<p>Today 1 US dollar is 0.000027 BTC which is 2,700 Satoshi
So one US cent is 27 Satoshi</p>
<p>When was the last time you purchased something with a total transaction value of one cent?</p>
<p>If Bitcoin's value increases as you say then there will be a need for a smaller unit. I think the Lightning Network can already have transactions measured in millisatoshi - a thousand times smaller.</p>
<p>So, It isn't a major problem.</p>
<p>It isn't especially unusual for the major unit of a currency to have a high value. For example the UK currency known as the pound sterling was created in the early Anglo-Saxon period one and a half millennia ago and was essentially a pound weight of silver. That represented a huge amount of money at the time, enough to buy several thousand chickens or a hundred knives at a time when ordinary people could probably afford few of either.</p>
<hr />
<p>Related questions:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/q/69700/13866">What is a millisatoshi? I thought satoshi is the smallest unit?</a></li>
<li><a href="https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/q/3663/13866">Why can we have small fractions of a Bitcoin?</a></li>
<li><a href="https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/q/75962/13866">What is the smallest fee you can pay for an on chain transaction?</a></li>
</ul>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-06-01T14:03:20.877Z
I haven't purchased for 1c for a long time, but I frequently buy things where the number of cents is not a multiple of 5/10. e.g. buying gas, or things which are $0.99c. To how many decimal places is BTC stored, I'm assuming more than 9 :) edit: oh your link mentions we have 1^8 integral subdivisions
Mr. Boy
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-06-01T17:12:25.947Z
Indeed, at the protocol level "1 BTC" doesn't exist. It is all represented as multiples of satoshis (each being equal to 0.00000001 BTC).
Pieter Wuille
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-06-01T11:39:21.340Z
2021-06-01T13:14:50.367Z
2021-06-01T13:14:50.367Z
RedGrittyBrick
<p>A couple of linked questions really. Firstly, let's say BTC is worth $50k US, that means to purchase your groceries might be 0.002BTC. A sandwich might be 0.0000598. Has a system already been proposed to have better units? With 1 US cent equating to 0.000002BTC could we ever have precision issues?</p>
<p>Secondly, with a hard limit of 21 million BTC and a world population of 8bn, we're talking each person on average could own around .0025BTC. Which at current market cap, is about $100 US. By contrast there's approx $40tn US in regular cash, about 40-60X the market cap of BTC if I didn't make a silly mistake (and depending the value the day you read this).</p>
<p>Doesn't this imply that for BTC to be a real-world currency, it's already large value must end up more like $2m US per coin. At which point your $2.99 sandwich is going to cost 0.000001495 and we're needing 9 decimal places for accurate accounting to the equivalent of one US cent today.</p>
<p>As a newcomer to this world, how does BTC plan to work around these issues to be a practical everyday currency? Is it a trivial thing, or actually a problem?</p>

<payment>
How can BTC become a useful currency when the cost-per-coin is so large?
Mr. Boy
# How can BTC become a useful currency when the cost-per-coin is so large?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2021-06-01)

A couple of linked questions really. Firstly, let's say BTC is worth $50k US, that means to purchase your groceries might be 0.002BTC. A sandwich might be 0.0000598. Has a system already been proposed to have better units? With 1 US cent equating to 0.000002BTC could we ever have precision issues?

Secondly, with a hard limit of 21 million BTC and a world population of 8bn, we're talking each person on average could own around .0025BTC. Which at current market cap, is about $100 US. By contrast there's approx $40tn US in regular cash, about 40-60X the market cap of BTC if I didn't make a silly mistake (and depending the value the day you read this).

Doesn't this imply that for BTC to be a real-world currency, it's already large value must end up more like $2m US per coin. At which point your $2.99 sandwich is going to cost 0.000001495 and we're needing 9 decimal places for accurate accounting to the equivalent of one US cent today.

As a newcomer to this world, how does BTC plan to work around these issues to be a practical everyday currency? Is it a trivial thing, or actually a problem?

**Tags:** payment


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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2021-06-01. Score: 1

Today 1 US dollar is 0.000027 BTC which is 2,700 Satoshi
So one US cent is 27 Satoshi

When was the last time you purchased something with a total transaction value of one cent?

If Bitcoin's value increases as you say then there will be a need for a smaller unit. I think the Lightning Network can already have transactions measured in millisatoshi - a thousand times smaller.

So, It isn't a major problem.

It isn't especially unusual for the major unit of a currency to have a high value. For example the UK currency known as the pound sterling was created in the early Anglo-Saxon period one and a half millennia ago and was essentially a pound weight of silver. That represented a huge amount of money at the time, enough to buy several thousand chickens or a hundred knives at a time when ordinary people could probably afford few of either.

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Related questions:

* [What is a millisatoshi? I thought satoshi is the smallest unit?](https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/q/69700/13866)
* [Why can we have small fractions of a Bitcoin?](https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/q/3663/13866)
* [What is the smallest fee you can pay for an on chain transaction?](https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/q/75962/13866)

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: I haven't purchased for 1c for a long time, but I frequently buy things where the number of cents is not a multiple of 5/10. e.g. buying gas, or things which are $0.99c. To how many decimal places is BTC stored, I'm assuming more than 9 :) edit: oh your link mentions we have 1^8 integral subdivisions  
> **username_2**: Indeed, at the protocol level "1 BTC" doesn't exist. It is all represented as multiples of satoshis (each being equal to 0.00000001 BTC).  

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