No Smart Contract Required

The Ethereum Way

On Ethereum, storing data typically means:

1. Write a Solidity contract

2. Deploy it (gas fees)

3. Call a function to store data (more gas)

4. Pay per byte stored

5. Maintain the contract

// Traditional approach
contract MessageBoard {
    event Message(address indexed sender, string content);

    function post(string memory content) public {
        emit Message(msg.sender, content);  // Still costs gas!
    }
}

The Obsidian Way

A Message is a signed data payload submitted to Obsidian. Unlike transactions, messages do not invoke the EVM or execute smart contract logic.

await provider.send("eth_sendMessageBlob", [
  {
    from: myAddress,
    data: "0x" + Buffer.from("Hello world").toString("hex"),
    signature: sig,
    nonce: nonceHex,
    chainId: "0x1a5",
  },
]);

That's it. No contract. No deployment. No per-byte gas.

Why This Matters

Factor	Smart Contract	Native Messages
Setup time	Hours/days	Minutes
Deployment cost	High	None
Per-message cost	Gas fees	Free or bid
Complexity	Solidity knowledge	Just sign & send
Auditability	Contract bugs possible	Protocol-level

When to Use Each

Use Native Messages For:

• Social content

• Attestations

• Public records

• Any "store and retrieve" data

Use Smart Contracts For:

• Complex logic

• Token transfers

• DeFi operations

• Anything needing computation

Obsidian gives you both options. Use the right tool for the job.