There is no such thing as “a bitcoin”
EXCERPT
Many people who generally understand how Bitcoin and its blockchain system works are nevertheless under the erroneous impression that there are such things as atomic units of bitcoin that are moved from address to address and can therefore be tracked on the public chain. I think this mistake has its roots in language and analogy.
Bitcoin is a digital currency, “coin” is in its name, the White Paper describes it as electronic cash and mentions “wallets.” As a result we talk about it like we talk about physical currency; like we talk about paper bills or coins. We say things like, “She gave me a bitcoin.” As a result, people tend to quite justifiably envision bitcoins as atomic units that are passed around. Even if they understand that bitcoins are sub-divisible to eight decimal places, and that those units are called satoshis, they may still think that those are the atomic units.
But the coins and wallets analogy is just that: an analogy. This is not at all how Bitcoin works.
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