What's a Satoshi? Check out how this smaller unit makes Bitcoin more useful in the real world.
Bitcoin (BTC 2.30%) is getting pricey these days. The oldest cryptocurrency costs $67,400 per digital coin today. That's not chump change, and the beefy price tag may keep many potential Bitcoin buyers from taking the plunge.
Fortunately, you don't have to buy a whole Bitcoin.
The currency breaks down into 100 million Satoshis. Named after the Bitcoin project's enigmatic founder, Satoshi Nakamoto, one Satoshi is worth $0.00067at today's prices.
It's like dollars and cents, except Bitcoin's cent-like unit is a much smaller portion than 1/100.
This unit is arguably more useful than the clumsy Bitcoin coin if you hope to use cryptocurrency in real-world transactions. A cheap burger could cost $6.74, or 10,000 Satoshi. For 100,000 Satoshi, you could grab a couple of pizzas for the family or maybe a concert ticket. Nice and easy.
These nice, round numbers are easier to handle than Bitcoin's. That burger would cost 0.0001 Bitcoin -- easily confused with 0.00001, which should get you only bubble gum. Using Satoshi instead of Bitcoin should lead to fewer decimal-point debates at crypto-friendly burger stands.
Bitcoin's supply line is measured in Satoshis
The Satoshi unit also limits the extent to which Bitcoin's halving rewards can be used. Bitcoin miners currently get 3.125 new Bitcoins in return for validating a data block, down from 6.5 coins earlier this year. About 500 new coins are minted every day, also down by half since the Bitcoin halving of April 2024.
The halvings are done after every 210,000 validated data blocks, which works out to an approximate four-year cycle. Somewhere around the year 2136, the 31st halving will give Bitcoin miners one Satoshi per data block. Four years later, the 32nd and final halving drops the reward below 1 Satoshi, which stops the halving process and Bitcoin inflation.
So, the final Satoshi will be issued around the year 2140, completing the limited set of 21 million Bitcoins. There are already 19.7 million coins in circulation, 93.8% of the lifetime supply. This scarcity is a big part of Bitcoin's appeal, protecting its value in the long run.
Anders Bylund has positions in Bitcoin. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bitcoin. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
FAQs
One Bitcoin is divided into 100 million satoshis. Satoshis make Bitcoin practical for small transactions, like buying a meal or a concert ticket.
How many satoshis are in 1 bitcoin? ›
There are 100,000,000 satoshis (sats) in a bitcoin. Each satoshi represents 0.00000001 BTC, making it the smallest possible unit of bitcoin.
What crypto does Motley Fool recommend? ›
Dominic Basulto has positions in Bitcoin, Ethereum, Fetch, SUI, and Solana. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bitcoin, Ethereum, Fetch, Meta Platforms, Nvidia, SUI, and Solana.
How many satoshis does the average person have? ›
A little bit of bitcoin can go a long way. Consider that there are only 21 million bitcoins that will ever exist for a global population that is nearing 8 billion. Simple math shows that the average bitcoin holding per person is about 262,500 satoshis.
How many satoshis are there in 0.00000001 BTC? ›
A satoshi is the smallest unit of Bitcoin currency. 1 satoshi = 0.00000001 BTC. satoshi is the namesake of the technical author and creator of Bitcoin, satoshi Nakamoto.
How many satoshi makes $1? ›
USD to SATOSHI
| Amount | Today at 11:30 am |
|---|
| 0.5 USD | 2.23 SATOSHI |
| 1 USD | 4.46 SATOSHI |
| 5 USD | 22.28 SATOSHI |
| 10 USD | 44.56 SATOSHI |
4 more rowsSatoshi to USD Rates (Live)
| Satoshi (sats) | Bitcoin | U.S. Dollar |
|---|
| 1 Satoshi | 0.00000001 Bitcoin | $0.000542 |
| 10 Satoshi | 0.00000010 Bitcoin | $0.00542 |
| 100 Satoshi | 0.00000100 Bitcoin | $0.0542 |
| 1,000 Satoshi | 0.00001000 Bitcoin | $0.542 |
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1 BTC is held by a little over 1 million wallets at the time of writing. The one million milestone was first reached in May 2023.
How much Bitcoin do most people own? ›
A significant majority of Bitcoin holders are small investors, as approximately 74% of Bitcoin addresses hold less than 0.01 BTC, worth around $350 as of November 6th 2023, as seen in Figure 1 below.
How much will I get if I put $1 dollar in Bitcoin? ›
1 USD equals 0.000017 BTC. The current value of 1 United States Dollar is +0.60% against the exchange rate to BTC in the last 24 hours. The current Bitcoin market cap is $1.14T. Create a free Kraken account to instantly convert USD to BTC today.
How many satoshi does it take to make a Bitcoin? ›
It is named after Satoshi Nakamoto, the Bitcoin creator(s). The satoshi to bitcoin ratio is 100 million satoshis to one bitcoin.
How many states are in one bitcoin? ›
Each Bitcoin is divisible into 100,000,000 satoshis, often abbreviated to sats. A satoshi is the atomic unit of Bitcoin. The total number of satoshis that will ever exist is 2.1 quadrillion.
What is the net worth of Satoshi Nakamoto? ›
Nakamoto owns between 750,000 and 1,100,000 Bitcoin. In November 2021, when Bitcoin reached a value of over $68,000, his net worth would have been up to $73 billion, making him the 15th-richest person in the world at the time.
Who owns the most Bitcoin? ›
So, who are the top holders of BTC? According to the Bitcoin research and analysis firm River Intelligence, Satoshi Nakamoto, the anonymous creator behind Bitcoin, is listed as the top BTC holder as of 2024. The company notes that Satoshi Nakamoto holds about 1.1m BTC tokens in about 22,000 different addresses.
How many bitcoins are left to mine? ›
According to the Bitcoin protocol, the maximum number of bitcoins that can be created is 21 million. As of March 2023, approximately 18.9 million bitcoins have been mined, meaning there are around 2.1 million bitcoins left to be mined.
How much is 0.1 Bitcoin in satoshi? ›
As of today at 5:00 PM , converting 0.1 Bitcoin (BTC) to SATS using TabTrader, based on the CoinGecko conversion rate, gives you an equivalent value of 🌐 9999617.9 SATS. The current exchange rate is 1 BTC = SAT 99,996,179 SATS, while 1 SATS equals BTC.
What is the smallest amount of Bitcoin I can buy? ›
Bitcoin FAQ
A: The minimum order size for Bitcoin on Buy/Sell is 0.00000001 BTC. Small amounts of BTC can be traded on bitFlyer.
