{"id":16242,"date":"2023-03-09T13:03:28","date_gmt":"2023-03-09T13:03:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bitnovo.com\/blog\/?p=16242"},"modified":"2025-09-10T15:19:49","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T15:19:49","slug":"what-is-a-satoshi-the-minimum-unit-of-btc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bitnovo.com\/blog\/en\/what-is-a-satoshi-the-minimum-unit-of-btc","title":{"rendered":"What is a satoshi? The minimum unit of BTC"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_82_2 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-transparent ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<div class=\"ez-toc-title-container\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<span class=\"ez-toc-title-toggle\"><a href=\"#\" class=\"ez-toc-pull-right ez-toc-btn ez-toc-btn-xs ez-toc-btn-default ez-toc-toggle\" aria-label=\"Alternar tabla de contenidos\"><span class=\"ez-toc-js-icon-con\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #ffffff;color:#ffffff\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #ffffff;color:#ffffff\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 eztoc-toggle-hide-by-default' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bitnovo.com\/blog\/en\/what-is-a-satoshi-the-minimum-unit-of-btc\/#what_is_this_unit_of_measurement\" >What is this unit of measurement?<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bitnovo.com\/blog\/en\/what-is-a-satoshi-the-minimum-unit-of-btc\/#who_created_the_satoshis\" >Who created the Satoshis?<\/a><ul class='ez-toc-list-level-3' ><li class='ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-3\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bitnovo.com\/blog\/en\/what-is-a-satoshi-the-minimum-unit-of-btc\/#why_was_it_delayed_in_being_used_as_a_term\" >Why was it delayed in being used as a term?<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Tiempo de lectura:<\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 5<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutos<\/span><\/span><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you have basic knowledge about <strong>Bitcoin<\/strong>, you probably know what a Satoshi is. If not, don&#8217;t worry. In this article we will tell you everything you need to know about this unit of measurement. A <strong>satoshi<\/strong> is the smallest unit of account in bitcoin.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bitcoin has numerous units of measurement, however, the satoshi is the best known of them all. Surely one of your questions is <strong>how many satoshis a Bitcoin has<\/strong>. The first thing you should know is that one Bitcoin can be divided into up to<strong> 100,000,000 cents<\/strong> called satoshis. This makes it possible to have balances of up to eight decimal places in Bitcoin. This means that the minimum fraction of Bitcoin is <strong>0.00000001<\/strong>. In case you didn&#8217;t know, the minimum unit is named Satoshi in honor of Bitcoin&#8217;s creator, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bitnovo.com\/blog\/en\/who-is-satoshi-nakamoto\">Satoshi Nakamoto<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In this article we will see what a satoshi is, how much each one is worth and how much it is in a transaction. Keep reading this article to find out.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"what_is_this_unit_of_measurement\"><\/span><strong>What is this unit of measurement?<\/strong><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As mentioned above, the satoshi is the smallest unit we can record in bitcoin blockchains. To represent a satoshi we need a decimal, seven zeros and a 1, followed by one of the bitcoin tickers, which can be Bitcoin (BTC), Bitcoin SV (BSV) or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bitnovo.com\/blog\/en\/what-is-bitcoin-cash-bch\">Bitcoin Cash<\/a> (BCH). To get an idea, it would be represented like this:<strong> 0.0000000001 or 1.0 * 1.0 * 10-8 in scientific notation.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>SAT or satoshi is an increasingly prevalent term in everyday blockchain and crypto project conversations. In fact, Bitcoin mining software, such as <strong>HoneyMiner<\/strong>, pays the reward to miners in SAT. This terminology is not only present in the blockchain, but we can find it even in social networks. An example of this is the creation of the hashtag #StackingSats that is frequently used on the Twitter social network. On the other hand, the <strong>Lightning Torch<\/strong> was posted on SAT. Lightning Torch is about a scalability solution for Bitcoin that allows creating a second layer where transactions take place without having to record those transactions on the Bitcoin blockchain itself. These are just a couple of examples using this terminology, but there are many, many more.<\/p>\n<p>Since there are more and more areas in which<strong> satoshis<\/strong> are involved, it is the perfect time to learn what they are and how they work.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_15892\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-15892\" style=\"width: 768px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-15892 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bitnovo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/satoshi-portada.png\" alt=\"satoshi\" width=\"768\" height=\"526\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.bitnovo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/satoshi-portada.png 768w, https:\/\/www.bitnovo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/satoshi-portada-300x205.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-15892\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Satoshis allow to understand the current price of BTC.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"who_created_the_satoshis\"><\/span><strong>Who created the Satoshis?<\/strong><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Now you know that when we talk about Satoshis, we are referring to the unit of measurement and not to Satoshi Nakamoto, which is the<strong> pseudonym<\/strong> of the creator or creators of Bitcoin. However, the unit of measurement also dates back to the early days of Bitcoin and the BitcoinTalk forum.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The history of the SAT has its origins on <strong>November 15, 2010,<\/strong> when BitcoinTalk user Ribuck proposed that 1\/100 of a bitcoin, or <strong>0.01 BTC<\/strong>, should be called satoshi. At that time 0.01 BTC was the smallest unit that could be displayed on the interface. Ribuck&#8217;s proposal was quite original, however, no <strong>BitcoinTalk<\/strong> forum user affirmed or denied the proposal.