On my lightning node it gives me no limits after decimal places. Am I Trippin or what?
Cuz if it IS infinitely divisible, that would be super cool
A satoshi is the smallest unit for bitcoin, but lightning can transact with even smaller units while channels are open. The amount is rounded down to the nearest satoshi when the channel is closed and broadcast to the blockchain to adhere to bitcoins limit.
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Thanks
Just wasn’t clear if it was infinitely divisible 🙂
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Millisats (0.001) is the result of a constant in the LN code.
I'm not sure if that means the LN protocol cannot be divisible further. I suspect a future version could, but the current LN protocol could not go below a millisat.
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Thank you for the clarification!
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Yes. On your Lightning node milli sat or 0.001sat is a basic unit actually.
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Nice.
Just to confirm, it can go below 0.001 SAT as well? 🤔
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I think yes. Imagine overhyped Fedimint, they might issue any token micro or nanosats as ecash.
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Gotcha. Thanks for clarifying.
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Dividing satoshis is risky as on the mainnet there are only statoshi. So you cannot take back your milli sats to the mainnet.
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You can't take a single sat on chain either. Any UTXO amount below the dust limit is essentially unspendable due to the fees required to spend it. Millisats exist in a similar way that sats exist. As an accounting unit. Not necessarily a discrete and fully transferable unit.
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I guess, from both your answers, it is useful to divide on lightning network if required but not outside it
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Sats are the only units in the mainnet. Bitcoin itself as a unit doesn't exist. Every transaction is in sats.
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Yes, but millisats are what makes a single sat spendable
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The entire worlds economy can run on one single bitcoin. I wonder if the same is true for one sat? 🤔
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That’s definitely some next level questioning 😂
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Yes, but that would require a hard fork.
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Lightning can infinitely divide each BTC, but the Bitcoin blockchain cannot without a hardfork.
For one reason: BTCs are not divisible by sats at all. In code, there are only sats.
In the following file, line 15 shows sats (100mil); and line 26 shows 100mil multiplied by 21mil: https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/master/src/consensus/amount.h
The supply of Bitcoin is not 21mil BTC divisible by 100mil sats. The supply is actually 2,100 trillion sats. That's it.
This isn't splitting hairs. There is no division going on anywhere in that file. To increase the number on line 15 (sats per BTC), you wouldn't be increasing the "divisibility" of Bitcoin. You would be increasing the supply of Bitcoin (2,100 trillion sats). And that would require a hard fork.
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A very detailed but concise reply. Thanks for that!
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The lightning network allows picobtc for fees, not just millisats.
To put that in perspective, millsats are 10^-8 of a bitcoin, while picobtc are 10^-12 of a bitcoin.
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LN can run in derivatives known as millisatoshis, they're just a representation of a claim of a fraction of a satoshi, there's no such thing on the base chain, it doesn't know it exists. Just a function of LN
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Thank you
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Lightning is programmable monetary energy.
Digital Schrodinger's cat money
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Looks like everyone here so far has answered either about lightning or on-chain, but not both.
So tl;dr: Lightning sats are divisible. On-chain is a matter of debate.
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Thanks!
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I don't think I've heard anyone argue sats are divisible on-chain. What's your argument?
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Sorry, i was unclear. It's my understanding that some devs have proposed making sats divisible on chain. But they are not divisible currently.
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Also keep in mind that if in the future there is a good reason to increase granularity below sats that benefits the majority of the network and hurts no one, it is not unthinkable that it would be implemented.
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So this Policy is not fixed
that’s good
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Not every dev agrees with this. John Carvalho argues that on-chain division of sats is equal to inflating the supply of bitcoin.
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I would be curious to understand what is the reasoning behind that.