How can I afford a whole Bitcoin Cash?
A Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is divisble into 100 million parts, called satoshis (named after Satoshi Nakamoto, the inventor). You can buy, sell or trade in any amount of BCH, no matter the price. As the price of BCH increases, the economy simply deals in smaller and smaller units.
Don't worry though, most of this is taken care of by automatic conversions in your wallet software to/from your local fiat currency so it is not a hassle.
Dealing in decimals can be confusing, so people sometimes use alternatives units. Instead of an unfriendly number like 0.00438 BCH
, the same thing can be written 4.38 mBCH
. The unit scheme is like this:
Unit | Name | Relative size | Explanation |
---|---|---|---|
1 BCH | 1 Bitcoin Cash | 1 BCH | The base unit, limited to 21 million BCH in total. |
1 mBCH | 1 milli Bitcoin Cash | 0.001 BCH | There are 1 000 mBCH in a BCH. |
1 bit | 1 bit | 0.000 001 BCH | There are 1 000 bits in an mBCH, or 1 million bits in a BCH. |
1 satoshi | 1 satoshi | 0.000 000 01 BCH | There are 100 satoshis in a bit, or 100 million satoshis in a BCH. |
If Bitcoin Cash becomes so valuable that 1 satoshi is regularly being traded, the software can be upgraded to split a single BCH into even smaller pieces, like cutting 1 pizza into smaller and smaller slices - same total amount, but easier to divide among more people.