Are there really only 21 million Bitcoins or do we consider the divisible pieces

[Luckybit]

The math says there are 21 million Bitcoins that can ever exist.  But Bitcoin is divisible into 100 million pieces, so actually there is 100 million Bitcoins?

I'm not a genius with fractions so can someone help me out and tell me what people will be trading in 10 years if not whole coins anymore?

[Chris Acheson]

The little pieces of each bitcoin are referred to as "satoshis". There are 100 million satoshis per bitcoin, so up to about 2.1 quadrillion satoshis can exist.

When people talk about "buying a bitcoin", they're just using that as shorthand for "buying 100 million satoshis". People don't usually actually trade whole numbers of bitcoins. For example, today I sent 1.12952196 BTC (or 112,952,196 satoshis) from my MtGox account to my Electrum wallet.

Other shorthand labels that people use include:

• Bitcent - 0.01 BTC, or 1 million satoshis
• Millibitcoin (mBTC) - 0.001 BTC, or 100 thousand satoshis
• Microbitcoin (uBTC) - 0.000001 BTC, or 100 satoshis

In general, people will use whichever labels they find convenient.

[fractal5]

The math says there are 21 million Bitcoins that can ever exist.  But Bitcoin is divisible into 100 million pieces, so actually there is 100 million Bitcoins?

I'm not a genius with fractions so can someone help me out and tell me what people will be trading in 10 years if not whole coins anymore?

The 100,000,000 pieces are called Satoshi.
So there are 21,000,000 Bitcoins times 100,000,000 Satoshis for a total of 2,100,000,000,000,000 Satoshi. (2.1 Quadrillion units total)

[Luckybit]

The little pieces of each bitcoin are referred to as "satoshis". There are 100 million satoshis per bitcoin, so up to about 2.1 quadrillion satoshis can exist.

When people talk about "buying a bitcoin", they're just using that as shorthand for "buying 100 million satoshis". People don't usually actually trade whole numbers of bitcoins. For example, today I sent 1.12952196 BTC (or 112,952,196 satoshis) from my MtGox account to my Electrum wallet.

Other shorthand labels that people use include:

• Bitcent - 0.01 BTC, or 1 million satoshis
• Millibitcoin (mBTC) - 0.001 BTC, or 100 thousand satoshis
• Microbitcoin (uBTC) - 0.000001 BTC, or 100 satoshis

In general, people will use whichever labels they find convenient.

My concern is what happens to all the people who failed to get into the Bitcoin buying in time? If I want to use my Bitcoin to give a person a job when they live in the USA and the Bitcoin is now worth $100,000 USD then that would be a years salary? It's hard to even fathom.

[DeathAndTaxes]

If a BTC is $100K almost nobody will be trading in Bitcoins.  A ton of gold is ~$46M.  Obviously nobody buys gold because you can't buy a ton for less than $46M.  Oh wait they do buy gold just in smaller chunks like an ounce or a gram.   

If BTC is worth $100K USD then a mBTC is worth $100 and a uBTC is worth $0.10.  What a deal you can get a "whole" microBTC for just $0.10.  You should buy some now maybe someday they will be worth more than a buck.

[rouf553]

The math says there are 21 million Bitcoins that can ever exist.  But Bitcoin is divisible into 100 million pieces, so actually there is 100 million Bitcoins?

I'm not a genius with fractions so can someone help me out and tell me what people will be trading in 10 years if not whole coins anymore?

It is not possible to create more than 21 million bitcoin.

[Luckybit]

If a BTC is $100K almost nobody will be trading in Bitcoins.  A ton of gold is ~$46M.  Obviously nobody buys gold because you can't buy a ton for less than $46M.  Oh wait they do buy gold just in smaller chunks like an ounce or a gram.   

If BTC is worth $100K USD then a mBTC is worth $100 and a uBTC is worth $0.10.  What a deal you can get a "whole" microBTC for just $0.10.  You should buy some now maybe someday they will be worth more than a buck.

Which site is selling MicroBTC?

[Mylon]

If a BTC is $100K almost nobody will be trading in Bitcoins.  A ton of gold is ~$46M.  Obviously nobody buys gold because you can't buy a ton for less than $46M.  Oh wait they do buy gold just in smaller chunks like an ounce or a gram.   

If BTC is worth $100K USD then a mBTC is worth $100 and a uBTC is worth $0.10.  What a deal you can get a "whole" microBTC for just $0.10.  You should buy some now maybe someday they will be worth more than a buck.

Which site is selling MicroBTC?

I am, 12 eurocent each (that 0.02 is txn cost )

[schizoid]

If a BTC is $100K almost nobody will be trading in Bitcoins.

If transactions less than $1000 are considered spam and require a minimum $50 transaction fee, then yeah, almost nobody will be trading in Bitcoins.

[Mylon]

If a BTC is $100K almost nobody will be trading in Bitcoins.

If transactions less than $1000 are considered spam and require a minimum $50 transaction fee, then yeah, almost nobody will be trading in Bitcoins.

This is the best part, due to no central agency controlling this currency, I can still send you one Satoshi, without paying any fee, it just takes a couple of days to get confirmed, depending on the amount of miners.

Whenever there is any decision made on bitcoin, more then 50% agrees. Due to this, only decisions that will profit everyone will be accepted. For this reason they also put advised txn fee in percentages rather than in fixed numbers. (ok a lot of Wallets still allow input per numbers) And at the same time, you can still send transactions without fee, they just take longer to get integrated into blocks. Knowing how the internet works, and how people on the internet work... I never see a majority of people voting against banning free payments to your own friends. (even if due to that the payment takes a bit longer)

Keep in mind, that at some point, the miners need to be fully paid from txn fees, so we will need a lot of txns, all giving a tiny bit, to be able to support the miners. (to keep bitcoin safe)

[schizoid]

If a BTC is $100K almost nobody will be trading in Bitcoins.

If transactions less than $1000 are considered spam and require a minimum $50 transaction fee, then yeah, almost nobody will be trading in Bitcoins.

This is the best part, due to no central agency controlling this currency, I can still send you one Satoshi, without paying any fee, it just takes a couple of days to get confirmed, depending on the amount of miners.

I stand corrected. If transactions less than $1000 are considered spam and require a minimum $50 transaction fee, or take days to confirm, then yeah, almost nobody will be trading in Bitcoins.

Keep in mind, that at some point, the miners need to be fully paid from txn fees, so we will need a lot of txns, all giving a tiny bit, to be able to support the miners. (to keep bitcoin safe)

Yeah, but at this point miners are being paid half a million bucks a day. I think that's safe enough.