What is a satoshi?
A satoshi (sat) is the smallest unit of bitcoin the ledger can record: 1 BTC = 100,000,000 sats, fixed in the consensus rules and named after bitcoin's creator. There is no smaller on-chain denomination — the satoshi is bitcoin's atom. At the current price, one US dollar buys about 1,534 sats (live number, baseline 2026-08-09).
| Amount | In BTC | In USD (build baseline) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 sat | 0.00000001 | $0 |
| 1,000 sats | 0.00001 | $0.65 |
| 100,000 sats | 0.001 | $65.21 |
| 1,000,000 sats | 0.01 | $652.07 |
| 100,000,000 sats | 1 BTC | $65,207 |
Sats the unit vs "SATS" the token — don't get fooled
Search results for "sats" are polluted by a speculative token (a BRC-20 asset) that borrowed the name. To be unambiguous: the satoshi is not a coin you buy — it's simply how bitcoin divides, the way cents divide a dollar. If a page offers you a "SATS price chart" with its own market, it's the token, not the unit. This converter deals exclusively in the real thing.
Why think in sats at all?
Two practical reasons. First, readability: everyday amounts become integers (a coffee is ~5,000 sats, not 0.00005 BTC). Second, fees: the network prices transactions in satoshis per virtual byte, so fluency in sats is fluency in what using bitcoin actually costs. The "sats per dollar" figure — live on our dashboard — is many people's favorite way to watch the exchange rate: it counts down how much bitcoin a dollar still buys.
Questions people actually ask
How many satoshis are in one bitcoin?
Exactly 100,000,000 — one hundred million satoshis per bitcoin, the smallest unit the protocol can record. The subdivision is fixed in the consensus rules, the same for everyone, forever.
Is a satoshi the same as the "SATS" token?
No. The satoshi is bitcoin’s native unit — 1/100,000,000 of a BTC. "SATS" (a BRC-20 token) is a separate speculative asset that borrowed the name. If a price chart for "sats" looks like a market of its own, it is the token, not the unit. This page only deals with the real unit.
Why price things in sats instead of BTC?
Because everyday amounts become readable integers: a coffee is thousands of sats, not 0.00004 BTC with error-prone zeros. "Sats per dollar" also flips the mental model — instead of asking what bitcoin costs, you ask how much bitcoin a dollar still buys.
Can I own less than one satoshi?
Not on-chain — the satoshi is the ledger’s atomic unit. (Off-chain systems like Lightning account internally in millisatoshis, but what settles on the chain is always whole satoshis.)