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What is a satoshi, and why price anything in them?

basics27 Aug 20264 min read

Pricing in whole bitcoin makes everyday amounts look like decimals with too many zeros. Sats fix that — and they are the unit this board runs on.

What is a satoshi?

A satoshi, or sat, is the smallest unit of bitcoin: one hundred-millionth of one BTC. Bitcoin's protocol has always counted in satoshis internally; 'one bitcoin' is just a display convention.

one bitcoin

100,000,000 sats

And 21 million BTC means 2.1 quadrillion sats will ever exist

How do you convert sats to dollars?

Divide the bitcoin price by 100,000,000 to get the dollar value of one sat. The live ticker at the top of this site shows the current price and how many sats a dollar buys right now.

Why price a leaderboard in sats rather than BTC?

  • Bids stay readable — whole numbers instead of eight decimal places.
  • A one-sat boost is a real, meaningful minimum.
  • The unit is fixed in supply, so amounts stay comparable across years.

Does thinking in sats change behaviour?

It tends to. Denominating in sats makes the fixed supply visible in everyday numbers instead of hiding it behind a fiat conversion, which is exactly why this board keeps score that way.

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