Sats Explained: Why You Don't Need a Whole Bitcoin

What are sats? Sats is short for satoshi, the smallest unit of bitcoin. One bitcoin consists of 100 million sats. So you can buy any fraction you like, starting from a few euros or francs. On Nov 13, 2026, €1 gets you about 1’624 sats, CHF 1 about 1’759 sats.

A bitcoin costs more than €60’000. Many people hear that and think: too expensive, not for me. That thought rests on a misunderstanding. You don't have to buy a whole bitcoin, just as you don't have to buy a whole gold bar. This article explains what sats are, how to convert them and why they are the right unit for savers. What bitcoin is in the first place is explained in the beginner's guide What is bitcoin?.

What are sats?

A euro has 100 cents. A bitcoin has 100 million satoshis, sats or sat for short. That's the smallest unit that exists on the blockchain. It doesn't get any smaller there.

Bitcoin's software doesn't actually calculate in bitcoin internally, only in sats. Every amount in every transfer is a whole number of sats. "1 BTC" is just how 100’000’000 of them are displayed.

Only two units have caught on: BTC for large amounts and sats for small ones. You rarely see millibitcoin and bits any more.

How many sats do you get for €10?

As of Nov 13, 2026, a bitcoin costs €61’580 or CHF 56’850. That gets you:

The figures change with every price. The sats calculator works it out with your own amount and today's price:

With most providers you can buy from €1 to €25 upward. Watch the fees: with very small purchases, a fixed fee weighs more heavily. How providers differ is shown in Bitcoin savings plans: providers compared.

Where the name satoshi comes from

The unit is named after Satoshi Nakamoto, the inventor of bitcoin. He never called it that himself. In December 2010, a user named "ribuck" suggested on the Bitcointalk forum that the smallest unit be called a "satoshi". The name stuck.

That bitcoin is so finely divisible was intentional. In February 2010, Satoshi wrote in the forum:

"Eventually at most only 21 million coins for 6.8 billion people in the world if it really gets huge. But don't worry, there are another 6 decimal places that aren't shown, for a total of 8 decimal places internally."

So Satoshi knew early on that a whole bitcoin would be too much for most people. The 21 million are fixed, but each of them has 100 million parts. Together that's about 2.1 quadrillion sats. Why there will never be more is explained in Why there are only 21 million bitcoin.

Why you don't need a whole bitcoin

The price per coin is an arbitrary number

Had Satoshi set 21 billion bitcoin instead of 21 million, one would cost about €62 today. Nobody would hesitate to buy one. But nothing about your wealth would change: €1’000 buys the same share of all bitcoin in both cases.

Psychologists call this thinking error unit bias: we want to own whole units and feel uncomfortable with fractions. You don't see this with gold. Hardly anyone buys a 12.5-kilo bar of the kind central banks store. People buy a gram or an ounce, and nobody finds that strange.

What counts is your share

A whole bitcoin is scarce even for the wealthy. According to the UBS Global Wealth Report 2024, there are almost 60 million dollar millionaires worldwide. Not even all of them could own a whole bitcoin, because there will never be more than 21 million. A few million of those are also considered lost.

Spread evenly across all 8.2 billion people, everyone would get about 256’000 sats. That's about €158 or CHF 146 today. If you own that, you already have your arithmetical share of all the bitcoin in the world.

Every sat follows the same rules

A sat in your wallet is as secure, as scarce and as freely transferable as a whole bitcoin. There is no minimum amount to own bitcoin, and no class of "real" bitcoiners. Whether you still want a whole bitcoin as a goal is a personal decision. How long the road there takes is worked out in Becoming a wholecoiner.

Why bitcoiners count in sats

Many long-term holders no longer think in euros per bitcoin, but in sats per euro or dollar. The reason: their goal is the amount of bitcoin. The price is just the exchange rate on the way there.

The site's data shows how much this exchange rate has changed. This is how many sats a dollar bought, each on November 12:

Two things stand out. In the long run, the same dollar buys fewer and fewer sats. And in the short run it swings a lot: at the end of 2023, a dollar bought almost twice as many sats as at the end of 2021.

The site's Power Law model describes this long-term trend. If the price keeps growing with it, a dollar will buy only about 350 sats in 2030 and about 123 in 2035. That's not a forecast you can rely on. But it shows why many people collect sats early and regularly instead of saving up for a whole bitcoin. On Nov 13, 2026, the price is at 0.63 times the trend, just above the floor at 0.62 times.

Sats in everyday use: fees and Lightning

Sats aren't just a savings currency. Fees on the bitcoin network are also measured in sats, more precisely in sats per vByte (sat/vB). A typical transfer takes up about 141 vBytes. At 1 sat/vB, the rate for the next block on Nov 13, 2026, it costs 141 sats, just under 9 cents. How fees come about is explained in Understanding bitcoin transaction fees and the mempool.

For tiny amounts there's the Lightning Network. There you pay for a coffee in sats, in seconds and usually for a fee of a few sats. Internally, Lightning even calculates in thousandths of a sat (millisatoshis), so that tiny fees work out too.

Saving in sats: how to go about it

1. Set a goal in sats. Instead of "one bitcoin", for example "1 million sats" or "10 million sats" (0.1 BTC). You can record your goal and progress on My Goal.
2. Buy regularly. A savings plan buys fewer sats when prices are high and more when they are low. That way you don't have to guess the right moment.
3. Think in sats instead of euros. If the price falls, your holdings shrink in euros. In sats they keep growing, and with the same savings rate even faster.
4. Collect, then withdraw. Move your sats to your own wallet in larger steps so that you don't depend on an exchange.

How many sats a savings plan brings over the years as the price swings is shown in the savings plan calculator. What sat/vB, Lightning and the other units mean is in the bitcoin glossary.