Bitcoin Forum

Having a currency with 8 decimals is fantastic, but it can and does lead to confusion. Couldn't we use the same concept we use to the left of the decimal point (i.e. $1,000,000.00) for the right side of the decimal point (i.e. BTC0.000,001  or 123.456,789 BTC)?

I know this is not how numeral notation traditionally works. But perhaps that's because there hasn't been a need before. Well, now we do have a need with Bitcoin. (Or maybe I'm the only one who has accidentally bet 10 or 100 times more than I intended to on just-dice!  :) )

My questions are:

1) Do you think this is a good idea?

2) Is it possible to code in a simple way to display numbers like this? Or would it be a clusterfuck?


PS: If this has been addressed, or you think it's a very stupid idea, please be gentle. I couldn't find a discussion on this.

EDIT: Further down in this thread I settle on using semi-colon as the separator (i.e. 1.234;567;89), because using commas could easily be confusing. Here is the text above re-written taking into account the new semi-colon concept:

Having a currency with 8 decimals is fantastic, but it can and does lead to confusion. Couldn't we use the same concept of thousands separators we use to the left of the decimal point (i.e. $1,000,000.00) for the right side of the decimal point using a new symbol, the semi-colon? (i.e. BTC0.000;001  or 123.456;789 BTC)?

I know this is not how numeral notation traditionally works. But perhaps that's because there hasn't been a need before. Well, now we do have a need with Bitcoin. (Or maybe I'm the only one who has accidentally bet 10 or 100 times more than I intended to on just-dice!  :) )

My questions are:

1) Do you think this is a good idea?

2) Is it possible to code in a simple way to display numbers like this? Or would it be a clusterfuck?


PS: If this has been addressed, or you think it's a very stupid idea, please be gentle. I couldn't find a discussion on this.

I know that Satoshi once said this:


Which does not really answer your question directly, but I guess shows that the situation we are approaching was convieved during the design of the protocol, which means it should be possible to move the decimal place altogether at some point in the future (although i am not a programmer).

21 billion millibitcoins is the same as 21 million bitcoins after all (a US billion that is).

This has been discussed before though, google custom search is your friend here...

yeah, I figured I might get a lmgtfy (although searching "commas" and "decimal", returns a lot of pages about how some countries use commas instead of points, etc.).

As for your comment, I totally understand. I am all for switching to speaking of mBTC or µBTC, in which case 0.001 BTC becomes 1 mBTC, which is 13 US cents. However, what I mean is that when one IS writing a number in BTC, changing the convention to adding "thousands" commas to the right of the decimal point just as one would do on the left. Here's wikipedia on digit grouping:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_mark#Digit_grouping

It mentions in passing digit grouping "before or after the decimal mark", but doesn't go much further than that.

I'll also paste this here while I'm at it:

http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/182775/convention-of-digit-grouping-after-decimal-point

There are various different conventions used currently for the decimal point separator and thousands separator.

For instance: one thousand, two hundred and thirty four and a half is written:

English:     1,234.5

Spanish:    1.234,5
German (in Germany): 1.234,5

German (in Switzerland): 1,234.5

Russia, France: 1 234,5

I am sure there are other combinations I am unaware of.
If you have separators after the decimal place you'll encounter more ambiguity than there already is.

For instance "one bitcoin and two thousand, three hundred and forty five 10,000ths of a bitcoin" using the convention you suggest:
a Spaniard would write: 1,234.5
an English person would write: 1.234,5

Compare to the figures above and you can see the prospect for confusion.

Good point.... You're absolutely right. I hadn't realized how completely ambiguous it would make everything.

So using the same thousands separator (comma in english, period in spanish) is out. Perhaps another convention is in order then. Because the problem remains-- in the Bitcoin world, when speaking of the native currency (BTC, not mBTC, nor µBTC, etc.), we will mostly "be" on the right side of the decimal.

Any proposals?

What about a semicolon? ;?

1.23456789 BTC (1,23456789 in Spanish) becomes 1.234;567;89 (1,234;567;89 in Spanish)

Other symbols could be apostrophe ' (though this would cause confusion with minutes), ^, (space), _ , -

The idea would be to come up with a symbol that could be dropped in to various cultures' conventions without ambiguity.

I like the space. I have 1.234 567 89 Bitcoins. Doesn't cause much confusion, maybe just a little bit. But you could also group them into twos. Like, I have 1.23 45 67 89 Bitcoins.

