What's in a Satoshi?

[ForeverStudent]

Why is 1 satoshi the smallest division of a Bitcoin, and why is it important that 1 satoshi cannot be divided any further? Could there be a viable system where 1 coin can be divided infinite times?

[1714146294]

1714146294

[Charisse1229]

Satoshi is a bitcoin. It called satoshi when it above One Bitcoin, like in dollor, if you have one dollor, its called one dollor, and if you divide one dollor to two, it calls, cent, thats what i said in satoshi, its the same.

[lnternet]

Bitcoin is represented by a number in a PC, those numbers follow certain formats, like int or float or double. Those formats have a fixed number of decimals. The smallest decimal in Bitcoins representation is called a Satoshi.

A Satoshi is currently the smallest amount that the Bitcoin protocol can handle.

Second layer applications can use a different representation of Bitcoin which might allow Satoshis to be divided.
Bitcoin protocol might be updated in the future to allow the same.

[Carmen03]

Satoshi is a smallest fraction of a bitcoin that can currently be sent 1 BTC, that is a hundredth of a million BTC .In future ,however the protocol may be updated to allow further subdivision should they needed. It was a monetary unit .

[izzabel]

Why is 1 satoshi the smallest division of a Bitcoin, and why is it important that 1 satoshi cannot be divided any further? Could there be a viable system where 1 coin can be divided infinite times?

Satoshi is a bitcoin it is a divided of bitcoin to be an equal part to cents and token

[merlyn22]

Why is 1 satoshi the smallest division of a Bitcoin, and why is it important that 1 satoshi cannot be divided any further? Could there be a viable system where 1 coin can be divided infinite times?

satoshi is the smallest unit of bitcoin. it was a hundred million of 1 bitcoin. it can't be 1 bitcoin if missing 1 satoshi. 1.00000000 bitcoin 0.00000001 satoshi. this is how it written. like a dollar bill has penny

[Lasvista]

Why is 1 satoshi the smallest division of a Bitcoin, and why is it important that 1 satoshi cannot be divided any further? Could there be a viable system where 1 coin can be divided infinite times?

Satoshi is the smalles amount or division of a bitcoin , satoshi is like a cents something like that with out this cents we don't have a penny , satoshi is kind of important it help us to give some income or extra income to be precise.

[aardvark15]

Why is 1 satoshi the smallest division of a Bitcoin, and why is it important that 1 satoshi cannot be divided any further? Could there be a viable system where 1 coin can be divided infinite times?

One Satoshi is 0.00000001 Bitcoins. I think this is just an unofficial name for the smallest unit possible in Bitcoin. As far as the reason why a Bitcoin can only be divided down to 8 decimal places, I think that’s just the way the creators set it up. I don’t know if it could be changed at this point, but if so, it would have to come from the Bitcoin Foundation to make that determination.

[PatronRH]

A satoshi is the smallest amount a bitcoin can be devided 0.00000001 BTC. it is named after the creator of bitcoin. Now the reason bitcoin can not be devided to an infinite time is that bitcoin is coded into machines. Machines that have a maximum amount of bits
So the information coded on it must be quantified. That's you can not devide bitcoin to infinitie anount of times.

[kwabeedat]

Why is 1 satoshi the smallest division of a Bitcoin, and why is it important that 1 satoshi cannot be divided any further? Could there be a viable system where 1 coin can be divided infinite times?

well i think that's how currencies are, at least there should be a minimum. But your suggestion isn't bad though, an infinite division won't be bad. But have thought about the name we will give? give a name:)

[innocent93]

Why is 1 satoshi the smallest division of a Bitcoin, and why is it important that 1 satoshi cannot be divided any further? Could there be a viable system where 1 coin can be divided infinite times?

Well i thin k that in this world you can't find services or product with a value smaller then one satoshi, the value would be to small to matter in the economic world. It is similar with fiat.

[WHIZZ718]

To divide bitcoins an (almost) infinite number of times would require their representation as a floating point number.
If you don't know how that differs from an integer, then ask a maths teacher to point you to a book explaining real numbers.
Although computer chips from different manufacturers ought to get the same answer when subtracting one small floating point number from another, such as 0.0002 - 0.00000001, they sometimes don't quite match, due usually to different ways of rounding between a computer representation and a human readable decimal representation.  Try looking up the "Pentium Bug".

