I think I've gained further insight into those 2000 LBC that were sent to Ethan.
First, for context, there's an interesting quirk about Odysee/LBRY that became clear to me when I was traversing the LBRY blockchain yesterday: usernames aren't entirely unique in the traditional sense.
https://lbry.com/faq/naming (
archive)
When you register on Odysee, you receive a "permanent" username that consists of a standard username, a pound symbol/hashtag, and then a claim ID. This is abbreviated to a "short" username, which is the standard username plus an abbreviated claim ID:
View attachment 2001959
For example, Ethan's account's short username is @theralphretort#1 (
archive).
View attachment 2001961
There is also a fake Ethan - a detractor who has posted the Dispatch video - with the short username @theralphretort#e (
archive).
View attachment 2001963
At first glance, it seems like a standard system with non-unique usernames like Discord, Blizzard, etcetera, where some additional hash at the end is used to distinguish between accounts with the same name. However, you'll note that if you navigate to @theralphretort on Odysee, you are always automatically redirected to @theralphretort#1, Real Ethan, and never @theralphretort#e, Fake Ethan, suggesting that Real Ethan has been designated the official @theralphretort. But how does the system determine that?
Odysee additionally has "channel names", which look like a permanent username but have no appended claim ID, and thus look cleaner. These are unique. But how does someone register a channel name?
View attachment 2001965
They don't, at least not directly: instead, the channel name is temporarily associated with a permanent username based on staked LBC via an ongoing bid system. You can see all accounts (with the same username proper but different claim IDs) in competition for a given channel name using Odysee's site. For example, here are the claims for @theralphretort, featuring both Real Ethan and Fake Ethan:
View attachment 2001967
https://odysee.com/$/top?name=@theralphretort (
archive)
Real Ethan is above Fake Ethan and therefore @theralphretort redirects to his account, @theralphretort#1, but if Fake Ethan had more staked LBC for enough time, he'd take it over, and Ethan would be forced to fall back to giving out his messier full username of @theralphretort#1, while @theralphretort would eventually start to link to Fake Ethan at @theralphretort#e (after a brief waiting period). According to Odysee, "[f]or every month a name is controlled, 1 day is added to the waiting period, for a maximum of 7 days (after 7 months)."
Why is this at all noteworthy?
Ethan currently has 2.2k LBC staked on his username.
View attachment 2001972
Yesterday, I showed how Ethan received a 2000 LBC donation from a wallet controlled by LBRY staff, which was sent to a wallet associated with his Odysee ID. Look how much he pulled out of that wallet right after it received the 2000 LBC from LBRY staff:
View attachment 2001969
That's right: 2.2k LBC (with a difference of <1 that he probably got from watching someone else's video).
Consider also that Fake Ethan registered his account 8 months ago:
View attachment 2001978
On the other hand, Real Ethan registered his account only 7 months ago, a month later:
View attachment 2001979
Thus, at the time Ethan signed up, Fake Ethan had control of the @theralphretort URL and the waiting period was in effect It almost seems like LBRY staff gave Ethan those funds so he could bid on @theralphretort as a channel name / vanity URL, taking it away from the a-log that grabbed it first, likely at his own belligerent demand made while seething at the waiting period.
