

Unpopular opinion: No need for satoshi symbol. Stick with Bitcoin, BTC, and ₿.

What’s being debated is really a deflation-driven re-denomination, but there is lots of precedence for inflation-driven re-denominations:

  • New Franc (France),

  • New Peso (Mexico),

  • New Shekel (Israel),

  • New Lira (Turkey),

  • New Taiwan Dollar,

  • Brazil’s many interesting new-denominations,

  • probably many more I’m unfamiliar with.

In a world where satoshis / sats are a useful pricing denomination, it would be clear from context whether denomination is “sats” (new) or “Bitcoin” (old) since there’s eight orders of magnitude difference.

During times of transition (now) there is confusion, but trying to introduce a new named “currency” (since it has a symbol) will only increase that confusion.

Also, I think it’s unclear whether the future “new Bitcoin” denomination should be sats vs bits/μBTC vs mBTC, and if either of the latter are the case, the sats denomination is all the more confusing.

Another analogy would be stock splits. When a company does a e.g. 7:1 stock split, it doesn’t get a new symbol.

My bias is that Bitcoin should be simple for new users and general public, and a new symbol for “sats” feels like a re-branding that dilutes mindshare and increases confusion.

That’s why I think successful re-denominations and stock-splits are useful analogies. As are the perils of re-branding consumer products, with the opposite implication.

Think the best counter-argument (to this unpopular opinion) is that the general public has lots of experience with fractional denominations, with the Latin-derived “cent” being the most common. But even here I think there is trouble because:

  1. While the general public is aware cents, in many countries there are fractional denominations which are only used by specialists and don’t have a symbol. For example in the US the lowest denomination established by law is the “mill” which is one-tenth of a cent and one-thousandth of a USD. Aren’t sats (especially now) more like these specialist denominations?

  2. In most countries, the general public does not use a symbol for “cent”, which is sometimes ¢, and instead just abbreviates the word (“25c.”) or uses a decimal in written contexts (“0.25”).

For everyone passionate about adoption and use of sats, I think it makes more sense to just use “s.” (as an analogue to cents) when working with sats (adding BTC / ₿ if unclear whether you’re talking about Bitcoin), and as Bitcoin use transitions to a new base denomination (whether it is mBTC, bits, or sats), that can become “new Bitcoin” (consensus-driven re-denomination).

EDIT: typos

91% Upvoted
What are your thoughts? Log in or Sign uplog insign up
level 1

I think using Satoshis is easier, because 0.00052BTC ($2 value) is hard to say, write and understand. Saying 52,000 (or 52K) Satoshis is much easier and less error prone.

level 2
37 points · 2 months ago

Agree. Bits and Sats are the future of transactional dialogue.

If I want to say that you owe me a dollar in bitcoin speak it's gonna be...

BTC/USD is $4,000

  • 0.00025 BTC

  • 0.25 mBTC

  • 250 Bits

  • 25,000 Sats

level 3

250bits = 250 kilosats

a single denominator, namely sats would be better imho

level 3
17 points · 2 months ago

Aka 31.25 bytes

level 3

How would you pronounce them in slang?

  • 25 hundred-thousands of Bitcoin

  • quarter of miliBitcoin (since it's not quarter of bitcoin, you can just say "a quarter")

  • 250 Bits

  • 25 kilo Sats/ 25 K Sats

I think it's important to think about slang too. Now you have a quarter for $0.25. I've heard people say 25 [pee] for pennies. These are logical shortcuts though.

In my country, hundreds are referred to as kilo and thousands are referred to as liters somehow. So when you say "You owe me 2 kilo" you actually say "you owe me 200 CZK" and similarly when you say "you owe me 2 liters" you really say "you owe me 2000 CZK". But when you say K instead of Kilo, it means thousands again - "you owe me 2K" = "you owe me 2000 CZK". Fiver actually means 10 CZK instead of 5, but tenner is still 10 CZK. So slang is important and confusing, but it will probably emerge on it's own.

Does actually any slang exist for Bitcoins already?

level 4

Twenty-five kay-sats, or simply twenty-five kays, speaks pretty well.

level 5

I like kay-sats as well

level 6

Let's RP.

I'm buying lunch. It's $10. Today's BTC spot price is $4000. The price of our meal is 10 / 4000 * 100,000,000.

Me: "I'd like a burger meal, please."

Cashier: "That'll be $10."

M: "May I pay in Bitcoin?"

C: "Certainly, that'll be 250 kay-sats." (250ksat prints on screen)

M: "Thanks!" (pays via NFC)

C: (Hands me receipt)

M: (Eats tasty burger)

level 7

pays via NFC

Is that a thing yet? I was planning to make it, but I haven't figured out how to make the terminal trustless without the need for you to confirm the transaction on your phone (if using just a smart card or any other passive device).

I haven't researched the terminals yet, but I guess if we were to trust the terminals, it would require just a modification of the current software. If we were not, we'd have to make a custom one.

I remember seeing that in parallel polis you can pay with NFC implants, but their solution combines both problems - it requires trust while also being custom built.

level 8

Just looking through my phone and it seems Mycelium supports NFC payment requests under the Receive function.

level 9

Ah, neat

level 10

Yeah, I think you were thinking more along the lines of using an NFC card, perhaps?

As much as I like my cards, I wouldn't mind getting rid of them and just using the phone. It takes about the same amount of time to snap a QR code or do an NFC and verify the tx as it does waiting for the machine to read the chip on my card.

level 4

Does actually any slang exist for Bitcoins already?

No because cool kids aren't using it yet. XD

level 5

Nah, you're wrong. Only cool kids use bitcoins. Also, cool kids call things by their designated names and not inventing new ones :D

I guess HODL can be considered a slang?

level 6

lol, #hodlgang says yes.

level 3

Why not just stick with satoshis/bitcoins?

"Bit" have a several meaning already, why add another? Sure, it can be done and people can handle it, but why introduce ambiguity if you can avoid it?

Bitcoin is already established unit, and satoshi is (unlike everything else including bitcoin itself) natural unit of a system, they are what is actually recorded in blockchain.

level 3
redditor for 3 months
2 points · 2 months ago

25k sats, easy.

level 4

I kinda like this one. twenty-five kay-sats, or twenty-five kay, speaks well.

level 3

Or use bits as the unit and sats as the cents. Then kilo (mBTC) and Mega (BTC).

Sort of like how we talk about ounces or grams of gold rather than tonnes.

level 2

Just wait for another 1000x deflation. Then you can drop the k.

level 2

0.52 mBTC?

level 3

In this case it works okay, but I find smaller fractions hard to read (ex: 0.05 mBTC). In pretty much all cases I'd rather see 52k sat, or 52M sat, or even 52,000,000 sat.

level 4
4 points · 2 months ago

Whatever gives the least padding is the best. So 0.00052 isn't great but 52000 sat isn't great either, 0.52 mBTC is much better. And 0.05 mBTC is 20 cents, what are you really buying for 20 cents?

More posts from the Bitcoin community
Continue browsing in r/Bitcoin
Community Details






  • No referral links in submissions.
  • No compilations of free Bitcoin sites.
r/Bitcoin Rules
No malicious content
No trolling
No begging
Avoid repetition
The primary topic is Bitcoin
Do not promote contentious hard forks
Do not promote altcoins
No URL shorteners or referrals
No faucets
No trading
Download Bitcoin Core
