Inscription Smart Contracts

We refer to Inscription Smart Contracts to discuss the code the registries pull from the network to run on the client side. While helpful in understanding the network, the name is a misnomer since the elements inside the Inscription are significantly more secure, reliable, transparent, and scalable than traditional smart contracts. Additionally, the core user experience varies; the code that is pulled into the network for execution doesn't get executed as such, but rather, the result of the execution is passed against a verification mechanism that ensures all the involved parties have run the same code and are all trying to verify the same element. If this verification passes, it will give the nodes in the network who have correctly computed the first part access to provide a small part of the signature required to submit the state change on-chain.

The code in the inscription is commonly known as a "circuit", which boasts of a handy feature: "Verifiable Computation". This cryptographic concept enables one party, the prover, to convince another party, the verifier, that a certain computation was performed correctly without the verifier needing to redo the calculation. This is particularly useful for situations where the computation is complex or resource-intensive or, like in this case, we want to prove we executed the right code without the other party needing to trust we did it correctly or that we are not malicious.

Circuits can be written in many languages and are mostly semi-turing complete since they don't allow unbounded for-loops. Additionally, many tools can be used, from custom Redshift implementations to out-of-the-box RISC Zero. We will likely use RISC Zero with our custom bonsai software to ensure the proofs can be efficiently parallelised and executed across browsers. This benefits from leveraging existing technology, adapting it to our use cases, and significantly lowering development time and costs.