if it's just entry in ledger then why the smalleest unit is satoshi

[cafter]

We know that bitcoin is not a coin, we just named it as a coin. instead bitcoin is a digital public ledger which is not edited or manipulated by anyone.
so why it has a smallest unit of 1 satoshi, why not less than 1 satoshi like this "0.0000000000001 BTC"? if it's a ledger then why it has a limit?
we can write anything we want in a paper ledger then why in bitcoin's case it's different?

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[UchihaSarada]

How is the 21 Million Bitcoin cap defined and enforced?
[Did you know?] Bitcoin Table of Units

I hope you can find answers in the first topic and understand more about Bitcoin units in the second topic.

[EL MOHA]

It is the same question as asking why is their no value as less than a cent (a unit of dollar currency). My answer will be because it will be useless to have such denominations. Yes you can write anything on the ledger but it must be significant so having anything less than a satoshi is pure waste, how much will be worth of it.

Satoshi as a unit was just to make investing into bitcoin easier for less rich people, instead of waiting to get a bitcoin you can purchase the units as many as you can.

0.0000000000001 BTC will be like a Milisatoshi and approximately hundred billionth of bitcoin which is definitely not reasonable considering that is worth nothing when you compare it to the price of one bitcoin

[o_e_l_e_o]

so why it has a smallest unit of 1 satoshi, why not less than 1 satoshi like this "0.0000000000001 BTC"? if it's a ledger then why it has a limit?

Satoshi is the base unit in the code. Satoshi are not defined as 0.00000001 BTC, but rather 1 Bitcoin is defined as 100,000,000 sats. Here is the code in question:

Code: (https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/8f7b9eb8711fdb32e8bdb59d2a7462a46c7a8086/src/consensus/amount.h#L15)

static constexpr CAmount COIN = 100000000;

The same is true for transactions. If you decode a transaction, all amounts are specified in satoshi, and not in bitcoin.

Since satoshi is the base unit in the code, then you cannot settle anything less than one satoshi on the base layer. If you want to use smaller units, such as millisats, then you'll need to move to Lightning.

[Faisal2202]

Because everything in the smart contract is termed as a satoshi. Your question is good and has a straightforward answer to it but if are asking why it is kept only limited to satoshi and why we can not go beyond. For example, a simple 1 sat is equal to 0.00000001 BTC. Mean there are seven zeros and then 1 comes. means there are 8 digits after decimal. That's the lowest BTC blockchain could process. If we make transactions smaller than that, then they might become dust TX.

Now, we can use LN to make transactions at the micro level. For example, in your post, you asked why we can not make a transaction of "0.0000000000001 BTC". This contains 12 zeros and then 1. This means there are 13 digits after the decimal and that makes this transaction a millisatoshi transaction and Lighting Network can process it easily. This means we can make transactions lower than the normal rate (meaning we can make micro transactions) just with the help of the Lightning network.

A lighting network can make these TX because it processes them off-chain so if the transaction is smaller than your specified one then still LN can process it and make it complete.  

[HeRetiK]

We know that bitcoin is not a coin, we just named it as a coin. instead bitcoin is a digital public ledger which is not edited or manipulated by anyone.
so why it has a smallest unit of 1 satoshi, why not less than 1 satoshi like this "0.0000000000001 BTC"? if it's a ledger then why it has a limit?
we can write anything we want in a paper ledger then why in bitcoin's case it's different?

In addition to what o_e_l_e_o said, also note that there are limitations regarding how computers store large numbers.

Bitcoin amounts for example are stored as int64, which can store numbers "only" as large as 9,223,372,036,854,775,807 (i.e. 2^63, with one of the 64 bits signifying whether the number is positive or negative). Taking your example of "0.0000000000001 BTC" and defining a Bitcoin as 10,000,000,000,000 a transaction of 1,000,000 BTC would be too large a number too handle and break the network (or more realistically probably just yield an invalid transaction). So while there would be room for more digits, there are fundamental limitations based on how a computer operates.

[franky1]

in hard real existing data of the blockchain the first block reward is numeric 5000000000 not 50... it is only displayed in software GUI as a reward of 50btc
yep BTC does not exist in blockdata. only sats do. BTC is a basket term of measurement of a lump of sats


any and all transactions are not measured in btc with decimals.. all transaction raw data on the blockchain are measured in the smallest unit(sats) protected by math and binary data in a immutable blockkchain.

EG 6.25btc. is show as:  625000000

the blockreward started in hard immutable data of binary:
100101010000001011111001000000000   (5000000000 data units) (50btc software display)
which halves to
10010101000000101111100100000000   (2500000000 data units) (25btc software display)
which halves to
1001010100000010111110010000000   (1250000000 data units) (12.5btc software display)
which halves to
100101010000001011111001000000   (6.25000000 data units) (6.25btc software display)

notice how in real immutable data the binary number loses a bit per halving to half the number


if idiots wanted to change the system so that display 6.25btc had 10 decimals
which would be:
111010001101010010100101000100000000
you will notice that the entire first part of the binary sequence has changed. but also the amount of bits change too

which in hard immutable data wont be
625000000 units created as reward, but instead
62500000000 units created

meaning if future idiot measure of
62500000000 is 6.25btc.. then the old logic measure of
625000000 become 0.0625btc

so you can see it messes up value of old amounts. and also messes around with how many shareable units are created. and also how many halvings are going to occur before supply limit completion

[bitmover]

We know that bitcoin is not a coin, we just named it as a coin. instead bitcoin is a digital public ledger which is not edited or manipulated by anyone.
so why it has a smallest unit of 1 satoshi, why not less than 1 satoshi like this "0.0000000000001 BTC"? if it's a ledger then why it has a limit?
we can write anything we want in a paper ledger then why in bitcoin's case it's different?

I have created this tools which allows you to visualize all bitcoin unit formats and interact with them

You can already see milisatoshi unit in lightning network


https://bitcoindata.science/bitcoin-units-converter.html

[franky1]

I have created this tools which allows you to visualize all bitcoin unit formats and interact with them

You can already see milisatoshi unit in lightning network

the lightning network is not the bitcoin network.. dont confuse the two..
much like people should not imagine avalance networks btc.b as being bitcoins.
rootstocks rbtc should not be treated as bitcoin.
grayscales GBTC should not be treated as bitcoin.
De-fi's WBTC should not be treated as bitcoin
exchange MySQL database should not be treated as bitcoin
nor any of the other networks that use different units of measure and pegging mechanisms..

if its not on the bitcoin network, confirmed value owned by your keys.. its not real bitcoin owned by you

[o_e_l_e_o]

This means there are 13 digits after the decimal and that makes this transaction a millisatoshi transaction and Lighting Network can process it easily.

This is inaccurate. The term "millisatoshi" doesn't just mean "anything less than a satoshi". It follows the standard International System of Units definition. One satoshi is one thousand millisatoshis. This means a millisatoshi is 0.00000000001 BTC. That's 11 digits after the decimal point, 3 more than the usual 8. Even the Lightning network won't process 13 digits after the decimal.

A lighting network can make these TX because it processes them off-chain so if the transaction is smaller than your specified one then still LN can process it and make it complete.

Whenever you close a Lightning channel, your balance will be rounded down to the nearest whole satoshi to allow the transaction to be broadcast to the main layer.