BTC, sats, or dollars?
The same balance can be shown three ways, and the unit you pick quietly shapes how you think. A quick guide to switching gears.
3 of 8 · Get your first bitcoinYour Bad Wallet balance can show up as BTC, as , or in your local currency. They’re all the same money. Just different lenses. Knowing when to use which makes Bitcoin feel a lot more natural.
Sats: your everyday unit
For sending, receiving, and stacking, sats are the move. Whole numbers, no tiny decimals, no “0.000…” squinting. “I sent 50,000 sats” is a sentence a human can actually say. This is why Bad Wallet leads with sats.
Dollars (or your currency): the gut check
When you’re deciding whether to spend, the value is a handy reality check. “That’s about twelve bucks” lands faster than a sats figure when you’re comparing to a price tag. Just remember the fiat number floats around as the market moves. The sats are what you actually hold.
You own sats. The dollar figure is just today’s weather.
BTC: the big picture
Whole-Bitcoin terms are useful for zooming out and thinking long-term, or talking about the 21-million cap. For day-to-day use it’s usually too big a unit, like pricing groceries in gold bars.
Try it
1 BTC = $79,829 · price as of Aug 28, 2026, 03:54 UTC
The one thing to remember
Sats for spending and stacking, dollars for a gut check, BTC for the big picture. Switch freely.