<p>It's important to note that there's no such thing as individual sats in the Bitcoin protocol. Bitcoin transactions spend and create transaction outputs of specific amounts, but there is no distinction of individual satoshis in a transaction output unless you apply some arbitrary social convention. Ordinal theory is one such convention and by far the most used, but it's just as valid as any other convention. A &quot;rare&quot; sat (which ordinal theory defines as the first output sat of a coinbase transaction) can end up in completely different unspent transaction outputs based on the convention you apply.</p>
<p>There are several ways to find out if a transaction output or address contains a &quot;rare&quot; sat according to ordinal theory:</p>
<ul>
<li>Follow the <a href="https://docs.ordinals.com/guides/sat-hunting.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Sat Hunting</a> guide on the Ordinals website. This will require you to run the <a href="https://github.com/ordinals/ord" rel="nofollow noreferrer">ord</a> utility alongside a Bitcoin Core node. It's the most trustless and private way but requires a lot of disk space for the blockchain, txindex and ord index.</li>
<li>Download the <a href="https://ordinals.com/rare.txt" rel="nofollow noreferrer">rare.txt</a> file from the Ordinals website and check all the listed unspent transaction outputs. This requires trusting the website that the file is genuine and up-to-date.</li>
<li>There are online explorers where you simply paste an address and they tell you if it contains a rare sat. This not only requires you to trust their response but also leaks the specific addresses you look up (alongisde your IP address if you don't use Tor or a VPN).</li>
</ul>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-03-25T12:52:41.837Z
Ok thanks, 

I don't understand ordinal theory at all. I'm trying to understand from a technical perspective but it seems like it's totally arbitrary
user2880722
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-03-25T13:43:47.770Z
You can read the [proposed BIP](https://github.com/ordinals/ord/blob/master/bip.mediawiki) if you want to know the exact algorithm by which ordinals are transferred in a transaction. But yes, it's simply an arbitrary convention.
Vojtěch Strnad
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-03-24T10:16:24.840Z
2024-03-24T10:16:24.840Z
Vojtěch Strnad
<p>so the concept of &quot;rare sats&quot; came up in conversation today and I am curious how one would check whether a sat is &quot;rare&quot; or not.</p>
<p>regardless of whether you think the idea is dumb or not, I'm just curious how to even view the level of detail needed for individual sats</p>

<satoshi><ordinals>
How can I programmatically view individual sats?
user2880722
# How can I programmatically view individual sats?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2024-03-24)

so the concept of "rare sats" came up in conversation today and I am curious how one would check whether a sat is "rare" or not.

regardless of whether you think the idea is dumb or not, I'm just curious how to even view the level of detail needed for individual sats

**Tags:** satoshi, ordinals


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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2024-03-24. Score: 1

It's important to note that there's no such thing as individual sats in the Bitcoin protocol. Bitcoin transactions spend and create transaction outputs of specific amounts, but there is no distinction of individual satoshis in a transaction output unless you apply some arbitrary social convention. Ordinal theory is one such convention and by far the most used, but it's just as valid as any other convention. A "rare" sat (which ordinal theory defines as the first output sat of a coinbase transaction) can end up in completely different unspent transaction outputs based on the convention you apply.

There are several ways to find out if a transaction output or address contains a "rare" sat according to ordinal theory:

* Follow the [Sat Hunting](https://docs.ordinals.com/guides/sat-hunting.html) guide on the Ordinals website. This will require you to run the [ord](https://github.com/ordinals/ord) utility alongside a Bitcoin Core node. It's the most trustless and private way but requires a lot of disk space for the blockchain, txindex and ord index.
* Download the [rare.txt](https://ordinals.com/rare.txt) file from the Ordinals website and check all the listed unspent transaction outputs. This requires trusting the website that the file is genuine and up-to-date.
* There are online explorers where you simply paste an address and they tell you if it contains a rare sat. This not only requires you to trust their response but also leaks the specific addresses you look up (alongisde your IP address if you don't use Tor or a VPN).

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: Ok thanks,   I don't understand ordinal theory at all. I'm trying to understand from a technical perspective but it seems like it's totally arbitrary  
> **username_1**: You can read the [proposed BIP](https://github.com/ordinals/ord/blob/master/bip.mediawiki) if you want to know the exact algorithm by which ordinals are transferred in a transaction. But yes, it's simply an arbitrary convention.  

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