Because the price of a full bitcoin has risen into the tens of thousands of dollars, most retail investors today do not purchase an entire coin at once.

Every bitcoin is divisible down to eight decimal places . The smallest possible unit is called a satoshi (or "sat"), named after Bitcoin’s pseudonymous creator, Satoshi Nakamoto.

One satoshi is equal to 0.00000001 BTC . There are 100 million satoshis in one full bitcoin.