Bitcoin Forum

Like in the stock market? Psychologically people are more likely to buy if the price is lesser (ex. a 3 to 1 split turns btc from $230 to $80), and there would be no affect in the current value.

What are you exactly talking about? Do you want people to calculate the price in smaller units such as mBTC or Satoshi? This would not make me want to buy more at all and might even complicate it more for some people. There are many ways in which Bitcoin can be divided.

Sort of like what microsoft did

https://i.gyazo.com/02849f96e7e1ab8128de00d0813a1d5b.png

Basically your bitcoins will double with each split while the price is maintained at comfortable prices

That's why they came up with mBTC, uBTC, and satoshi. The whole point is to have a limited amount of BTC in the end, namely 21 million. Randomly split them would confuse many new users, so not very desirable.

To put it simple: Bitcoin is not a stock.
With a stock, there are certain rights, that you buy with the stock. As far as I know, people also don't always think in: How many stocks do I own(absolute numbers), but what is my share on the company(percentage). So, there might be the purpose of splitting the influence on a company by splitting stocks.
With Bitcoin there is just Bitcoin. The only purpose, I see for what you are proposing, is speculation. So, please go to the speculation section.(besides what you are proposing will never happen anyways)

Eh, that wouldn't just happen in an asset with a very limited supply imo.


You can't do what MIcrosoft did to their stocks in Bitcoin. Bitcoin isn't privately held by a company, so no such thing like this could be applied in bitcoin, ever.


Just this alone explains why it wouldn't happen ever.

I have been thinking of this for quite a while.
The OP is refering to stock split (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stock_split). It will have a psychological impact on the price, and it will be nice for late adopters.
The analogue to currency is a Redenomination (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redenomination)

In my opinion there will be many technical obstacles in achieving that.
A hard fork will not be enough. Lots of bitcoin software will have to been patched, and people need to be informed.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-12-10/mastercard-s-raises-dividend-83-announces-10-for-1-split-1-

Ok I agree bitcoin is used to buy things so its not exactly a stock, so my other question is how can bitcoin become a stock?

It can't, simply because no one owns bitcoins as a whole. Also, there are no guaranteed returns in buying bitcoins, so it's very far from becoming a stock.

This has already happened.  Three times.

Instead of a 2 to 1 split, they did a 1000 to 1 split, so instead your bitcoins doubling, each person got 1000 times their original bitcoins, and instead of the value being divided by two, the value was divided by 1000.  To avoid confusion with those (like yourself) that were unaware of the split, they gave the bitcoins after the split a new name.  They called them millibitcoins (just like how a millimeter is a meter divided into 1000 pieces).  Then they worked the protocol so that any wallet that hadn't been updated to work with the millibitcoins yet would just use 1000 millibitcoins whenever the wallet attempted to send 1 BTC.  There are already several wallets that will now let you choose to see your balance in the new millibitcoin increments.

Then, since that worked so well...

Instead of a 2 to 1 split, they did another 1000 to 1 split, so instead your millibitcoins doubling, each person got 1000 times their original millibitcoins, and instead of the value of each millibitcoin being divided by two, the value was divided by 1000.  To avoid confusion with those that were unaware of the split, they gave the millibitcoins after the split a new name.  They called them microbitcoins (just like how a micrometer is a millimeter divided into 1000 pieces).  Then they worked the protocol so that any wallet that hadn't been updated to work with the microbitcoins yet would just use 1000000 microbitcoins whenever the wallet attempted to send 1 BTC, and 1000 microbitcoins whenever the wallet attempted to send 1 millibitcoins.  There are already some wallets that will now let you choose to see your balance in the new microbitcoin increments.

Then, since that worked so well 2 times...

Instead of a 2 to 1 split, or a 1000 to 1 split, they did a 100 to 1 split, so instead your microbitcoins doubling, each person got 100 times their original microbitcoins, and instead of the value of each microbitcoin being divided by two, the value was divided by 100.  To avoid confusion with those that were unaware of the split, they gave the microbitcoins after the split a new name.  They called them "satoshi" (named in honor of the person, or people, that created the bitcoin concept).  Then they worked the protocol so that any wallet that hadn't been updated to work with "satoshi" yet would just use 100000000 satoshi whenever the wallet attempted to send 1 BTC, and 100000 satoshi whenever the wallet attempted to send 1 millibitcoins, and 100 microbitcoins whenever the wallet attempted to send 1 microbitcoin.

So, just like with the Microsoft split, if the current bitcoin exchange rate is $230, then:

• You can buy in increments of the new millibitcoin designation for $0.23 per millibitcoin
• You can buy in increments of the new microbitcoin designation for $0.00023 per microbitcoin
• You can buy in increments of the new satoshi designation for $0000023 per satoshi

If the online exchange that you are using only lets you buy and sell in increments of bitcoin, then they have not yet updated their software to handle the split amounts.  That's okay though, as long as the exchange allows you to handle portions of bitcoin, you can just buy 0.001 BTC for each millibitcoin that you want and 0.000001 BTC for each microbitcoin that you want.  When you send the small portions of a bitcoin from the exchange to a wallet that has been updated to handle the new split amounts, the protocol will automatically handle the split for you.  So if you buy 0.013 BTC and send them to a wallet that is configured for the new microbitcoin split, your wallet will automatically receive 13000 microbitcoin.

