Bitcoin Forum

Given the current trajectory of Bitcoin prices (~$59, at time of writing), it's foreseeable that trying to exchange small goods/services will result in price quotes prefixed by several zeros. For example, a soda machine sells drinks for $1.25 USD. Currently, this is approximately 0.021 BTC. If/when BTC hits $126 USD, the price will be 0.00992. 5 decimal places just to represent the cost of a soda. Or 9.92mBTC, which is arguably much more user-friendly. The problem only worsens as BTC price goes up.

Would it be better for the community to start using mBTC at the default unit sooner rather than later? If not, when do you expect the tipping point will be?

Let's move the decimal 8 places right now. I want to have more BTC.

Quite specific...

It's up to the soda machine owner to make this decision.  It's literally not our business.

How so? If I had to guess, at present, most users on these forums expect 1 BTC to surge past $100 by next year at the absolute latest. To see it go beyond--driving the relative fiat prices to smaller and smaller amounts--isn't much of a stretch.

Edit: To me, it's a question of user-friendliness to ease uptake.

I just meant $126 seemed a rather specific value. If you'd said that at $125 per BTC it will cost 0.01 BTC that would have seemed more logical. I know it doesn't make a difference, I just tend to expect people to choose round numbers when taking an arbitrary figure as an example.

I see. Yeah, I chose $126 versus $125 to help illustrate the eventual problem if BTC/USD prices increase. The numbers themselves are obviously irrelevant, I just wanted a concrete example most people can relate to.

FWIW, I recently switched my client to display mBTC. So that's one data point.

I get your point about making it user friendly - although to me it makes little difference whether prices are displayed in BTC or mBTC. Consistency could be an issue here though. It certainly becomes less user friendly if prices are displayed in BTC in one place but mBTC elsewhere. Maybe best to stick to BTC and learn to deal with leading 0s?

I like the term Bitcents more than mBTC

So the soda is 1 Bitcent

That's confusing since Bitcent implies 0.01 BTC and mBTC is 0.001 BTC.

Or switch to mBTC and have them become familiar with SI units from the get-go? Surely, people wil ask what mBTC stands for or why the m is small, at which point a discussion along the lines of "it's like megs and gigs".

mBTC is only the start. If Bitcoin gains wide adoption, there's no reason to think that uBTC won't eventually become the norm.

I have switched to using "internets."
Because reddit.

What is so difficult about writing 0.0000000001 BTC?

Dragon's Tale got this right back in 2011

0.001btc = 1btm or bitmill

all this scientific notation mbtc just makes us look like the nerds we are

.001 is still the recommended fee to attach to a transaction :'(

As BTC goes up in price, BTC holders will buy bigger things with Bitcoins

BTC will be good for houses, cars, other investments, vacations, jewelry, etc.

We can buy sodas with fiat.

Just like stocks and treasuries, etc. Nobody sells them to buy a soda.

Or LTC. ;D

My wife would if she had the password to my Sharebuilder account.  ;D

and this is why bitcoin is currently a geek thing! ;/

The general public with prefer to do without than to learn to deal with anything!

The concept of marketing is all about making things easy for people.

Make it look like a dollar, and they might warm to it.  Make it look like the missing part of the pi equation and bitcoin is going to have no friends! ;)

This is a losing strategy for mass adoption.

The general public really isn't an issue, as the general public tends to do things on a whim after "everyone else" is doing it.  What's Bitcoin to the general public?  I don't know, but my idol is using it, and I heard my geeky pal is making money off it, so it must be legitimate and, ultimately, a good thing, so I will divert my attention toward it and maybe even setup a wallet so I can start getting some, too.  The only thing we need is time, and room for BTC to breathe, and the general public will tag along with the next best technology.  Left unhindered, Bitcoin will spread like a virus, despite the lengthy sciency mathy explanation as to what it actually is.

