brc20 is an account based system that uses inscriptions for message publication. So to make a define token, you inscribe a json message that “deploys” the token. BRC20 uses a global unique namespace for token names. The deploy message sets the parameters for the token such as the max supply. Once a token has been defined (deployed), people can mint it by inscribing a mint message. There are brc indexers that find these inscriptions and maintain an account balance index and that updates addresses with token balances as they see mints and transfers (another message type).

What the sophon does is it scans the mempool for the “deploy” messages, and then copies the ticker (token name), sets the max supply of the token to 1, and then sends that message with a higher fee rate. So if that message gets into a block first, then that token now has a max supply of 1.

Since most inscription transactions are minting brc20 tokens, data suggests that the sophon led to a drop in onchain traffic as there were fewer tokens to mint.