In 2019 most devs hacked a way to burn data on-chain, using OP_FALSE OP_RETURN to write data to a SPENT 0-satoshi “coin”. These can be pruned by Nodes, however, and thus are not a great solution unless further provisions are made when miners update their software and begin pruning in earnest. Why risk it? As of Genesis devs can begin pushing data on-chain using the OP_PUSHDATA scripts.

If you want a general overview of why OP_PUSHDATA is such an exciting solution, read here: https://sym.re/oavobE especially the last third of the article.

Pushing data on chain should prove to be one of the most important scripts, if not MOST important. And done correctly, it can have some other neat functionalities which help BitCoin grow in value and even clean it up. “Pruning works”– Gordon Gekko

This is something about which you can get very excited, and all begun at Genesis but will be even more well defined later this year when nChain releases TeraNode and it’s adopted by the likes of TAAL and other Nodes supporting data-on-chain.