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It should be noted that at first Ribuck&#8217;s comment may have seemed out of place, as it was in the thread of a poll voting on the best Unicode character for bitcoin. The chat was not at all related to <strong>units of account<\/strong> and that may have caused it not to be <strong>taken seriously.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ribuck joined the Unicode thread with the following question: what is the plan to subdivide Bitcoins, do we go in thousands like the metric system (<strong>millibits, microbits, nanobits<\/strong>)? Nobody answered the question and finally the proposal was lost in the forum despite being very good. However, three months later, specifically on February 10, 2011, Ribuck again posted a similar comment regarding denominations of units of account. This time the thread <strong>Ribuck<\/strong> had entered was more appropriate, as it was titled: \u00abMore divisibility needed &#8211; move the decimal point\u00bb.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The response to <strong>Ribuck&#8217;s<\/strong> proposal in the thread got feedback eight days later, in an entirely new topic titled \u00ab<strong>Bitcent<\/strong>.\u00bb In this new thread, a user named Kolbas on BitcoinTalk decided that it was imperative to start talking about smaller monetary units recorded on the bitcoin blockchain. Kolbas commented on Ribuck&#8217;s proposal with the following response, <strong>\u00ab1 satoshi = 1 microbitcent (smallest denomination), 100 million satoshis = 1 bitcoin. do we agree?\u00bb<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It was only a matter of time before a user confirmed the new unit of measurement idea with the word \u00abyes\u00bb and after this thread, the satoshi was born as a unit of measurement. Officially, <strong>0.0000000001,<\/strong> the smallest unit that could be recorded on the bitcoin <strong>blockchain<\/strong>, became known as satoshi from that moment on.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_15902\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-15902\" style=\"width: 768px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-15902 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bitnovo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/satosi-leyenda3.png\" alt=\"satoshi\" width=\"768\" height=\"526\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.bitnovo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/satosi-leyenda3.png 768w, https:\/\/www.bitnovo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/satosi-leyenda3-300x205.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-15902\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Bitcoin&#8217;s smaller size allows for great advances in the use of BTC.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"why_was_it_delayed_in_being_used_as_a_term\"><\/span><strong>Why was it delayed in being used as a term?<\/strong><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As you know, satoshi became part of the blockchain lexicon and in the crypto industry lexicon in 2011, however, it did not become popular until recently. More and more users are talking about <strong>SAT<\/strong> or satoshis in podcasts, cryptocurrency campaigns or hashtags like #<strong>StackingSats<\/strong>, but why now?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">One of the reasons given by Chris Mezzacappa, who is the <strong>CEO of bitConsult<\/strong>, a bitcoin consulting firm, is that this may be due to price trends. In the past, there was an emphasis on \u00abmoving the decimal\u00bb due to price variation. However, even if the price did not show that much change, it is unlikely that most BTC transactions would be worth more than <strong>0.01 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bitnovo.com\/blog\/en\/what-is-bitcoin\">BTC<\/a><\/strong>. The bitConsult CEO said he was not sure if satoshis are the ideal BTC figure, but if the industry switches to satoshis as the unit of measurement for BTC it could become the most common measurement.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is no less true that as consumers we are used to buying products with prices that are easy to read and use as integers. The problem came from the Bitcoin price increase when <strong>5 \u20ac<\/strong> became <strong>0.0002464 BTC<\/strong>. On the other hand, if we read this price in sats it would be 25,506 Satoshi (at the time of writing this article). It is not as round figure as euros, but it is easier to read than so many decimals in BTC.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Most users abhor working with <strong>fractions and decimals<\/strong>. If the value of products are set only in BTC, it is very likely that merchants can confuse consumers at checkout. Clearly, <strong>SAT<\/strong> is here to stay, and it is becoming increasingly evident.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Tiempo de lectura:<\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 5<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutos<\/span><\/span>If you have basic knowledge about Bitcoin, you probably know what a Satoshi is. If not, don&#8217;t worry. In this article we will tell you everything you need to know about this unit of measurement. A satoshi is the smallest unit of account in bitcoin. Bitcoin has numerous units of measurement, however, the satoshi is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15898,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[165],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cryptocurrencies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bitnovo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bitnovo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bitnovo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bitnovo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bitnovo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16242"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bitnovo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16242\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24489,"href":"https:\/\/www.bitnovo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16242\/revisions\/24489"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bitnovo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bitnovo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bitnovo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bitnovo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}