Personally, I just count the digits and stick to what it is now, which is 1.23456789.

Then again, we have pi shown often as:
3.1415926535 8979323846 2643383279 5028841971 6939937510 5820974944 5923078164 0628620899 8628034825 3421170679 ...

or

3.14159 26535 89793 23846 26433 83279 50288 41971 69399 3751 05820 97494 45923 07816 40628 62089 98628 03482 53421 17067 9 ...

I think for bitcoin, 4 digit separations should be okay. I have 3.1415 9265 BTC, doesn't look too confusing.

If you have a need or reason to specify the bitcoin value to 8 decimal places. . .  Don't.

Instead, specify it in microbitcoin and use digit grouping separators on the left side of the decimal indicator.  Problem solved.

1.23456789 bitcoins can (should?) be written in the U.S. as:

1,234,567.89 microbitcoin

No confusion on the right side of the decimal separator, and region expected grouping on the left.

Better yet, use nanobitcoin and eliminate the decimal indicator entirely:

1,234,567,890 nanobitcoin

People already use "satoshi". At least that's the chatter I see on dice sites.

I agree, except I don't agree with calling it nanobitcoins because nano means 10^-9, but bitcoin is subdivisible to 10^-8, which are called Satoshi, like dabs said.

However, while I agree that denominating everything in satoshi eliminates the decimal dilemma, the fact is many times (most times) we are talking talking about BTC, and while three of four significant figures are all that really matter, the reality is people usually write out the full precise number. For example, the other day someone wanted me to transfer $1 worth of bitcoin to him. So he calculated 1/122.89= 0.00813735 BTC. Obviously, these are very small amounts, and 5 satoshi more or 5 satoshi less doesn't matter, but that's what the calculator spit out for the value of $1, so that's what we were gonna transfer. But as he's telling me this number it becomes a little difficult to ensure that you wrote it correctly when it's

0.00813735 BTC

vs.

0.008 137 35 BTC

or

0.008;137;35 BTC

Just like a comma separators make it easy to read out loud (or interpret quickly in your head) that

45230620440 is

45,230,620,440 or approx 45 billion, which is not instantly obvious above.

How about trying something new like....

1.234,,567,,89

Or

1.234;456;78

Display as Bitcoin Satoshis

BS12,345,678

Although BS might make too many of us giggle so...

SB12,345,678

Looks too much like SoB.

sounds like someone has a little bitcoin envy and wishes that their balance would pass .99   :'( :'( :'( you hold a dear place in my heart next to 'sad keanu' poor keanu...

The double commas (or double periods in the case of decimal commas) could work. As for BS/SB, I agree that it would be cool to have a symbol for Satoshi. $ is out, and SB/BS might be a bit confusing. Maybe a double crossed T, or H? (a double crossed A was the symbol for Australes, Argentina's hyper-inflationary currency in the 80s).

I don't understand this comment (I'm being sincere). Was it meant for me, the OP?

While I think my original comment is more directed at making it easier to read bitcoin numbers with many digits, it is true that as Bitcoin appreciates (as I think we all hope it will), more and more Bitcoin figures (whether it be your personal balance or just the transactions you deal with) will be in tenths, hundredths, thousandths, etc., of Bitcoin, and it would be nice to have a convention already laid out to make it more welcoming and easier to read.

would displaying the groups of digits in slightly different shades help and be less confusing than symbols?  e.g. black and dark grey in groups of 3?

I've seen people call satoshis as sats. And thousands of satoshis as ksats. But I've only seen it on one dice site chat room. "Hey, I bet 65ksats and won 130ksats!"

What about a display that automatically chooses BTC, mBTC, µBTC with lowest non-zero value left of the decimal separator ?

I think these are both great options if you are creating a website or something like that. Kinda like how inputs.io makes all figures after two decimal places super script, like this:

1.23⁴⁵⁶⁷⁸

Another option would be spaces.

However, I still think a sort of universally applicable system would be useful and needed, and the more I think about it, the more I like using a semicolon ";". I think it's elegant, it's unambiguous in both decimal-period and decimal-comma contexts. I think it makes sense as it uses two symbols that are already in use (a , and a .).

I dunno, I like it. It's growing on me. My original idea of using comma (, or period .) delimiters to the right of the decimal place (. or , respectively), was deeply flawed, as was pointed out by jim618:


Which is why I changed the title of the post to "What if I owned 1.234;567;89 BTC instead of 1.23456789 BTC?" instead of "What if I owned 1.234,567,89 BTC instead of 1.23456789 BTC?"