Setting a fixed 10^-8 minimum fraction allows such to be represented with integers for which all 64 bit arithmatic logic processors will get exactly the right answer.  For example 2000 satoshi - 1 satoshi = 1999 satoshi.  The purpose of bitcoin is to have worldwide money with which all the computers in the world can exactly agree that valid transactions are valid, and that fraudulent ones are not.  This can only be guaranteed by representation of bitcoin not with real numbers but with integer counting of satoshi.  It was presumably decided very early on not to count "bit cents" worth 0.01 bitcoins and use those as a minimum unit because it was not small enough for envisaged use cases such as kW-seconds electric car recharging bills.   Also real money with metal coins already struggles to make small enough metal pieces for half-penny coins, so there was no reason to copy what physical currency did.

Ask me about pegged coloured coin sidechains and sharding if you want more (possibly minority opinion) ideas for spending very tiny bitcoin quantities, possibly smaller than nanobitcoins, without clogging up the main international blockchain.

[burdagol12345]

Why is 1 satoshi the smallest division of a Bitcoin, and why is it important that 1 satoshi cannot be divided any further? Could there be a viable system where 1 coin can be divided infinite times?

In my own thought satoshi is a smallest division of bitcoin or in other world we called it a penny centavo of bitcoin,because its derived from the family name of the founder and we called the father of all bitcoin Mr.Nakamoto Satoshi.Satoshi,is smallest variable of bitcoin that so important in the world of  crypto currency especially when counting the price value of bitcoin into smallest procedure.

[Slark]

Just so you know - Satoshi is the smallest unit of Bitcoin, but that doesn't mean that this cannot be changed in the future.
If the price of Bitcoin will reach some crazy amount in 5,10,15 years - then AFAIK it is possible to divide bitcoin more
and introduce unit even smaller than one satoshi - it should be perfectly doable. Just don't expect it will happen soon, if ever.

[South Park]

Why is 1 satoshi the smallest division of a Bitcoin, and why is it important that 1 satoshi cannot be divided any further? Could there be a viable system where 1 coin can be divided infinite times?

Simple we need to have some basic unit of account, if it is needed the code of bitcoin can be changed to allow even smaller units, that is not a problem, but you need to have a limit so you can express the value of bitcoin, and it is obvious that satoshi thought that bitcoin could become really valuable in the future because even if 1 BTC was worth 1 million dollars a satoshi will be worth 1 cent.

[Feduk]

1 bitcoin is 100 000 000 satoshi (cryptocent)
So as dollar has cents, and euro has eurocents.

[alphaomega.f]

if satoshi will be divided infinite times, it will be negligible.  that's why, i think, the reason why satoshi is the smallest is because it will be nonsense to put up or name an exponential value that is lesser than satoshi because it will be so small, zero or approximately equal to zero.

[buwaytress]

Think I remember reading that "finney" was also proposed, but eventually satoshi was settled upon. A fitting tribute, I'd say. One reason I always preferred just using Bitcoin and satoshi as opposed to the mBTC and bit denomination is that... 1 satoshi would also mean one mbit. Confusing.

If you look at the wiki on Lightining Network, that was published even at least as early as mid-last year, it already made it possible to make micropayments in sub-satoshi values. Presumably, this would be something people might think about should Bitcoin reach the utopian 1 million dollar mark, since 1 satoshi would meet parity with 1 US cent OR Bitcoin becomes the standard currency no longer denominated (or at least no longer psychologically equated) in fiat value.

[johanesrobin]

1 bitcoin is 100 000 000 satoshi (cryptocent)
So as dollar has cents, and euro has eurocents.

Agree, satoshi is the smallest fraction to unify a coin's value. Bitcoin will be valuable because it consists of millions of satoshi.
it's very important everyone can get some satoshi then save it to get a bigger price.

[lyledark10]

Satoshie is a bit of bitcoins, like dollars we cents and on bitcoin we ahave satoshie. For example you 0.00030000 of bitcoins so you have 30,000 of satoshies. This is the smallest part of bitcoin.