Well... maybe not exactly in the way you were thinking

Let me explain.

Ordinal theory concerns itself with satoshis, giving them individual identities and allowing them to be tracked, transferred, and imbued with meaning. Satoshis, not bitcoin, are the atomic, native currency of the Bitcoin network. One bitcoin can be sub-divided into 100,000,000 satoshis, but no further.

So, after hearing a recent John Carvalho opinion about satsymbol.org
Then seeing this amusing post by @TonyGiorgio on SN #266660
Something didn't quite add up. It didn't make sense and I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Then it came to me...

Are Satoshis, in fact, made up bullshit that has been projected onto Bitcoin?

Quite the parallel isn't it, to the ol' ordinals, hey? It's not consensus but people are still using it.

Satoshi Theory

From searching SN it seems that Satoshis were first proposed back in 2010 on Bitcointk by user ribuck. A great find in Bitcoin history, and it was a nice thought to dedicate the naming to Satoshi Nakamoto but in my opinion it is too much in line with fiat thinking. It has caused more harm than good.
In order to sell a product, you might consider needing a good bit of marketing. Bitcoiners are always coming up with new ways to bring attention and interest to the network. An example of really good marketing in Bitcoin is the 21 Million Supply Cap. Similar to the labelling of fossil fuels, it emphasizes the scarcity of Bitcoin and incites the FOMO aspect to the product - it might make sense just to get some in case it catches on.
But with any established product, it is important to stay relevant and a revamped marketing strategy could do the trick.

The Great Renumbering

Bitcoin is the global brand

1 BTC = 1 BTC and there's 2,100,000,000,000,000 of them. 2.1 Quadrillion.
21 million has run it's course. Most of the world has now heard about Bitcoin and they understand that there will only ever be a certain amount of Bitcoin. Satoshis/Sats take away the simplicity. You spend more time explaining the naming of sats than you do about important facts. In terms of pricing it makes sense to switch, as many people think Bitcoin is too expensive, so they jump to the next coin or the next one, when in reality there is no second best.
So, how do we implement this standard? It’s pretty simple, really. Just use the ₿. Check out the FAQ section on satsymbol.org
In reality, feel free to call the units whatever you like - bitcoin, bits, sats - it doesn't really matter. The only thing that matters is...
Bitcoin is inevitable.

The new Sat Standard
I liked John's idea about Satoshis flippening Bitcoin. "Yeah, I'm a Satoshi now".
We should invent a naming system, on top of Bitcoin, based on the number of 100 million units ;-)
Questions for ordinal people:
  • If I get the Mona Lisa on the blockchain, what rights does that give me?
  • What is stopping anyone duplicating an image on the blockchain so it appears twice? Doesn't that mess up the whole NFT part?
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Got it! You mean to say that “What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet.” 😜
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100 sats \ 1 reply \ @td 5 Apr
I feel like you stopped writing before you finished what you set out to say. Is your point that the word Sat is made up and should be replaced with the ₿ symbol?
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lol yes the autist in me got pretty tired writing. I guess what I was loosely trying to say, without spelling it out, is that if you think ordinal theory is stupid, then satoshis are equally stupid too -
  • Both made up, on top of Bitcoin
  • Both have people divided
  • Both make Bitcoin quite confusing
  • Both potentially harmful to understanding Bitcoin and adoption
How you might think Ordinals don't make sense and are an issue, Satoshis could be the real 'elephant in the room' causing confusion at the core of things.
There's alot of context missing to how I am seeing it all, but I couldn't face writing much more. Anyway, I think it's much simpler to use bitcoin as the unit account and switching to the 2.1 quadrillion supply narrative.
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100 sats \ 0 replies \ @darwin 5 Apr
I asked ChatGPT4 to explain to me what you are trying to say here. It failed.
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What are you even proposing? There’s no conclusion to your essay
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You're reading too much into my text. Whether it's satoshis or bitcoins, that's the fungibility. Doesn't matter if it's 1.0 or 1.0 / 100000000, my point is that Bitcoin itself is already the fungible "token".
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yes, I understood. I was just using it to draw a similarity between the inventive idea of 'satoshi tokens' and ordinal theory, not in the context of fungibility.
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