“Sats” has to be explained. “Bitcoin” does not. People will need Bitcoin and they’ll see numbers on the screen. That’s it.
If you think sats is the word used long term, you haven’t made that connection yet or you have an anchoring bias.
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Replies (57)
Wot, it’s Sats, has been since 2010. The end. Get over it. Sats is a piece of piss to explain to the most normie of normies.. pounds and pence, dollars and cents. Done.
Also. Thinking Bitcoin doesn’t need to be explained is also wrong. Of course it does.
It's too late
How does one reverse zap on here for dumb posts.. 😝
100 cents = 1 dollar
100m sats = 1 bitcoin
Right now 1,000 sats is roughly $1
There, I've explained it. Wasn't hard.
Now let's change sats to bitcoin.
Tell someone to go read any bitcoin book, podcast or writeup written anything before today. Have fun explaining how those bitcoins are worth 100m x more than these bitcoins.
Bonus, you'll still have to explain what a sat is.
The technology, sure. Once people know they need Bitcoin, a number will be on their screen, and they will move on with their day. There won't be time to explain, "Achtchually those are sats not Bitcoin. I mean they are Bitcoin, but you see, well, where should I start. I listened to this great podcast that broke down the white paper and spelled it all out."
That's more of an explaination than most people will have time for. They'll need money, someone will send it to them, and they'll stop thinking about the interaction. "Send me Bitcoin", number shows up, their mind says, "Bitcoin received".
Sats can be used as a nickname, but most people will simply equate the numbers with the term Bitcoin.
that's the point. The billions of people using Bitcoin in the future won't do any of that. They see numbers on a screen related to Bitcoin and the thought will end there. Sats will be relegated to a fun, nickname phrase that gets used by the minority few of us who think its cool.
i can get behind this logic. if there's ever going to be a change to the naming, it needs to be soon. once a significant amount of people start actually interacting with Bitcoin it'll be too confusing.
I don't think it's that hard to understand. Even for new people who approach this. Suffice it to say that 1 ₿ is equivalent to 1 dollar and 1 sat is equivalent to 1 cent 🤷♂️
For changing the definition of a bitcoin.
Setting a precedent that it can mean something else. If the rebrand works, it might work for a future chain fork too
I wish Satoshi had defined the sat as bitcoin
Nonsense. We still use pence and cents. And denominations of everything.
I always thought bits of a bitcoin is more intuitive. sats makes me think there might be too many nerds in bitcoin
I created a simple converter for people to wrap their head around BTC vs Sats.
BTC to Satoshi to USD
Its already too late. We have ~16 years worth of literature and media using sats terminology and attributing a specific value to the term "bitcoin".
Changing that at this stage will significantly hamper current adoption. And drastically increase confusion and risk.
There is no future adoption if there is no present adoption.
If that's too much explanation then they aren't ready for bitcoin yet. Doesn't matter what lexicon you change, they won't get it.
Those who are so staunchly and willfully unable to understand 100m sats = 1 bitcoin will either HFSP or get the price they deserve.
Even new entrants need to show minimal proof of work.
Fair point. I think the unit bias problem can be pretty easily solved by more services adopting the sats standard.
Agree. It really isn’t that hard to understand.
Why make it more complex and degrade all the learning material that has been put out there already? Makes it so much more complex with more terms, different slang. Words are words. Sats are Sats. Get used to it.
I agree 0.00001453 BTC is annoying and difficult to understand.
1,453 sats is not.
Using sats does not fundamentally change the value of a "bitcoin". Changing sats to bitcoin fundamentally changes the value of a "bitcoin" and that's assuming there is consensus on the change. And even with consensus, that doesn't change the existing body of work. There are significant knock on effects.
Changing sats to bitcoin is missing the forest for the trees.
See this note
View quoted note →
We can use whatever technical term we want on the stack, but it won’t change the behavior of billions of busy people who just need money called bitcoin and don’t have time to learn a second term in that moment.
If I unplug the modem at home, my family asks, “Is the WiFi down?” “Actually, the WAN is down, you’re still connected to WiFi” “yeah whatever. Will you let me know when the WiFi is up again? kthx”. Doesn’t matter that I’ve explained the different many times.
It’s not hard to understand but it’s an extra step for many future people who just need to get paid in Bitcoin and when they get it will move on with their day.
When we reach billions of people adoption, they will utilize whatever phrasing we use. Do we change things now, co fuse the shit out of everyone, right as we are on the cusp of global recognition and serious consideration?
Or do we demand a little bit of simple proof of work for people to learn?
This "change" obviously does not have consensus. Not everyone will convert at once. There will be a period of time when 1 bitcoin =/= 1 bitcoin. And even if they did you have an existing body of work that will never change.
Bitcoin vs bitcoin is already hard to comprehend for most.
Now youre asking ppl to comprehend Bitcoin vs bitcoin vs bitcoin.
Nope, these people won’t have to comprehend Bitcoin vs bitcoin vs bitcoin. That’s the point. These future people don’t have an anchor to the current units.
They will need to get paid in Bitcoin. Once the number appears on their screen they will move on with their day.
“They will utilize whatever phrasing we use.”
I wish you were right, but I don’t think that’s how it will go.
See 👇
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What's the difference seeing 1234 sats vs 1234 bitcoin on a screen?
At the surface nothing. Like you say, they'll transact with whatever is on screen. So why are we changing that?
One requires explaining "oh a sat is like cents. Bitcoin is like dollars. 100 cents = 1 dollar. 100m sats = 1 bitcoin". The only person I've ever met who couldn't comprehend this simple 10 second explanation in a decade of orange pilling was a drunk dude at a bar who couldn't stay seated in his chair without falling over.
