@ Dikaios1517
2025-05-19 19:39:54
The argument is that it IS broken. I disagree with the argument, but let me see if I can steel-man it.
1 Bitcoin = 100,000,000 sats is broken because...
First, the protocol itself has no idea what a "Bitcoin" or "sats" are. As far as the protocol is concerned, the only thing it knows about is that there will never be more than 2.1 quadrillion units. That being the case, if we are going to call the protocol "Bitcoin," then the units the protocol uses should be called "bitcoins." 1 Bitcoin or 1 sat are concepts completely foreign to the protocol itself.
Second, the idea of a Bitcoin not being just 1 base unit of the protocol is confusing to new users. Sure, they can understand how there are dollars and there are cents, and that 1 dollar being made up of 100 cents is roughly the same concept as 1 Bitcoin being made up of 100,000,000 sats, but they won't understand why it is useful to have such a massive difference in unit size. 1 dollar only has 100 cents, not 100,000,000 cents. 1 Bitcoin could have just as easily been defined as 100 sats, and that would make a lot more sense to folks. As it is, though, we know that we will have more divisibility (millisats) on layers above the base chain. So why not make the switch now to calling the base units of the protocol "bitcoins" and decide to call fractions of that unit, used on transactional layers above the base chain, something else?
Third, because a "Bitcoin" is over $100,000 these days, there is a unit bias that has caused many people to decide, "It's too expensive for me to ever even own 1 Bitcoin, so I may as well buy some of these other cryptos that I can own a lot more of, and if they even become HALF as valuable as Bitcoin, I will be rich!" These folks would be far more likely to purchase Bitcoin instead of crypto if 1 Bitcoin was a fraction of a cent, and they felt like they could get 955 Bitcoins for just $1, instead of only getting 0.00000955.
Fourth, as Bitcoin moves into being used as a medium of exchange, almost no-one is going spend 100,000,000+ units in a single transaction, like they did in the old days. There will be no need for wallets to show balances of X number of Bitcoins when 100,000,000 sats is such unheard of wealth that the only entities that have enough to own a full Bitcoin are nation-states, large corporations, and the uber-rich. Instead, wallets will ONLY show X number of the base unit (currently called sats), and perhaps a decimal place with fractions of that unit behind it. If no one is spending a whole Bitcoin anymore, then the concept of that unit ceases to be of any use. It would be a shame if we lost the use of the term "Bitcoin" to refer to the asset simply because no one ever spent that much of it anymore.
Finally, it's only really the OGs and Bitcoin-geeks who actually know what sats are. The vast majority of people who have bought Bitcoin have no idea about them. Phasing out the term makes sense for the future of Bitcoin and will only really upset a couple hundred thousand people who even know that sats exist at all, so the term is really serving no other purpose than to be a barrier to understanding Bitcoin for new adopters. We should be trying to remove as many such barriers as possible, so that as many regular folks start buying as possible before the nation-states and large corporations start buying in earnest, making it harder and harder for the average Joe to build up any meaningful amount.
Now, even though I disagree with changing the term at this time, I do think a lot of these arguments have merit, and it may very well be that we stop referring to 100,000,000 units as 1 Bitcoin in the future, as it becomes more and more rare for anyone to own that much, and we are transacting more and more in Bitcoin as we move into medium-of-exchange phase.
For now, though, I think it is critically important to maintain the one thing that the vast majority of people who have heard anything about Bitcoin are aware of, even if they don't own any: There will never be more than 21 million Bitcoin.
If we flip that script now, it damages the fixed supply narrative too much to outweigh the benefits, in my opinion, and the reliably enforced fixed supply is THE key feature of Bitcoin. Going from only 21 million Bitcoin to 2.1 quadrillion will be understood (incorrectly) as a MASSIVE supply increase, shattering any confidence that Bitcoin's supply can't be changed outside of those who actually understand how the protocol works and that the supply wasn't changed whatsoever. Therefore, we should hold off and let the change in how we refer to sats vs Bitcoin happen on its own, if it happens at all.