Bitcoin Core Developer Proposes Abolishing "Satoshi" Unit and Removing Decimal Points, Sparking Community Debate

While the Bitcoin community is busy enhancing user experience, launching custody solutions, lobbying regulators, and attracting institutions, Core Developer and Synonym CEO John Carvalho proposes a simpler solution: abolishing the "satoshi" unit and removing decimal points to lower the cognitive barrier for newcomers. In a BIP proposal slated for December 2024, he advocates defining 100 million satoshis of a Bitcoin directly as a "Bitcoin." For example, a transaction currently displayed as 0.00010000 BTC would appear as 10,000 BTC in the new system, fundamentally reshaping the metric of a "Bitcoin millionaire."

The move has quickly sparked controversy. Critics humorously refer to the "pizza analogy": if each slice of pizza is called a "whole," diners would need to order eight "wholes" to satisfy their needs, mocking the absurdity brought by unit inflation. More community members worry that inflating the total from 21 million to 2.1 quadrillion could undermine the core narrative of Bitcoin’s scarcity. However, Carvalho's proposal might be quietly gaining traction. On April 25, he posted on Platform X, saying: "Though still a minority, more people are starting to accept the idea of calling the smallest unit of Bitcoin a 'Bitcoin' and eliminating decimal points."