Limits of divisibility?

[toshiva]

Is there any limit to the divisibility of a bitcoin, in theory? Is it 'the satoshi'?

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[krishnapramod]

Is there any limit to the divisibility of a bitcoin, in theory? Is it 'the satoshi'?

A bitcoin can be divided down to 8 decimal places. Therefore, 0.00000001 BTC is the smallest amount that can be handled in a transaction. If necessary, the protocol and related software can be modified to handle even smaller amounts.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Help:FAQ#How_divisible_are_bitcoins.3F

Bitcoin is infinitely divisible, right now 8 decimals, 1 Satoshi, but in future if need arises decimal places can be added with concensus of the network.

[toshiva]

Maybe I'm missing something. How does that then align with scarcity? If there is no limit to divisibility, isn't that another way of unconstraining the supply?

[Holliday]

Maybe I'm missing something. How does that then align with scarcity? If there is no limit to divisibility, isn't that another way of unconstraining the supply?

If you cut a pie 1,000,000 times, do you have more pie than before you started cutting?

[toshiva]

Thank you, yeah, I think you're right. That's certainly true in the real world, of course! A part of my brain is telling me that the pie is getting bigger in terms of multiples of the smallest unit, where the smallest unit is in some sense the constant. I'm prepared/happy to be wrong about that though.

[Xavofat]

Thank you, yeah, I think you're right. That's certainly true in the real world, of course! A part of my brain is telling me that the pie is getting bigger in terms of multiples of the smallest unit, where the smallest unit is in some sense the constant. I'm prepared/happy to be wrong about that though.

Okay, well if you have a dollar you can spend cents, can't you?  Does that mean that you have 100 dollars?

You have a kilogram of gold.  You can carry a gram instead, can't you?  Does that mean that gold is no longer scarce?

The units are meaningless as to what the total supply is.  The important thing is that there's a limited supply of 21,000,000 x 100,000,000 spendable units, which is 21,000,000 Bitcoin.  

[skyline247]

The thing I don't understand is with transaction fees rising, what will be the minimum feasible transaction amount compared to today (where debit fees are roughly $0.25, for example)?

People are currently paying $5+ per transaction for amounts under $100 in some cases. This is absolutely ludicrous...

[jc89]

Is there any limit to the divisibility of a bitcoin, in theory? Is it 'the satoshi'?

Satoshi is the smallest unit of Bitcoin and you cannot go beyond it. So you are correct that the limit to the divisibility of Bitcoin is Satoshi wherein a Bitcoin can be divided into 1,000,000 Satoshis.

Okay, well if you have a dollar you can spend cents, can't you?  Does that mean that you have 100 dollars?

You have a kilogram of gold.  You can carry a gram instead, can't you?  Does that mean that gold is no longer scarce?

The units are meaningless.  The important thing is that there's a limited supply of 21,000,000 x 100,000,000 spendable units, which is 21,000,000 Bitcoin. 

No it is not. You cannot have 1 Bitcoin if you did not accumulate a million Satoshi. The units matters since it is the one that composes the whole.

[Xavofat]

No it is not. You cannot have 1 Bitcoin if you did not accumulate a million Satoshi. The units matters since it is the one that composes the whole.

Fine.  I'll rephrase that to "meaningless as to what the total supply is".

[pooya87]

Maybe I'm missing something. How does that then align with scarcity? If there is no limit to divisibility, isn't that another way of unconstraining the supply?

there is a limit! and that is the total of 2,100,000,000,000,000 units
the fact that it is possible to change (make 0.1 possible) doesn't mean it will change.

it will be block size all over again, the fact that we can have 1000 GB blocks doesn't mean we will have them. changing the divisibility to more than 8 decimal places will be a fork (i believe a hard fork since it is not going to be backward compatible) and will require the whole network to agree about it.