chat: “The Bitcoin protocol itself doesn’t explicitly mention “bitcoins” as a unit; it operates entirely using the smallest denomination, satoshis (sats). A satoshi is equivalent to 0.00000001 BTC (1 BTC = 100,000,000 sats).

Internally, the Bitcoin codebase uses integers to represent values in satoshis, ensuring precision without dealing with floating-point errors. The concept of “bitcoins” is more of a human-readable abstraction built on top of this, useful for users when transacting or discussing larger amounts.”