How Many Satoshis Are in a Bitcoin?

Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) is getting expensive these days. The oldest cryptocurrency costs $67,400 per digital coin today. This is not an exaggerated change, and the high price tag may deter many potential Bitcoin buyers from taking the risk.

Fortunately, you don’t need to buy an entire Bitcoin.

The currency is divided into 100 million Satoshi. One Satoshi, named after Satoshi Nakamoto, the mysterious founder of the Bitcoin project, is worth $0.00067 at today’s prices.

It is like dollars and cents, except Bitcoin’s cent-like unit is much smaller than 1/100.

If you’re hoping to use cryptocurrency in real-world transactions, it’s arguably more useful than the bulky Bitcoin coin. A cheap burger might cost $6.74 or 10,000 Satoshi. For 100,000 Satoshi you can buy a few pizzas for your family or maybe a concert ticket. Nice and easy.

These nice, round numbers are easier to manipulate than Bitcoin’s. This burger costs 0.0001 Bitcoin; 0.00001 is easily confused with Bitcoin, which just gives you gumballs. Using Satoshi instead of Bitcoin will lead to fewer decimal point arguments at crypto-friendly burger stands.

Bitcoin’s supply line is measured in Satoshi

The Satoshi unit also limits the extent to which Bitcoin’s halving rewards can be redeemed. Bitcoin miners currently receive 3,125 new Bitcoins in exchange for verifying a block of data; Earlier this year, this figure was 6.5 coins. Approximately 500 new coins are minted every day; this figure has halved since the Bitcoin halving in April 2024.

Halvings occur after every 210,000 verified blocks of data, which corresponds to a cycle of approximately four years. Around the year 2136, the 31st halving will give Bitcoin miners one Satoshi per block of data. Four years later, the 32nd and final halving reduces the reward to less than 1 Satoshi, halting the halving process and Bitcoin inflation.

So, the last Satoshi will be released around 2140, completing the limited set of 21 million Bitcoins. There are already 19.7 million coins in circulation, accounting for 93.8% of the lifetime supply. This scarcity is a big part of Bitcoin’s appeal and maintains its value over the long term.

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Anders Bylund has positions in Bitcoin. The Motley Fool has positions in Bitcoin and recommends it. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

How Many Satoshi Are There in One Bitcoin? originally published by The Motley Fool