A satoshi (often abbreviated "sat") is the smallest unit of Bitcoin. One satoshi equals 0.00000001 BTC, or one hundred-millionth of a single Bitcoin. The name honors Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoin's pseudonymous creator.
Bitcoin is divisible to eight decimal places. That means every single Bitcoin can be split into 100 million satoshis. This extreme divisibility is what makes Bitcoin usable for tiny transactions even as the per-coin price grows. If one BTC costs $80,000, one satoshi is worth $0.0008, which is still small enough for micropayments.
In practice, satoshis (or "sats") are becoming the preferred denomination for everyday Bitcoin discussions, especially in communities focused on the Lightning Network where payments are often small. Saying "5,000 sats" is much clearer than "0.00005 BTC" for most people. Some wallets and exchanges now display balances in sats by default.
The concept is similar to how a dollar breaks down into cents, except that Bitcoin has far more granularity. This built-in divisibility means Bitcoin does not need to add decimal places as its value increases. The protocol already supports the precision needed.
Thinking in satoshis makes Bitcoin more approachable. Instead of feeling like you need to buy a whole coin, you can stack sats, accumulating small amounts over time. It also matters for fee calculations: transaction fees on the Bitcoin network are measured in satoshis per byte (sat/vB), which is how the BTC Network panel displays fee estimates.
The BTC Network panel on the TerminalFeed dashboard displays fee rates in sat/vB. The Whale Watch panel shows large transactions denominated in BTC. Read more about network fees in our Bitcoin Mempool guide.