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Gigi, I’d love to hear your deeper thoughts on what’s happening right now with this push to redefine Bitcoin’s unit—specifically the idea of renaming satoshis as bitcoins and effectively turning 21 million bitcoin into 2.1 quadrillion. This isn’t just some harmless UI preference—it feels like a deliberate attempt to reshape the language, distort the memes, and destroy the psychological clarity Bitcoin has spent 15 years building. You’ve written beautifully about the memetic power of Bitcoin before—especially in 21 Lessons. That power comes from the fixed supply, the story, the simplicity. This proposal undermines all of that. It feels like propaganda. Like a strategic effort to engineer confusion, reset price psychology, and reframe Bitcoin for commercial or institutional convenience. And the consequences could be massive. If the world wakes up tomorrow and sees that Bitcoin is no longer $105,000—but $0.00105, we’re not “simplifying”—we’re sabotaging. Would you consider writing a longer piece on this? I think the community needs it now more than ever.
↩ replying to Gigi
Hi, I just finished reading your article!! I really want to sincerely compliment you on your writing!! Truly, well done! There are some really beautiful reflections in it, worth exploring further—some gave me a new perspective to consider, while others expressed thoughts I already share and recognize as my own… Thank you, and once again, congratulations. I hope to meet you somewhere along the road someday.
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↩ replying to HoloKat
I don’t think this is being overblown at all. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again—this is an attack on Bitcoin, and a serious one. It’s not about UI, decimals, or helping users. It’s about fundamentally altering the way Bitcoin is perceived—psychologically, economically, and memetically. If we rename satoshis as “bitcoin,” we’re not simplifying—we’re redefining. We go from 21 million bitcoin to 2.1 quadrillion. And suddenly the price goes from $105,000 to $0.00105. Now imagine explaining that to the world. Imagine trying to sell the idea of digital scarcity and hard money, while Bitcoin appears to have a higher supply than most memecoins. That’s not just confusion—it’s narrative collapse. And the irony? Many of the loudest voices pushing this change claim to be maximalists. They fight memecoins by turning Bitcoin into one—on paper. A cheap, inflated, ultra-high-supply token indistinguishable from what we’ve spent years trying to distance ourselves from. You say it’ll be a nothingburger in a week. I say it will permanently fracture the mental model of the greatest monetary meme ever created. 21 million is not cosmetic. It’s the core. You don’t throw that away just to sell the illusion that Bitcoin is still cheap. This isn’t just bad economics. It’s psyop-level narrative warfare.
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↩ replying to HoloKat
That’s fine—but just to be clear: BIP-177 redefines the unit and inflates the perceived supply of Bitcoin from 21 million to 2.1 quadrillion. That’s more than every memecoin, shitcoin, and altcoin in existence. Whatever the intention, the result is clear: It shatters the scarcity meme, breaks the price psychology, and turns Bitcoin—on paper—into dust. Disagree if you must, but please be honest about what this proposal actually does.
↩ replying to GLACA
Yes it does impact the scarcity meme, no argument there. And I’m not even arguing that it would be insignificant- I don’t know for sure but suspect it would be less impact than you claim. Majority of the world has no idea what sats are. I’m more in the “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” camp and see this discussion as irrelevant because it’s the app designers who can make the change without any BIPs
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↩ replying to HoloKat
I get your stance, and I respect it. But this isn’t just about a scarcity meme—it’s about the signal we, as a community, send. Wallet developers take cues from culture. If we stand firm—“if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”—this won’t gain traction. But if voices like Jack Dorsey and others with massive followings normalize this shift, devs will start experimenting. Then we’ll end up with fractured UX—wallets showing different numbers, people unsure how much bitcoin they actually hold, confusion rippling through new users and media. That’s not a UI improvement. That’s chaos. And what’s most alarming is that this doesn’t feel organic—it feels like an organized psyop. We’ve all seen how topics are engineered to go viral. This isn’t a joke or a harmless debate. It’s coordinated. It’s serious. And it’s dangerous. One of the loudest voices pushing this has over 6 million followers on X, and owns a company building Bitcoin wallets/ Bitkey/—hardware, mobile, and recovery tools. So yes—he can push this into production. And if we stay silent, others will follow. We stop it now—or we sort through the confusion later. At scale.
↩ replying to GLACA
It doesn’t feel engineered at all. This has been an ongoing discussion for some time. Satoshi thought about it way back then too. I’m tired of everything being seen as an attack just because one doesn’t approve it. It’s an open source ecosystem and if an app changes units that’s fine - it’s their choice. The market will decide. I don’t see anything wrong with experimenting with this. In fact, I plan on doing just so with my own projects. I don’t think any of the issues you are concerned about have as grave of consequences as you feel they do. But, I respect your opinion and remain cautiously in the don’t touch the thing that works camp for now. I fully agree it’ll be confusing. When we made Banco Libre we had bitcoin as the unit instead of sats (not by design) and that was confusing to me. But I have to be aware that people like me are few in the grand scheme of things and I’d rather get feedback from normies and not rely on my personal opinion and what I’m accustomed to already.
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↩ replying to HoloKat
I’ll be honest—I don’t understand why you’d want to experiment with something you already admit will be confusing. At a time when the window for everyday people to access Bitcoin is rapidly closing, the last thing we need is more confusion. And as for whether it’s engineered or not—I’ve been on social media long enough to recognize how viral agendas are seeded and amplified. Before Jack Dorsey picked this up, it was just another fringe idea from John Carvalho. Now it’s suddenly everywhere. That’s not organic. That’s coordinated momentum. It’s distraction. And it comes at the worst possible time. Let's leave it at that.
With inspiration from a @hodlonaut lecture. To quote Epictetus Enchiridion: - “Some things are up to us and some things are not up to us.” - “It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.” - “Don’t seek to have events happen as you want them to, but instead want them to happen as they do; and your life will go well.” - “It is not things themselves that disturb us, but our opinions about them.” - “When someone irritates you, realize that the problem lies in you.” - “If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid.” - “No man is free who is not master of himself.” - “Remember that you are an actor in a play, the character of which is determined by the Playwright. If He wants it short, it is short; if long, it is long. If He wants you to play the part of a beggar, remember to act even this role well; the same if it be that of a cripple, a ruler, or a private citizen. For your business is to act well the given role, but to choose it belongs to another.” image nevent1qqsvq6yzt0weqy6k6eucjqxqfy4m8uvh7ysmdepmgdcuyl9xs7em9wspz3mhxue69uhkummnw3ezummcw3ezuer9wcu95n8z