Ok back on topic, I believe once .001 becomes a common denomination for basic things, mBTC will gain traction.  Right now, 1 USD is equal to roughly BTC.02~ (rounded up), and 1 mBTC is worth about 6 cents.  Considering psychological techniques in marketing, it's generally better to list something as .05 BTC, than it is to list it as 50 mBTC, as .05 BTC looks much cheaper--it's only 5 bitcents!  A bitnickel :)  If, however, BTC were to jump really high in price (let's say, $1,000 to one BTC), then you have parity with mBTC to the dollar.  At this point, it would be great to start using mBTC, instead of using .001, as I don't know what to call a fraction of a bitpenny that's relevant to the USD :P  Perhaps then mBTC would look much more attractive in style, despite both being correct usage.

We're close to the point that people will naturally start to use millies. I will, for sure. When we need to pay less than 0.1 for something often enough, the transition will happen by itself. It's nothing that needs to be addressed or put much thought into, I guarantee the transition will simply happen.

This kind of thing tends to be determined by merchants. I for one would like to see a nice blend of pre-decimalisation sterling references and cockney rhyming slang.

For example: "Aright geezer, this 'ere motor will set yer back a monkey and two bob!"
Translation: "Good day sir, this fine automobile will cost you 500.05 BTC"

I really think we're making too big a deal of this. The "general public" already deals with this in $.  Ex: $50B. $50M. $50K. $50. 50 cents.  we choose the appropriate units depending on the amount. I'm sure people will figure out how to do the same with bitcoin.

A better question is, when will the satoshi match the dollar?  ;D

Helicopter Ben and his good pal Gideon Gono say hi and Ben's trying to sort this out as quickly as possible. ;D

It would be nice if people that are selling cheap stuff started right now.

I understand your point, but the billion/million/thousand specifiers aret (relatively unknown) descending SI units in an currency looking for recognition. Most people still can't differentiate between megs and gigs on their smartphone. Ask a hundred people on the street which is worth more, a BTC, mBTC or uBTC and I'll be surprised if more than 10% even notice that mBTC != uBTC.

To that end, doesn't it make sense to start using mBTC as the standard unit now, since that's the way the world will be headed if BTC/USD price continues to rise?

Tell you what: when BTC settles at over $100 a pop, I vow to start using mBTC ;D

wrong on purpose?

100 pBTC? ;D

I've seen bitcoin sites accounting to pBTC granularity before. Obviously this cannot be done on the blockchain itself. It is unlikely we will ever need subsatoshi units as part of the protocol, though, but one should never say never.

Next week???

+1000btm

> Re: mBTC: At what point should the community use this as the default unit?
now

an apple is worth less than a milli coin already

Following the rules of SI 0.01 BTC (bitpenny) would be 1 cBTC (centiBTC)

No one is ever going to visit any websites whose top level domain is not provided by default by their browser when they enter a real word keyword, all this geeky crap like .com and so on just confuses them, the web will never catch on until top level domains are gotten rid of...

-MarkM-

I've just created logic to dynamically use mBTC and uBTC on bitcoincodes.com (http://www.bitcoincodes.com/index.php?unit=store&op=browse&cat=9) .

Unfortunately I'm not yet comfortable to have it show 132 mBTC instead of 0.132 BTC (which would be more logical)

No.

/european

Use Satoshi's with the familiar "computer" prefixes Kilo (K), Mega (M), Giga (G) etc.

I agree. milli BTC is also messy because micro also has first letter m and then you have use the weird u thing.

1 BTC = 100.000KS/100MS/0.1GS

Right now one apple/can of cola should be 0.5-2MS, nice and simple.

Bitcoin > Bit > Bite > Nibble > Crumb
1.            1        1        1             1  

I agree. There is no easy solution. It is easier to use Kilo, Mega, Giga (and increasingly so as computer uptake increases) than milli, micro and nano though is my main point.

The real question is will major sites like blockchain.info and instawallet, since the former punishes you with fees for doing smaller transactions and the latter doesn't support anything less than 0.01 BTC, start supporting more granular bitcoin transactions first which will push more people to use them or will people want/need due to price to use smaller transactions which will force them to adapt.  I'm just using them as examples incidentally, there are plenty more like them and I in no way endorse them specifically.