/snark

Honestly, all these splits were handled by the original creation before bitcoin was ever even released to the public.  At the technical level (in the transactions and blockchain), the value is never represented in terms of bitcoins.  It has always been represented as satoshi.  The wallets that handle the technical aspects for the users just implemented a fake "reverse split" when showing you your balance.  So if you you are holding 123400000 satoshi, then the wallet does a pretend reverse split and shows you 1.234 and calls this fake amount "1.234 bitcoins".  It's a bit like if the base (smallest) unit of currency was a penny, and you had an account that showed you that you had 1.234 rock.  The wallet adds up all the base units (pennies or satoshi), and then gives the larger increment a nickname (like "rock" or "bitcoin").

There is no need to split the base unit any more than it already is until the exchange rate of 1 satoshi is greater than the smallest spendable unit of currency in a country.  So, for example if 1 BTC was worth more than $1000000 (That's $1 million), then 1 satoshi would be worth more than $0.01  If inflation hadn't yet made $0.01 unspendable, then there might be a need to split the satoshi value in the protocol into smaller units.

The same way that any other money becomes a stock.
Since "stock" is partial ownership of a company and its assets, it really isn't possible for any money (including bitcoin) to "become a stock".  A money can't really "become" partial ownership of a company.

What can happen, is that someone can create a "fund" that is "traded" on an "exchange".  The fund can be incorporated as a company, and the money that the fund holds is an asset of that company. Then "stock" in that company can be bought or sold in shares.  Each "share" represents a partial ownership of the money held as an asset. Those shares can then split in the future.  Such a fund is commonly called an "exchange traded fund" or an "ETF".  There are several people that are currently trying to create such a fund that holds bitcoins and are trying to get the fund approved to be traded on a major stock exchange (such as the NASDAQ).

It can't because Bitcoin is not a company.It's a protocol. In the far future you will be able to buy stocks from companies who build their apps and services on the Bitcon Blockchain.But that's pretty much it. Bitcoin is money and a store of value and as I said a protocol which will be used by several third parties who will build on top of it.

A (much) smaller unit should've been adopted a long time ago. Anyone who's posting on here and doesn't think it's an issue is already too far down the rabbit hole.

The unaware majority are easily turned off. If they get past the 'I can't afford a whole one' then they're faced with dealing with strings of zeroes. If they don't want zeroes then it's mBtc, uBtc etc. Plenty of these units never show up on exchanges or price lists. It's a mess.

And who exactly is going to force the exchanges and the price lists to use the unit that you decide is the correct one?

This is how an open market works.  It is messy.  It is supposed to be messy.

Anyone can create an exchange, and they can choose whatever units they want.  If enough others like what they've done, then their business will succeed.  If there aren't enough people that agree with the choices, then the business will eventually fail and disappear or the business will adapt and switch to something more accepted. There isn't any one in charge of bitcoin, so there isn't anyone to force exchanges and other businesses to do things in any specific way.

I'm not talking in satoshis as the general public looks in $ value

Idk, I think the "bit"  system works well enough considering it's 100 satoshi's and most everyday transactions happen around the ball park of 100 bits - 100 K bits... I see what you're getting at, but in general, when it comes to currencies like this, you're going to run into a lot of zeros regardless.

The general public should also consider thinking in cents {$0.01} when they are dealing with Bitcoin. That is the magical feature, when you look at the Bitcoin token as a

commodity and as a currency.  ;D This opens up a world of new investors. {Those who would have been excluded in other types of shares, where you have to buy in bigger

chucks} The poor people in the world, can now also trade on exchanges to own a few Satoshi's.  ::)... That is the idea.  ::)

I think it wouldn't happen, cause Bitcoin is a stock that works as a Currency.
So that kind of thing is nearly impossible

Would be cool if it could though

Imagine it splitting 3 to 1 and you had 5 btc it would increase to 15 btc holdings and the price at $80 would make me want to buy even more, so psychologically it would be interesting if people would get in

Learn to read.  I already explained, this has already happened, only instead of a 3 to 1 split it was a 1000 to 1 split twice and then a 100 to 1 split. There are just new names for the split amounts.

Would we really need to do this? This is like fooling up the masses. It's not surprising that stock markets are doing this, they are experts in fooling the masses. I don't talk about the divisibility of Bitcoin of course, this is OK as long as we give it another name as above is already suggested.

No. Nothing wrong in doing that.
Already we have wallet service which shows bitcoins in bits.
Dogecoin is successful just because of it's number not value.

So, its time to have exchanges list bitcoins in bits price. If we start from current price converted to bits, we may end up in 1$ per one bit in short period of time. That's the beauty, OP says.

No cheating involved in this.

people need to stop thinking like "stocks" and more like assets/commodity.
using gold exchange market is the closest comparison..

so the OP wants to stop measuring gold in Tonnes and instead measure it in ounces. and then later on measure it in grams...

well this will happen in time for bitcoin. but not until bitcoin is over $1000 again, which would be probably nearer the next reward halving.. then 'bits' would be worth over $1 and able to be measured to the decimal place of 1sat being more then 1cent

Agree, unnecessary confusion to bitcoin users. Bitcoin is not stock market, its so much more than that.

The equivalent of a stock split, is doubling the total number of bitcoins from 21 million to 42 million.
That is not going to happen.  ::)

Yes I agree with this like I have written above. If we are talking about divisibility of one whole Bitcoin and then we give it a new name then I don't think this is cheating either and there is nothing wrong with it.

Maybe this will be necessary to do when we realize that 21 million coins is just too little for all of the people that adopted Bitcoin. Of course, it would be the best to do it before real mass adoption starts.