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Satoshi (sat)

Also · sat · sats

The satoshi, or sat, is the smallest unit of bitcoin. 1 BTC equals 100,000,000 sats. Lightning and everyday payments are usually counted in sats.

The satoshi is the smallest unit the Bitcoin protocol can account for. 1 bitcoin is 100,000,000 satoshis, so a sat is a hundred-millionth of a BTC. The name honours Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous author of the Bitcoin white paper.

Sats make small amounts readable. A coffee is a few thousand sats rather than a string of zeros after a decimal point. Lightning wallets and most point-of-sale tools display sats by default, and Lightning itself can route fractions of a sat, called millisats, that are rounded when settled on-chain. “Stacking sats” is the habit of accumulating small amounts over time.

In French · Satoshi (sat)

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Definition reviewed on October 22, 2026

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