📖 Book in Progress · By Ted

Sats for Cents

How we look at bitcoin today is just wrong looking to the future of money.

“Today you look at the price per coin and say wow that’s a lot of money. Tomorrow you look and say how many sats can I get for this dollar. And in the future, not too distant future, you will say I don’t need dollars, look, I can buy and pay for whatever I want in sats.”

Stage 1 · Today

Price per Coin

People look at a six-figure bitcoin price and assume it’s out of reach, missing that one bitcoin is 100,000,000 satoshis.

Stage 2 · The Shift

Sats per Dollar

The mental flip begins when people measure what their dollar actually buys in sats, watching the ratio shrink over time.

Stage 3 · The Future

Paid & Priced in Sats

Direct circulation. From receiving paychecks to settling groceries, services, and taxes without detour through fiat.

The Thesis

We are already at the first milestone: workers can arrange to receive paychecks directly in bitcoin. But the accounting shadow of the dollar still hangs over everyday life. Income is reported in dollars, payroll withholdings are remitted in dollars, and governments still demand tax payments in dollars.

Sats for Cents argues that the real monetary revolution is not when Bitcoin reaches a higher dollar price on an exchange. It is when everyday people stop translating back into fiat altogether. When prices are posted in sats, wages are quoted in sats, and the forced conversion to dollars disappears.

Book Architecture

Part I · The Unit of Account Is a Habit Why the whole-coin price is a distraction, meeting the satoshi, and how measuring sticks shape our perception of wealth.

Part II · The Paycheck Becomes the First Bridge Living between two accounting systems: receiving bitcoin wages while the state still counts in dollars.

Part III · From Spending Bitcoin to Pricing in Bitcoin Dual pricing, household budgeting in sats, Lightning settlement, and what happens when merchants stop auto-converting.

Part IV · The Government Question If we can earn in sats, why can’t we pay taxes in sats? The three hurdles: technical, accounting, and political.

Part V · The Sats Economy Ending the forced conversion, micro-transactions for machines, and what a grounded, everyday sats-native life looks like.

Part VI · The Transition How to start today: measuring your dollar in sats, learning custody, and building the rails before the revolution.