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What is a Satoshi? How many Satoshi is one Bitcoin & what is its value?

One of the most common question Bitcoin newbies have is can I buy less than one Bitcoin? Yes, Ever heard the term Satoshi or Sat. People often refer to buying a fraction of BTC as Stacking Sats.

At the time of writing this article the price of 1 Bitcoin was around 6500 $USD and as of June 2023; 1 BTC = $30000. The value of Bitcoin lies in basic economics: utility, scarcity, supply and demand. Bitcoin supply is capped that is only 21 million Bitcoins will ever exist. With such low supply not everybody can own 1 Bitcoin and due to such high value it practically needs to be broken down in order to conduct smaller transactions.

Just like how 1 USD can be divided into 100 cents and 1 euro cent (€0.01) has a value of one hundredth (1/100) of a Euro; Bitcoin can also be subdivided into smaller units. So how many units are there in a Bitcoin and what is the smallest denomination of Bitcoin called? A Bitcoin can be subdivided in to 100,000,000 bits and all these units are measured in Satoshis.

So now what is a satoshi (unit) and how to calculate satoshi prices in USD, EUR and other Fiat currencies?

What is Satoshi in Bitcoin?

Bitcoin satoshisA Bitcoin is divisible to the eighth decimal (1.00000000 bits) which means each BTC can be split into 100,000,000 pieces. A Satoshi is a one hundred millionth of a Bitcoin (0.00000001) and is currently the smallest unit of Bitcoin.

1 Satoshi is equal to 0.00000001 BTC

1 Bitcoin (BTC) = 100,000,000 Satoshis = 10^8 Satoshis

Why it is called Satoshi?

Bitcoin only had two official units. 1. Bitcoin in short called as BTC and 2. Satoshi in short called as Sat and the plural form is Satoshis which is often abbreviated as Sats.

This unit (0.00000001 ฿) was named satoshi in order to honor the original creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto. Apart from Satoshi, many from the Bitcoin community proposed to call the second smallest denomination of Bitcoin as “Finney”. 1 Finney is equal to 10 Satoshi which would be 0.00000010 BTC. The name Finney, is a reference to Hal Finney who is a computer scientist and also an early Bitcoin user who received the first BTC transaction from the creator, Satoshi Nakamoto.

While Sat is officially the smallest unit there is also “millisatoshi” which is one thousandth of a satoshi or one hundred billionths of one Bitcoin.

Bitcoin units are commonly expressed in decimal exponents such as BTC, mBTC, μBTC etc. Due to high value; transaction involving a whole Bitcoin is not so common and you may wonder how to call 0.01 BTC or 0.001 BTC. The table below has all the common units of Bitcoin, their values in sats and their naming conventions.

Bitcoin units and denominations

Unit Abbreviation Value in Satoshis Decimal (BTC)
Maximum Supply 2.1e+15 20,999,999.97690 ฿
Mega Bitcoin MBTC 1e+14 1,000,000 ฿
Kilo Bitcoin kBTC 100,000,000,000 1,000 ฿
Initial Block Reward 5,000,000,000 50 ฿
Deca Bitcoin daBTC 1,000,000,000 10 ฿
Bitcoin BTC 100,000,000 1 ฿
Deci Bitcoin dBTC 10,000,000 0.10000000 ฿
Centi Bitcoin (Bitcent) cBTC 1,000,000 0.01000000 ฿
Milli Bitcoin mBTC 100,000 0.00100000 ฿
10k Sats 10,000 0.00010000 ฿
1000 Sats 1,000 0.00001000 ฿
Micro Bitcoin (1 Bit) μBTC 100 0.00000100 ฿
Finney 10 0.00000010 ฿
Satoshi Sat 1 0.00000001 ฿
Milli Satoshi mSat 0.001 0.00000000001 ฿

More units: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Units

Buying 1 Sat

Today Bitcoin has such a high value that most transactions only involves a fractional amounts of BTC. With 21 million max supply we have 2.1 quadrillion (2,100,000,000,000,000) units of Bitcoin. So basically  everyone can own a small fraction of a Bitcoin. But how about buying 1 satoshi?

The smallest value currently supported by the Bitcoin network is Satoshi. It is the common unit used to display fine fraction of Bitcoin such as to calculate transaction fees etc. We also have millisatoshi but sending or receiving fraction of satoshi is not supported by the network since it has no value yet.

Even a satoshi has very little value at the moment and it is not practical to buy 1 sat exactly due to exchange limitations and high Bitcoin fees. But at low price you can buy a relatively small amount of BTC. For example in Binance the world’s largest crypto exchange the minimum amount that you can use to buy Bitcoin is $10 USD or €10 EUR.

Update: Thanks to Lightning network and Decentralized protocols that allows you to buy or sell Bitcoin as little as $1.

At the time of writhing this article (October 2018) 1 Euro is worth approximately 17,717 satoshi and 1 USD is worth 15,373 satoshi. Now with current Bitcoin rate (July 2023) 1 Euro is worth approximately 3,413 satoshi and 1 USD is worth 3,325 satoshi.

If 1 Bitcoin is valued at 1 Million USD then the price of 1 satoshi will be equivalent to 0.01 USD. For 1 satoshi to equal 1 USD the price of Bitcoin should be 100,000,000 USD.

Note: The above is just to give a basic idea on evaluating satoshi. 1 satoshi = 1 USD is not realistic at all.

How to calculate the price of a satoshi? BTC, USD, EUR

Bitcoin is mainly traded in USD and EUR. But not all altcoins are paired directly with USD and EUR. Most altcoins uses Bitcoin as base currency to trade and the price of these altcoins are usually specified in satoshis. So whether you are trading Bitcoin or Altcoin you must learn to trade in satoshi prices and for that it is essential that you know the value of Satoshi.

Altcoin satoshis

For example in 2018: To Buy 1 Monero (XMR) from exchange you have to pay 0.01618751 BTC = 1618751 Sats which at that particular time was priced at $104.40 USD.

By looking at the price of Bitcoin you can manually calculate the satoshi value. But you must note that the value of Bitcoin is not stable. As Bitcoin price keeps changing the value of satoshi also differs. Due to high fluctuating rate of Bitcoin and fiat money printers calculating the price of satoshis or manually converting satoshi to BTC and other currencies can be a complex task.

To calculate the exact amount and to value satoshi precisely we have Satoshi to Bitcoin, USD & EUR converter. Not just USD and EUR but it also supports other fiat currency pairs. It makes the conversion simpler and moreover it gives you accurate conversion rates.

Satoshi price calculator

This is a free tool and more information on how to calculate satoshi price can be found in that page.

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We are crypto enthusiasts and our main intention with Coin Guides is to educate people about Cryptocurrency and Blockchain technology. We regularly publish content about Bitcoin, Ethereum, Altcoins, wallet guides, mining tutorials and trading tips.

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