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The interesting thing about this argument is that it assumes everyone must use one unit for everything.
Real communities don't work that way.
Imagine a few villages using Bitcoin every day.
Between the mountains and valleys of southern Ecuador, a few small communities had started using Bitcoin for everyday trade.
Mateo, a mechanic, charged 350 sats for a brake repair.
Lucía sold empanadas for 140 sats.
Then María, a market vendor, started pricing some goods in nahs.
Her sign read:
Chicken — 15 nahs
People quickly understood the relationship:
350 sats ≈ 15 nahs140 sats ≈ 6 nahs
The idea had come from the growing discussion around Bitcoin's unit denominations, including “The 2-Quadrillion Flaw: Why SATs Will Never Trigger Hyperbitcoinization” and “Why Bitcoin’s 2 Quadrillion Sats is Failing the Macro Marshmallow Experiment”.
For Mateo, sats worked perfectly for small payments.
For María, nahs made everyday prices easier to say:
6 nahs for vegetables.15 nahs for chicken.30 nahs for a bicycle repair.85 nahs for a handmade table.
But Javier, a coffee farmer, thought differently when saving.
He had:
0.12 BTC
That's 12 million sats, or roughly 514,000 nahs.
“I'm not pricing my savings in 514,000 nahs,” he laughed.
“That's what BTC is for.”
At the farmers' cooperative, the pattern became obvious:
Small payments → satsEveryday prices → nahsLarge savings → BTC
Not everyone agreed that nahs were necessary. Some Stackers questioned whether changing denominations solved anything fundamental, while others argued that unit bias deserved attention. The debate can be seen in this discussion about sats and nahs and this exchange over creating another asset.
But the villagers weren't trying to win an internet argument.
They were simply using the numbers that made sense to them.
One afternoon, Elena wrote on a blackboard for the children:
350 sats ≈ 15 nahs
140 sats ≈ 6 nahs
Then she asked:
“Did the Bitcoin change?”
The children shook their heads.
“No.”
“Then what changed?”
“The way we count it.”
And María, watching from her market stall, smiled.
Same Bitcoin. Different ruler.
The interesting thing about this argument is that it assumes everyone must use one unit for everything.
Real communities don't work that way.
Imagine a few villages using Bitcoin every day.
The Three Ways of Counting Bitcoin
Between the mountains and valleys of southern Ecuador, a few small communities had started using Bitcoin for everyday trade.
Mateo, a mechanic, charged 350 sats for a brake repair.
Lucía sold empanadas for 140 sats.
Then María, a market vendor, started pricing some goods in nahs.
Her sign read:
Chicken — 15 nahs
People quickly understood the relationship:
350 sats ≈ 15 nahs
140 sats ≈ 6 nahs
The idea had come from the growing discussion around Bitcoin's unit denominations, including “The 2-Quadrillion Flaw: Why SATs Will Never Trigger Hyperbitcoinization” and “Why Bitcoin’s 2 Quadrillion Sats is Failing the Macro Marshmallow Experiment”.
For Mateo, sats worked perfectly for small payments.
For María, nahs made everyday prices easier to say:
6 nahs for vegetables.
15 nahs for chicken.
30 nahs for a bicycle repair.
85 nahs for a handmade table.
But Javier, a coffee farmer, thought differently when saving.
He had:
0.12 BTC
That's 12 million sats, or roughly 514,000 nahs.
“I'm not pricing my savings in 514,000 nahs,” he laughed.
“That's what BTC is for.”
At the farmers' cooperative, the pattern became obvious:
Small payments → sats
Everyday prices → nahs
Large savings → BTC
Not everyone agreed that nahs were necessary. Some Stackers questioned whether changing denominations solved anything fundamental, while others argued that unit bias deserved attention. The debate can be seen in this discussion about sats and nahs and this exchange over creating another asset.
But the villagers weren't trying to win an internet argument.
They were simply using the numbers that made sense to them.
One afternoon, Elena wrote on a blackboard for the children:
350 sats ≈ 15 nahs
140 sats ≈ 6 nahs
Then she asked:
“Did the Bitcoin change?”
The children shook their heads.
“No.”
“Then what changed?”
“The way we count it.”
And María, watching from her market stall, smiled.
Same Bitcoin. Different ruler.