Admit Time – There are only 2.1 Quadrillion Bitcoins

If the above statement offends you, you probably haven’t read the Bitcoin source code.

Yes, I’m sure you’ve heard that there are 21 million bitcoins – and this is true, the Bitcoin protocol only allows “21 million bitcoins” to be created, but these large denominations can be divided into 100 million sub-units each.

Call them whatever you want, there are only 2.1 quadrillion currency units in the protocol.

This difference between dollars and cents has long been a debate – at the time of Satoshi, the creator of Bitcoin, dual contracts, Bitcoin has both a mass denomination, and a small unit, it was not a big concern. There were questions about whether the software would work at all, and bitcoin was so worthless, selling it in bulk was the only logical option.

Reviving this debate is BIP 21Q, a proposal for Bitcoin users approved by John Carvalho, the founder of Synonym, the creator of the social network Pubky, and a contributor who has participated in his work from the days of the influential Bitcoin fundraiser.

In short, BIP proposes that network actors – various wallets and exchanges – change the way Bitcoin denominations are represented, with a small protocol unit called “bitcoins,” as opposed to “satoshis,” as they are often called.

Here are the BIP details:

Unit Redefinition:

• Internally, the smallest indivisible unit remains unchanged.
• Historically, 1 BTC = 100,000,000 base units. Under this proposal, “1 bitcoin” is equal to that smallest unit.
• What used to be called “1 BTC” is now equal to 100 million bitcoins under the new definition.

Term:

• The informal words “satoshi” or “sat” have been dropped.
• All references, links, and documents MUST refer to the underlying number as “bitcoin.”

Display and formatting:

• Applications SHOULD present values ​​as whole numbers without decimals.
• Example:
• Old display: 0.00010000 BTC
• New display: 10000 BTC (or ₿10000)

Unsurprisingly, the debate surrounding BIP has been hostile. For one, it is not a technical BIP, although this is not a requirement of the BIP process. Suffice it to say, it’s probably the most common BIP proposed under the BIP process so far, as it deals more with market agreements and user onboarding logic, not any changes in software rules.

However, I have to say, I find the proposal compelling. Nik Hoffman, our News Editor, doesn’t like it, preferring to stick to market validation.

However, I think this proposal raises the right questions: why should new users be forced to calculate their Bitcoin balance using only decimals? Of course this has the negative effect of making trading difficult – it’s just the opposite of how people think and act today.

Also, in terms of savings, with a BTC price of $100,000, you don’t have to think that you could spend a whole year earning 1 BTC, although that might be the case.

Indeed, there have been various debates about all kinds of units – mBTC, UBTC – playing on the balance of dollars and cents, but Carvalho here wisely skips to the end, choosing to break the band-aid. $1 will buy 1,000 bitcoins under his proposal.

What you would like here, and I argued against this during the Lugano debate on the topic in 2023, is that it maintains both the large denomination of BTC and the smaller unit, now bitcoins. Both are important, and perform different functions.

My argument then was that having a denomination as large as BTC (100 million bitcoins) is important. If there was no “BTC unit,” the media and the financial press would have to deal with the observation that “1 bitcoin” is still worth less than 1 cent.

How much mainstream coverage and interest do we think there will be? I can bet a lot.

In this way, BIP 21Q is the best global option.

The world of finance, the media, and the press can continue to fight for the meteoric rise of the value of “BTC,” while everyday users can remove decimals and complex calculations, and trade the only real unit of Bitcoin that is guaranteed to exist forever.

This article is a Take it. The views expressed are entirely those of the author and do not reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.

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