I have liked 0.01 BTC = 1 internet.

It just seems natural, because to the average mind, "an internet" (1/100 bitcoin) is the currency of "the internet".

Of course Kilo, Mega and Giga (Satoshi) can be replaced with thousand, million and billion repsectively.

1 internet  ??? sounds suspicious

why not just bitcoin and satoshi?
i am not a fan of milli and micro

for example 3.25 BTC for big goods and smaller goods
100.000 SAT or 100T SAT

I like it too but how would you shorten it. Would it be 1 int. ?

I've tried to use mBTC as the basic unit since around July 2012.  I prefer working with whole numbers to fractions, even if those numbers are in the thousands.

To members of the community, I certainly recommend changing now, especially since the US dollar is closer in relative value to the mBTC than the BTC (true roughly since the exchange rate eclipsed the 2011 high).  At the current rate of 70 USD/BTC, I say preference for BTC over mBTC indicates pig-headed inertia or market bearishness that would make proudhon blush.

I personally like writing 'mil' as an informal suffix (just as it is for millilitres; likening Bitcoin to a liquid highlights its divisibility).  However, I would not recommend anything other than mBTC and uBTC for official/introductory purposes.

Sounds good to me, because when the exchange rate is over $100, two decimals are no longer enough to convert a dollar to BTC. Seems like a good time to go mBTC.

I think mBTC and uBTC are here to stay because a lot of consensus has appeared around them.  But how about using the acronyms MBC and UBC, to keep them the as standard 3 letter acronyms?

Why?  There likely will be a psychological dampening effect if people think of buying a thousandth or millionth of something... these acronyms start the process of thinking of MBC as a unit in itself.  Especially if a few vowels could be thrown in there make something pronounceable -- "Mibic" for example. This should emerge naturally but it would be better if it was guided so it did not sound diminutive.  "Mibbies" would be bad for example because it sounds to me like some kind of plastic toy coin used in tiddily-winks


For newbies: no name that even refers to a colloquial name for USD should be used to ensure that there is no possible probable cause to create a (trumped up) counterfeiting case.  There's lots of discussion on this, search around.

casascius:  Doesn't work for me or a lot of other ppl I think.  Because the "internet" already IS something.  You'd have better luck with something like intercoin or netcoin I think... but unfortunately all those (and everything without bitcoin in it) sounds more like an alt-coin to today's ears.

...and the .9 at the gas pumps here in the US freaks me out also. Somehow, I even believe I'm being fucked when I buy a liter of Coke. Didn't it used to come in tiny 6oz bottles?

And can somebody explain to me the number system used for AM and FM, and why can't they be numbered 1 to 10 using the same dot system I'm accustomed to?

Announcer: Welcome to 9.5 on your AM and FM dial. The weather today is expected to be...

No, you mean 9/10th of a cent.. because the US public doesn't understand decimals in general.

Somewhere along the way, they figured out that people will chose the price "3.89 9/10th" over "3.899" when all else is equal.

It is kind of sad.

point taken, thank you

A drink (as in my original post) now would cost around 0.0053 BTC (assuming $1.25 cost and $235 exchange rate).

Bitcoin use in Africa has been in the news lately. Are any Africans on the forum that can give us insight into how well-known SI prefixes are on that continent, especially in the poorer nations?

LOL these posts are funny now. It's a year later.

I could use a cold drink for a 5 mills right now.*


*To those who realize 5 mBTC is $1.17 not $1.25 it doesn't really matter.  Stores simply set prices where they are consumer friendly (hence lots of $0.49, $0.25, $0.99, etc).  If the store couldn't maintain their margin at 5 mBTC the drink would be 6 mBTC.  Given that 1 mBTC provides ~20 cent granularity not much reason to make it more complicated like 5.35 mBTC to ensure that the store collects the "full" $1.25 equivelent (a made up price anyways).

i think people should start using mBTC regularly

I'll be switching my client to mBTC/BTM default once we blow through 250 USD/BTC (if that happens, of course). I would encourage others to consider the same, but of course it's their client and they can use it however they wish.