Bitcoin and Satoshis:
If you already read our article Ordinals: What Are Bitcoin NFTs, you now know that Ordinals are inscribed on a satoshi, the smallest unit of Bitcoin. Bitcoin has periodic events, some frequent, some more uncommon, and these naturally lend themselves to a system of rarity for satoshis.
Let’s dive into satoshi rarity and understand why sometimes 1 satoshi (some cents) are sold for hundreds or thousands dollars.
Born of Satoshis rarity: Casey Rodarmor:
Rodarmor rarity refers to the rarity introduced by Ordinal Theory written by Casey Rodarmor. This rarity is solely based on recurring events happening on the Bitcoin Network.
Bitcoin has periodic events, some frequent, some more uncommon, and these naturally lend themselves to a system of rarity.
These periodic events are:
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Blocks: A new block is mined approximately every 10 minutes, from now until the end of time.
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Difficulty adjustments: Every 2016 blocks, or approximately every two weeks, the Bitcoin network responds to changes in hashrate by adjusting the difficulty target which blocks must meet in order to be accepted.
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Halvings: Every 210,000 blocks, or roughly every four years, the amount of new sats created in every block is cut in half.
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Cycles: Every six halvings, something magical happens: the halving and the difficulty adjustment coincide. This is called a conjunction, and the time period between conjunctions a cycle. A conjunction occurs roughly every 24 years. The first conjunction should happen some time in 2032.
This gives us the following rarity levels:
- Common
Any sat that is not the first sat of its block
- Uncommon
The first sat of each block
- Rare
The first sat of each difficulty adjustment period
- Epic
The first sat of each halving epoch
- Legendary
The first sat of each cycle
- Mythic
The first sat of the genesis block
Interesting Satoshis:
Other satoshis are not included in Rodarmor Rarity but interesting by virtue of their historical value, aesthetics of their ID, or their involvement in special transactions marking an important event for Bitcoin.
The most popular :
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Satoshis involved in the first transaction (historical value)
[Sats from the 10 BTC sent from Satoshi Nakamoto to Hal Finney in January 2009. It's the first Bitcoin transaction ever.]
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Satoshis which have a palindromic ID (aesthetic value)
[Sats whose number reads the same backward or forward]
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Satoshis involved in the famous pizza transaction (value given by their involvement in historical events) 10,000 BTC used to purchase two Papa John's pizza on May 22, 2010
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Satoshis mined by Hal Finney in block 78 (historical value)
It was the first block mined by someone other than Satoshi Nakamoto
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Satoshis mined by Satoshi Nakamoto (historical value)
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Satoshis Vintage, mined in the first 1,000 blocks (historical value)
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Satoshis from the block 9 (historical value)
The oldest circulating satoshis, unless Satoshi's wallet becomes active.
Other Interesting Satoshis:
Other rarity rankings might be defined in the future, but we can nevertheless classify all satoshis under these two categories: Rodarmor and Interesting.
Rodarmor category is fixed, while the Interesting satoshis category can grow over time with the market valuing other new types of satoshis.