Bitcoin "pennies." Is it possible to buy a piece of bitcoin?
The price of bitcoin has long ago overcome the level of 10 thousand dollars and one coin of cryptocurrency in the eyes of the average user is a fortune. To buy bitcoin, in the opinion of most people, you need to have impressive finances, and it is not very affordable for an ordinary person.
This is probably the biggest misconception about bitcoin. A very small amount of money is enough for you to become a cryptocurrency owner.
Bitcoin's divisibility
You probably know that the very concept of money includes several obligatory characteristics. One of them is divisibility. In simple words, it means that, for example, a dollar can be divided into 100 cents, and 50 cents plus 50 cents will always equal 1 dollar.
Traditional currencies are usually divided into 100 parts: 1 dollar has 100 cents, 1 ruble has 100 kopecks. If a financial transaction results in fractions of a cent or kopeck, they are rounded up or down. This is because any government currency must have a tangible form.
This is a bit different with cryptocurrencies, as their concept does not involve any physical component. For this reason, cryptocurrencies can be divided into many more parts than 100.
The "pennies" and "coins" of bitcoin
The smallest portion that bitcoin is divided into is called a satoshi, after its creator Satoshi Nakamoto. There are 100 million satoshis in one bitcoin.
Who is Satoshi Nakomoto? Bitcoin incognito
However, that's not all. Similar to cent coins (5 cents - nickel, 10 cents - dime, 25 cents - quarters), bitcoin is also divided into peculiar "coins".
- If you go up the line, the next part is the part in the 100 satoshiswhich is denoted as μBTC and is called microbitcoin or jubit.
- It is followed by a value in 100 thousand satoshis - millibitcoin or mBTC.
- Followed by the now traditional hundredths of a part - 0.01 bitcoin (1 million satoshis), which are called bitcenter or cBTC.
Few people are familiar with these names - and that's a fairly significant drawback in the spread of bitcoin. After all, whole numbers are much easier for most people to understand than decimal fractions.
Why split bitcoin into pieces
Bitcoin was conceived by Satoshi Nakamoto as an alternative to all existing money with its advantages and without its inherent disadvantages (inflation, unlimited issuance, etc.).
According to "crypto-evangelists", cryptocurrencies will soon supplant fiat currencies, becoming the only means for settlements. It is their divisibility into many parts that makes it possible to use them not only for trading on the stock exchange, but also in services, trade, etc.
No one knows the limits of growth bitcoin priceHowever, if the boldest predictions come true and the price of bitcoin rises to 1 million dollars, it is its division into 100 million satoshis that will still allow you to use it for small purchases, for example, to buy ice cream in a cafe.
And even if the price of bitcoin rises at all to some unthinkable values, if necessary, edits can be made to the bitcoin program code that will allow it to be shared even more than it currently is without any problems.