.

What truly gives this transaction its "mint meaning" is the x402scan indexer: It scans all USDC transfers on the Base chain sent to a specific address, applies its own defined rule (1 USDC = 5000 $PING), determines which transactions are "valid mints," and then records them in an off-chain database and distributes tokens through a contract.

2. Whereabouts

When MemeCoin first came out, it faced resistance from the Bitcoin Core team because its presence did nothing but fill the BTC mainnet with a large amount of dust transactions, providing no value. Obviously, following this line of thought, the logic of $PING's existence is similar, but like the BTC mainnet, the x402 protocol, as an open standard, is powerless in the short term, even if it is not well-received.

The principle is very simple, everyone's minted assets still exist on the BTC mainnet at least, so even if MemeCoin loses its hype value, selling off some can still get back some BTC, but everyone's PING mints actually ended up in the treasury wallet specified by x402scan. The team crowdfunded while minting coins, and the true x402 protocol was merely "freeloaded" on throughout.

Before you rush to criticize me, as I mentioned earlier, this behavior was a "Blitzkrieg" operation, which was very beneficial for exposing and spreading the value of the x402 track. This is equivalent to forcibly creating a use case for the x402 protocol, with immediately visible effects. It can also be considered a stress test for the x402 protocol, undoubtedly a "singularity in the x402 narrative," which will lead to a series of improvements and potential ecosystem prosperity.

3. Will it evolve like the MemeCoin market?

Yes, as mentioned earlier, the actual significance of PING's existence lies in the x402scan indexer. However, it has significant issues: For example, the assets are held by a centralized entity, contradicting the original purpose of the x402 protocol to open a payment channel for the AI Agent, may not be seamlessly compatible with other x402 protocols, and lacks a unified standard for minting, transferring, burning, etc.

Therefore, following the logic of BRC20-ARC20-SRC20-Runes evolution, it is believed that many self-proclaimed more "orthodox" new "MemeCoins" will emerge.

For example, improving custody methods, changing the form of mint transaction, obtaining native protocol support, and so on. To exaggerate, even if events like the x402scan protocol exit scam or Treasury rug pull occur, they cannot stop this wave from rising. The Pandora's box has been opened!

That's all for now.

Reiterating a point, the x402 narrative explosion is inevitable, $PING has just sounded the charge, and the subsequent market evolution may bring many changes. The above sharing is for cognitive logic purposes only, not investment advice. However, there is no need to worry excessively. The upcoming excitement is worth looking forward to!

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