The other requires explaining "1234 bitcoin as of today equals 0.00001234 bitcoin from yesterday."
"Wait my bitcoin is worth less now?"
"Oh no you dont suddenly have less money, we just changed all the terminology."
"Ok but everything i read says theres only 21m bitcoin"
"Yeah that book says there's only 21 million bitcoin. But thats cause it was written last year. Now there's 21 quadrillion bitcoin."
"I thought bitcoin was hard cap 21m"
"Oh no there aren't more bitcoin."
"But you just said 21m vs 21q."
"Yeah there's more but there isn't more cause now a bitcoin is worth much less."
"Wait my bitcoin is worth less now?"
Heres another scenario:
Send me 1 bitcoin.
OK so is that 1 bitcoin or 100,000,000 bitcoin?
Yeah send me 100,000,000 bitcoin cause that's equal to 1 bitcoin.
I want the big bitcoin.
Wait so you want 1 or 100m? Fuck if I know...
*sends 1 old bitcoin*
Fuck i meant to send 1 new bitcoin.
New entrants don’t have to show anything. That’s the point. They want to get paid or pay for something. Someone says “Bitcoin” and the numbers are transferred. Then they go on with their day.
It’s not hard to understand but it’s an extra step that will be evolved away as Bitcoin becomes efficient for daily spending of billions of users.
It would be the same thing with sats. Bitcoin must be a difficult thing to achieve. A bit like having 1 million dollars. Who has 1 ₿ now is sweaty. It's right that the same process is done by new people if they don't understand the true value
Only OGs will remember sats.
What we call sats will be called Bitcoin.
I've been living with a solid Bitcoin standard mindset since I joined Nostr, and it's now quite natural and intuitive for me to talk in terms of satoshis. I definitely believe that "sats" is the right unit for those who use Bitcoin as a currency and unit of account. But it's not ideal for those who use it solely as a store of value.
That said, I agree that most of the world currently sees Bitcoin as a store of value. So when speaking to that audience, using sats can be confusing. It's probably better to stick with the bitcoin unit in those cases.
Sorry, but that's the fiat "UX understanding" of Big Tech and platform business, where you keep users stupid and inactive by "abstracting away complexity".
But bitcoin isn't a platform. It's a protocol. The rules of the game are different here. The UX is also different because the "user" journey is different.
Bitcoin is different.
That’s the point.
Sats the standard.
Do you think these billions of people will talk about mempools and other technical parts of the protocol?
You have rice, I want rice, you want bitcoin, I send you bitcoin, we move on with our day. They might still be sats, but most people have other things to worry about.
Saying the words “fiat” and “Big Tech” doesn’t change human behavior of people who are too busy to care that the bitcoin they received are also called sats. They are intelligent people who have more important or urgent things to deal with.
Yeah that’s a good view too. Sats for sure makes sense for many of us on here. We are the ones who are willing to take time and adopt new technology.
The billions who don’t even consider Bitcoin as a store of value will someday use it. At that point, my hypothesis is that they won’t take the time to understand the nuance of sats and will colloquially say bitcoin
True or not, that's in the future.
We have to get through the present first and a change at this juncture will cause significant chaos when trying to communicate, anytime u use the term "bitcoin"
Saying the words "human behavior" or "intelligent people" doesn't change bitcoin's behavior. Many have learned this lesson. You'll learn it too.
I think it happens at some point. Better to rip the bandaid off when we’re smaller.
In reality, we might not really have a say in how it plays out as much as we’d like to think we’re in control of it.
You seem as if you’d like to have a different discussion.
Think about all the people in your life who use the incorrect technical term for things and roll their eyes when you correct them. It has nothing to do with their level of intelligence, they have other things they focus on.
You're digressing. People will just call anything smaller than a bitcoin sats. It's really not that complicated.
Again, I think they will not want to deal with learning a second term because they have other really important things in their life that they’re also trying to learn about.
To use sats, they have to hear Bitcoin. I think for many people, the learning will stop at Bitcoin and sats won’t have a chance to permeate.
In better times, people were embarrassed not to know the right terms. Now everyone is screaming "customer experience" and "inclusivity" and whatnot.
Thank God for bitcoin, because in a bitcoin future, you work on understanding and naming things correctly, or you're just #hfsp
It's not that you're wrong. It's just that you're working from different premises, and I think those premises are wrong because bitcoin dgaf.
Okay so they don’t. Fuck em.
Bitcoin dgaf. People will call it whatever they want. Both things can be true.
I don’t think doing that to them will change their behavior
It depends
Yes and I bet they’ll call the integers after the decimal point sats. Well let’s wait and see
I think the word is irrelevant call it fucks if you want.
Memetic warfare is real tho.
No meme is more powerful than 21M.
based
This is dumb. Dollars, cents, etc. It's all been said. Sats are the standard.
I agree. I’m just saying that given the trend of mainstream’s adoption of technical terms, I think sats fade over time in the lexicon
"Sats" isn't a technical term. It's a relatively widely name for smaller dinominations of bitcoin in homage of the creator(s). There are a lot of bitcoiners who have minimal technical skills (myself included) who understand this at face value without more than a glance.
Hence my original post
We all love sats. Long term I think it becomes a fun term that all the early folks toss around
You don't get to choose this. 💁♂️
Stay humble & stack sats. 🤙
Correct, that’s my entire point. We will say sats. But when billions of people show up, they will hear “bitcoin” and see numbers in their app, and that’ll be it. Sats will be a fringe term.