Will bitcoin ever get to the point where sats must be fractionalized into smaller parts? Call them "fracs."
I'm not trying to "put the cart before the horse" and it's critical to "stay humble." Still, with bitcoin knocking on the door of $100,000, it's okay to proactively think ahead. So...dream with me for a moment.
Back in 2017, I wrote about what I called "Satoshi Day"...the day that the smallest unit of the dollar, a penny (or one cent) is equal to the smallest unit of bitcoin, one sat (view post at BitcoinTalk, Reddit). That would occur if and when 1 bitcoin ever is listed at $1 million USD.
I was kind of wrong then about the smallest USD unit though. Recently, thanks to this Stacker News post, I learned that about the mill. Although I see it all the time on the gas signs, I've never completely understood it. Evidently, the "mill" is actually an official unit of USD measure. It is 1/10th of a penny (or, 1/1,000th of a penny). When bitcoin reaches $100,000 USD, one sat will equal 1 mill. I guess that would be "mill day" and that's neat. Mill Day will be a great day. But for me, I want to see Satoshi Day...when that penny in my pocket is worth a satoshi. Right now, my penny gets me basically 10 sats. But, Satoshi Day, that'll truly be a great day.
And then...
What about from there? If we get to that point, to Satoshi Day, and go farther, will we ever need to subdivide the sat?
Right now a penny is plenty small in terms of purchasing power. There's no need to fractionalize the penny (although it's done via the mill). There would be no need to subdivide a sat. But, with sats, maybe, just maybe, one day in the future, we actually will need to change from sats to fracs.
Do you think fractions of sats will ever be needed?
How could that possibly even be done technically? Or is it at all? (I really don't know.)
It's okay to dream big, but, stay humble bitcoiners.
I go by @crrdlx or "CR" for short. See all my links or contact info at https://linktr.ee/crrdlx.
I don't think so. If we look back in history, the number units were super small for everything... it's just the fiat inflation that makes big numbers.. as long as bitcoin is divisible, all will be good .
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I think it's already been done. Every other coin with enough decimal places fulfills this role. On the other hand, they are more volatile. One satoshi is always and will always be in the same proportion to one bitcoin while all other coins fluctuate in value compared to bitcoin. So how about "stable" coins?
Greetings @crrdlx ,
Thank you for this excellent article....quite pertinent.
Indeed as you stated...we must stay humble...heady days ahead and then a correction perhaps....a bit of objectivity will get us through.
Kind Regards,
Bleujay