I always trust anything Richard Greaser writes.

What block # was it

The halving is now less than 50 blocks away and I'm not seeing an onslaught of epic memes. I assume everyone is holding them for the Zapathon / Halvathon?

Happy Halving Day 🥳

Good to hear! Had to take care of family for a bit, but everyone is doing better!

*The Rare Sat Lie*

Let's start with some facts.

You cannot own a satoshi (sat). You can only own a utxo, who's value is measured in sats. Just like you cannot own a "kilogram" but you can own something which weights a kilogram.

The idea that a sat can be rare is a lie, since sats don't exist.

A utxo also cannot be sold, because as soon as it is spent, a completely new utxo is created, and the creation of this new utxo makes the previous utxo (which you wanted to sell) spent. To act of spending "an unspent transaction output" (UTXO) transforms it into something fundamentally different, a "spent transaction output" (STXO) and creates a new UTXO.

The idea that a utxo can be sold is a lie, since even utxos cannot be sold.

The idea that a rare sat from a "special" utxo can be bought is thus a double lie.

*Rare Sat Sophistry*

The conmen, the useful idiots and the otherwise honest but contrarian pundits will rationalize the spreading of the "Rare Sat Lie" with sophistry and appeals to libertarian morality such as "it's a free market, people can believe whatever they want and waste their money however they wish".

Of course, this line of reasoning is meant to create strawmen arguments so that every person that is righteously indignated at the spreading of these lies can be painted as being opposed to the concept of individual freedon itself, which immediately places the TruthSeeker's outrage outside of the Overton Window (and subject to ridicule).

Let us dispell the strawman argument.

The "market" (a small niche of degenerate gamblers) can want whatever it wants, yes. But it till cannot change the reality that individual satoshis (sats) do not exist as "things" or virtual objects. This reality is not subjective.

The sophists will also rationalize that "it cannot be stopped" and thus all you can do is "cry harder" (ironic eh?) and that any and all attempts to combat the lies are futile (at best) or stupid.

It may be true all the truthseeker can do is cry and shout, but it is also true that to combat the spreading of such lies is a virtuous and noble pursuit. And it is also true that the direct result of the shouting can be to save a victim from otherwise being conned. Which is, we would all agree I hope, a moral good, if not a moral imperative.

People are free to spread the lie that such things ("rare" "sats") are real, and fraudulently sell utxos of low value presented as "rare" "sats" for utxos of higher value, but to do so by exploiting the ignorance of people and confusion around the complex technology of Bitcoin is evil according to nearly almost moral code that ancient and modern civilizations have produced.

I am the last person that would deny someone the right to be evil. But I believe if you see a fraud and you don't call out the fraud then you too are a fraud.

So, the strawman is really just straw.

*The Rare Sat Con*

Beyond it being morally bad to spread lies generally, the spreading of the lie also occurs within the context of textbook confidence trick.

Confidence tricks involve :

- the mark: the victims whose money is to be acquired fraudulently

- the roper: reels in the mark via exposure and marketing, peaking the curiosity of the mark (i.e. a conference or media organization)

- the inside man: provides a venue for the con to take place, or supplies goods and services used in the context of the scam (a mining pool or a marketplace)

- the conman: gains the confidence of the mark extracts the money (the seller of a rare sat)

- the convincer: an acolyte of the conman which gives a taste of the profits to the mark either by investing in the mark, or showing off his profits to the mark (a fellow rare sat trader)

The conman and the convincer can interchange roles. For example, conmen and convincers can publicly con each other repeatedly and alternatively, with gains and losses which compensate, with the tacit understanding that the goal is really to gain the confidence of a mark from which both convincer and conman can extract money from.

Everyone except benefits in this zero sum game, except obviously the mark.

In the end, the mark was never forced to give up his money. He willingly parted ways with his funds, deceived by the confidence trick.

Selling "rare sats" for utxos of higher sat value is without doubt a confidence trick.

I will let it up to your imagination who you think plays which role in the rare sat con.