Bitcoin Forum

It has been discussed before, but I think it is still a big problem.  Most of the world's currencies allow you to buy something with 1.0 units or above.  For example, in the US we have these 99 cent stores.  Kind of a joke, because most things in there are prices above $1.00 and after taxes are certainly above $1.00.  You would be hard pressed to find something to buy elsewhere that is under $1.00 as well.  People like big, round numbers.  I'm assuming for most countries in the world it is the same, where most things purchased are typically over 1.00 units of the local currency.

Bitcoin is currently valued so high that many things are easily worth less than 1.00 BTC.  In fact, you might be able to go shopping around town and never pay for something over 1.00 BTC.  Now, if the value rises up to $1,000 USD or higher, many things that you can purchase will be worth fractions of a Bitcoin.  Imagine paying for everyday items and it seems like you never pay more than 0.00321 BTC for example.  Wouldn't that screw with people's head?

You might say we could just price everything in mBTC.  Or you could do what was talked about a long time ago in the Bitcoin community and move the decimal place.  I remember discussions where we were saying we could take a majority vote and move the decimal place (in the client code code) if necessary, just to make things look neater to the average joe.  What do you guys think??

10-20 years ago with floppy disks, we worked in KBs. MBs in terms of games, now GBs. Our hard drives are exceeding TBs now. It's not hard to change.

First off, nice avatar.

A Bitcoin will always be 1BTC. But a catchy name for a smaller unit is a good idea. There are some threads discussing this, but nothing caught on.

21B units worth ~$0.13 might sound better to new users. We could just call it a "Fraction".

person 1: "Send me a few Fractions for that taco, man!"
person 2: "Sure dude, a few Fractions never breaks the bank, hang ten bro \m/"

This psychological issues regarding non round numbers has been talked about for quite some time on these forums. There is an obvious block for many people who would want to get into bitcoin but feel that $130 per bitcoin is too much, specifically because they fail to realize you can buy minuscule fractions of bitcoin.

One of the largest issues I see with bitcoin is the process for a new-commer. First, he or she must get a wallet. It appears that the most popular suggestion is to download the official QT client and have to wait for god knows how long to download and process over 7 gigs of the blockchain. We should be telling them to use the blockchain.info wallet instead, seeing as how it is the most secure while easiest wallet service out there.

Then comes in actually getting the bitcoins. Coinbase is my favorite method, but it has one main flaw, there is a limit of bitcoin purchases per day, and it takes a few days for the conversion to occur. Most have not heard of dwolla.

There needs to be an extremely simple, very hand holding process for people who want to get into bitcoins. It needs to be simple enough for a five year old to buy some. Go to a website, like www.bitcoin.bit, where there are links bitcoin videos on the side explaining how bitcoin works, and a page to the bitcoin wiki for those more adventurous. Then a one click setup for making a wallet on blockchain.info using either your own account credentials, or use open-id or even your facebook or google login. Show your bitcoin address on the top of the page somewhere. Then you select what currency you use, and depending on the currency, all payment options are available, such as for USD you get the ability to use money order, Paypal, Mastercard, Visa, American Express, snail mail using cash, direct bank deposit, check, and even amazon payments. The purchase should be instantaneous, and the fee being something like even 5% should be fine for small orders (less than $100) and high enough to cover paypal scams. Then, display all the bitcoin purchases possible, with the most popular stores being at the top, especially bitspend.

You're completely right that the high price per unit is an extreme psychological barrier.  We've been having this discussion every month for at least two years now, and everyone who understands the issue* agrees that things should change.

The problem is that we are just a bunch of people on a forum, not people with real power.  In fact that only person that matters is the owner of MtGox.  If he moves the decimal point everyone else will as well.  If he doesn't move it no one else will.

*yeah it sounds like I am making the No True Scotsman Fallacy.  I'm not.

That's a problem for people who are used to BTC being worth less.

For new people, .1 BTC being worth $13 seems normal. The problem isn't with mass adoption, it's with the existing community adjusting to Bitcoin being up 1000% so far in 2013. It's not weird to new people at all, it's all they know.

There's no need to invent a catchy name as there's already one in existence.

It makes no difference whether you ask someone to pay you 1 BTC or 100,000,000 satoshies.

Perhaps one day no one will know that there is such thing as a BTC, as everyone would use satoshies.

No, that's not the joke. The joke is that a long time ago, 99 cent stores actually did sell things for less than dollar, after tax. For example, I have a first paperback edition of Biggles Flies West, which is now rather dated by its price tag: 3/6 (that's three shillings and sixpence), or 0.175 pounds sterling. A reprint now costs 6 pounds. In the book, Biggles and company dine at the "Jolly Shipmates" tavern, despite the exorbitant price (a whole shilling, or 0.05 pounds) charged for sausages and mash. Currencies in which you can't get a decent meal for a fraction of a currency unit are something of a novelty, and most people old enough to remember what prices were "back in the day" complain endlessly about how worthless their money has become. I think these people will welcome Bitcoin.

There are too many reasons why bitcoin will never be mass adopted to be concerned by one.

Dollar Tree in the USA sells everything in the store for $1. The tax isn't up to them. In general though, I hate any store that implies a price in its name, but fails to adhere to it. Also, your point is spot on. Before the 99 cent store, there were the 5 and Dimes.

The biggest issue in my opinion is that bitcoin really does require a decent amount of technical prowess. Companies/sites need to step forward and not necessarily "dumb down" bitcoin but make it more user-friendly and safe for the average consumer.

Oh, that old book justs costs 99 femtobitcoins.

IMO the problem is defation/inflation. In my country we have around 25% inflation and that makes us take an easy decision:

- Buy goods in twelve payments without interest using credit cards or,
- buy goods in one payment using bitcoins

Fiat currencies will be most of the time the chosen ones.   

I don't see why we can't just deal with the decimal values. Is it that hard to conceptualize what "point Oh Oh five seventy three" means (or whatever it might be)? Did we not all get past the 3rd grade?

This is a purely perceptual problem. People should realize that inflation has warped their minds into thinking this way. A loaf of bread used to be .05 dollars. It wasn't very hard to understand what this meant...

What's wrong with using satohies across the board, e.g. 100,000,000 satoshies instead of 1 BTC? Oh, I get it, perhaps you are worried that using satoshies would mean that BTC is in fact an inflationary currency, especially when a decision is made to change from 8 decimal places to 10 and so forth.

Shop will accept (like) BTC in 12 instalments as it is deflationary.

Surely, if the masses can make the mental U-turn that is fully understanding and embracing bitcoin, this is a trivial matter. New cute nicknames for our new love will come up as needed, as happened for fiat in the past.

What about the network fee when btc rises to say 1000$?
Micropayments would be essentially rendered impossible.

Probably, other currencies will be better for that.

That's an interesting point. If bitcoin was to raise to that value purchasing of small (low cost) goods would not be possible as the transaction fee could be greater than the sale price...

Transaction fee can be reduced.