# Inscriptions ## What are Inscriptions? The Inscription protocol is designed to enable users to share information and perform computations on blockchain networks at significantly lower costs. It achieves this by bypassing the storage and execution features of smart contracts and instead utilizing "dummy" call data. This allows for the interpretation of simple records written to call data through an indexer, verifying asset ownership. As a result, users are empowered to mint and transfer assets with the lowest fees using ordinary call data. ## Story of Inscriptions The Bitcoin network lacks smart contracts, but the community has sought alternative methods like Ordinals and BRC-20, introducing a breath of fresh air to the network known for its high costs. This adoption of lightweight protocols for asset management started spreading to other networks. While our team made significant advancements in scalability solutions on Ethereum with the Zksync network, known for its low fees, we decided to establish the Inscriptions community on the ZkSync network and created the era-20 protocol. --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://bigint.gitbook.io/faq/bigint-inscription/inscriptions.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.