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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.

Basics·Beginner·3 min read

Your Bad Wallet balance can show up as BTC, as sats, 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 fiat 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.

Switch freelyTap to flip your display anytime. Many people stack in sats, sanity-check in dollars, and think in BTC. Use whichever lens makes the decision in front of you clearer.

The one thing to remember

Sats for spending and stacking, dollars for a gut check, BTC for the big picture. Switch freely.

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