Bitcoin Institute

How did “satoshi” become the name of the base unit?

2 messages BitcoinTalk R2D221, ribuck January 9, 2014 — January 9, 2014
R2D221 January 9, 2014 20:18 UTC

I’m pretty new to Bitcoin, but I know some basic things, like who Satoshi Nakamoto is (or isn’t… since it’s a pseudonym) and how his name was used for the base unit of Bitcoin (1×10^-8 BTC)… but why is it called like this? Did Satoshi decided this name, or others started using it in their honor? What’s the history behind this?

I’m asking mainly because I’ve seen the recent “0.0001 BTC name poll”. Is this how the base unit was also named?

ribuck January 9, 2014 20:49 UTC · Commentary

I was the one who proposed the name satoshi.

On 15 November 2010, in this post (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=369.msg22160#msg22160), I suggested calling 0.01 BTC a “satoshi”. At the time, 0.01 BTC was the smallest unit that could be displayed by the user interface in the standard client, even though the protocol supported eight decimal places.

The discussion progressed, and on 10 February 2011 I proposed naming the smallest base unit (0.00000001 BTC) either an “austrian” or a “satoshi” (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3311.msg46648#msg46648). In retrospect it’s obvious that “satoshi” was the better name.

On 18 February 2011, marcus_of_augustus posted (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3574.msg50647#msg50647) “100 million satoshis = 1 bitcoin. Are we agreed?” to which someone responded “affirmative”, and the usage caught on.

Satoshi Nakamoto referred to the base unit simply as a “coin” in his writings.