Very good post for us new to bitcoin, cheers
However, one question - I thought bitcoin was meant to be infinitely divisible (sure I read that when reading about deflation)?
I ask because of this:
'SAT' & 'Satoshi'
Smallest possible denomination of bitcoin, which is 0.00000001 BTC.
Thanks again for a great post.
K.
Bitcoin is not and never will be infinitely* divisible. Amount 0.00000001 BTC is currently smallest unit. Value is currently expressed by 8byte (64bit) number of this units. This means there is space for 18 446 744 073 709 551 616 units. Considering maximum 21M coins, smallest unit would be ~1.14E-12 BTC. Effectively this means space for adding additional 3 decimal places up to 1E-11 BTC as other values for smallest unit would be impractical**.
We can estimate gross domestic product of planet Earth to be less than 1E14 USD (about 0.83E14 in 2012).
If all the world economy was converted to bitcoins then 1 Satoshi would be worth 4.762 cents in current USD. Above mentioned "smallest unit" thousand times less. This I consider adequate for the planetary phase of human evolution :-].
* - infinitely divisible no. But divisible up to the number of atoms in the observed universe times number seconds universe exists that would be no problem.** - in decimal base. Tonal bitcoin that is different story.