The introduction of the Ordinals protocol has led to new use cases on the Bitcoin blockchain. One of the most recent is rare satoshis, which are increasingly becoming a favorite among collectors in the Bitcoin community.
Common Sats
These are all sats that aren’t the first created on their block. Common sats make up about 99% of all satoshis and are about 2.1 quadrillion in total. They are the most common forms of sats and would ordinarily be found in everyone’s bitcoin holdings.
Uncommon
About every ten minutes, a new block is added to the Bitcoin blockchain. The first sat of each new block is known as an uncommon sat. These sats indicate the start of a new set of transactions on the blockchain.
Rare
The rate of mining new bitcoin isn’t fixed, and the network periodically adjusts itself to maintain a steady rate of one new block every ten minutes. These adjustments happen every 2016 blocks, which is after about two weeks. Rare satoshis are the first sats created when a new block is mined after a difficulty adjustment period.
Epic
An epic sat is the first satoshi to be mined within the first block of a halving epoch. Epic sats are mined right after a halving event, which occurs after 210,000 blocks, or roughly every four years. There are about 32 epic sats, which are quite significant, seeing as the halving event influences the Bitcoin network by reducing the rate at which bitcoins can be mined.
Legendary
According to Rodarmor, every six halvings on the Bitcoin network signify a major event when halving and difficulty adjustment coincide. This conjunction marks a new cycle on the network, and the first sats mined right after are known as legendary sats.
The confluence of the difficulty adjustment period and the halving is expected to happen every 24 years, with the first being in 2032.
Mythic
The Mythic sat is the first ever satoshi mined on the network’s genesis block mined in 2009. This block, created by Satoshi Nakamoto, contains an embedded message, “The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks.”, referencing the 2008 financial crisis.
