🐱 Hodl’s Story

My little cousin Purrsley visited me last week. She’s eight years old and extremely opinionated about pizza toppings.

She’d heard me talking about Bitcoin and wanted to know more. So I explained it to her — the blockchain, the 21 million, all of it.

Her eyes went wide. “I want some!” she said immediately.

“Great,” I said. “Do you have any money saved up?”

She dug into her pocket and produced a very crinkled five dollar bill.

Then she looked up Bitcoin’s price on my computer. Her face fell.

“It costs SIXTY THOUSAND DOLLARS?!” she yelled. “I only have five dollars! I can’t afford Bitcoin!”

I smiled. I had been waiting my entire life for this conversation.

“Purrsley,” I said, “sit down. Have you ever eaten a slice of pizza?”

The pizza problem

“Of course I’ve eaten pizza,” Purrsley said. “I eat pizza constantly. What does that have to do with Bitcoin?”

“Did you have to buy a whole pizza to get a slice?” I asked.

She thought about it. “No… I usually just get a slice or two.”

“Right,” I said. “The pizza is divided into slices. You buy as many slices as you want. You don’t have to buy the whole thing.”

“Okay…” she said slowly.

“Bitcoin works the same way. One whole Bitcoin is like one whole pizza. But you can buy just a tiny slice. The tiniest possible slice of Bitcoin has a name.”

I paused for dramatic effect. (I am a cat. We enjoy dramatic pauses.)

“It’s called a satoshi.”

What is a satoshi?

A satoshi — or “sat” for short — is the smallest piece of Bitcoin. It was named after Satoshi Nakamoto, the mysterious inventor of Bitcoin.

Here’s the number that makes Purrsley’s jaw drop every time:

100,000,000
satoshis in one single Bitcoin

One hundred million satoshis. In one Bitcoin.

That means if Bitcoin costs $100,000, then one satoshi costs just one tenth of one cent. And five dollars? That buys you thousands and thousands of satoshis.

🐱 Purrsley Does the Math

Purrsley grabbed a pencil and started scribbling on my notepad.

“So if Bitcoin is $100,000… and there are 100 million satoshis… and I have $5…”

She calculated furiously.

“I could have FIVE THOUSAND satoshis?!” she yelled.

“Five thousand satoshis,” I confirmed. “Yours. Real Bitcoin. Just a very small, very real piece of it.”

She looked at her crinkled five dollar bill with completely new eyes.

“I’m rich,” she whispered.

“You’re a Bitcoin owner,” I said. “It’s a start.”

Why is it called a satoshi?

Satoshi Nakamoto invented Bitcoin in 2008 and launched it in 2009. To this day, nobody knows who Satoshi really was — it might have been one person, or a whole team working together. They used a made-up name.

Satoshi disappeared from the internet in 2011 and has never come back. But their invention changed the world. Naming the smallest unit of Bitcoin after them is a way of saying thank you — forever written into the code.

Hodl says
In the Bitcoin world, people talk about “stacking sats” — which just means saving small amounts of Bitcoin over time. A little here, a little there. Purrsley understood this immediately. She now puts a little of her allowance into satoshis every week. She calls it her “sat stash.”

What can you do with satoshis?

Satoshis are real Bitcoin — not a different thing, just a smaller unit. You can:

There’s no minimum. You can own one satoshi if you want. Or five thousand. Or five million. Bitcoin doesn’t care how much you have. The network treats every satoshi equally.

🔐 Satoshi quick facts

1 Bitcoin = 100,000,000 satoshis

1,000 satoshis = about $1 when Bitcoin is at $100,000

5,000 satoshis — what $5 would get you at that price

Named after: Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoin’s mysterious inventor

Nickname: “sats”

Fun fact: If every person on Earth wanted some Bitcoin, there would still be enough satoshis for everyone to have a meaningful amount

The most important thing Purrsley learned

Before she went home, Purrsley asked me one more question.

“Hodl… if Bitcoin goes up in price, do my satoshis go up too?”

“Yes,” I said. “Your satoshis are still the same number of satoshis. But each one is worth more dollars.”

She thought about this for a long time.

“And if Bitcoin goes down?”

“Then each satoshi is worth fewer dollars for a while. But you still have the same number of satoshis. They don’t disappear.”

She nodded very seriously. “So I should just be patient.”

“You sound like a natural hodler,” I said.

🐱 Purrsley’s First Sats

Purrsley’s mom helped her set up a simple app wallet on the family tablet that evening. With her $5 and her mom’s help, she bought her first satoshis.

She checked the balance about forty times that first night.

She texted me at 9pm: “Still there. Just checking.”

I texted back: “That’s what hodling feels like.”

“I like it,” she said. “I like it a lot.” 🐱

Things to remember

“You don’t need a whole Bitcoin. You just need to start.”
— Hodl the cat, to Purrsley

Want to keep learning with Hodl?

Follow Hodl’s whole crypto adventure — from his very first Bitcoin to helping other cats understand this new kind of money.

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