Thoughts?

I think that's a good way to communicate if you are already speaking in the context of satoshi. I like it.

I say thats a very good idea, the best option would be to use semi colons instead of extra points as peopl could mistake that for commas.

Thanks marcotheminer!

do you guys think it is time to move the decimal back 1?

I don't like using SI prefixes with the Bitcoin unit -- they don't work naturally with Bitcoin's 8 decimals of precision. How about 1.23456789? Read as: "One bitcoin, 2345 bitgrains (or whatever), 6789 satoshi."

It'd also be OK to use SI prefixes with the satoshi unit. So 1 BTC would be equal to 100 Msat.

That may well be correct but I've never seen anyone ever do that (speaking as a Brit and someone who studied maths to the age of 18).

It looks very strange to me to use a comma after having used a point. I would simply write 1.2345

The code is available at https://github.com/shawnpringle/electrum .   Checkout the d.ddd branch.  As for not using commas you can change the thousands separator in the Windows' control panel.  I think there may be a KDE control panel option for this.  I set the thousands separator to a single space in MS Windows and all of the numbers had a space every three digits not just in Electrum but in other apps too.  Are you a C++ dev?

Or just 12,346,678 sat. That's the same abbreviation that Dragon's Tale uses, and to be honest it's a pretty decent abbreviation which looks pretty nice.

why choose 3 as a place for seperators....why not one after 4 places as in 1.2345,6789

much easier IMO although I prefer none

on that note ,realize that in usd , the value to make  the last digit worth even a cent has to surpass

drumroll...1 mil !

a dime       "      0.1         "    "    "      "            (at startup)
1 usd                0.01                                      (few tears ago)
10 usd              0.001                                    (recently)
100usd renders 0.0001 equal to one cent         (currently)
1,000usd          0.00001                                 (possibly)
10,000usd        0.000001                                not likely
100,000usd      0.0000001                              dollar died by this time
1million usd      0.0000,0001                           no contest- btc declared world currency

therefore anyone betting in the last four digits are joking around wasting time or expecting future winnings to be  worth  a few thousand dollars if the last scenario happens. betting at the fifth level and waiting for economic armegeddon might be worth it   but most likley no one w food gives a rats ass about btc and people are knifing each other for that to happen!

btw is that an android v 20 you've got there (stab,stab!)

To be honest, I think that 3/4 d.p separators aren't needed. For BTC, you can use something such as 1.23⁴⁵⁶⁷⁸⁹ (if people mainly deal in cBTC) or 1.234⁵⁶⁷⁸⁹ (if people mainly deal in mBTC in the future) for the wallet display. You have the main money (mBTC, think dollars) shown in full text, and the other chump change is in superscript (think cents).

yeah, chump change in superscript is a good idea..i think ill use that in the future

(Or, as theymos said, you can use subscript i.e 0.12_3456789 or 0.123₄₅₆₇₈₉. It's pretty much a matter of personal preference, inputs.io scripts the last 6 decimal places.)

Hey I'm flattered you'd think I'm a C++ dev, but I'm not. I'm not a dev/coder/programmer at all. Unfortunately.

As for what you wrote, it seems you are referring to thousands separator. I'm proposing coming up with a new standard for a thousandTHS separator. What do you think of that? How hard would it be to implement?

True, this is a possibility, and it makes a lot of sense since there's 8 digits to the right of the decimal in Bitcoin. However, my idea was to keep it consistent with most culture's customs when it comes to the thousands separator to the left of the decimal.

Please note that my point here isn't that this is necessary because we're going to 1BTC=$1 million soon. Rather, my point is that we, as bitcoiners, are dealing with numbers with 8 decimal places on a regular basis now, for a variety of reasons. Perhaps there is no tradition for thousandths  separators as there is for thousands separators because there simply hasn't been much of need for it till now.

I'll give you one example that I run into every day: betting on Just-Dice. Which is bet is larger? 0.0000120 or 0.00000875? I know you can count the zeros, but it wasn't obvious at first glance, was it? Now look at the column of bets on just dice. True, a bet of a couple hundred satoshi is just as insignificant in dollars as a bet of a few thousand satoshi, but one is 10x the other. If you're running a bot to martingale (for example), slipping up on one zero can make a world of difference.

This is the very reason we have thousands separators: it makes it easier to identify numbers with a quick glance (what's larger? 23402455945 or 6942382230? What if I asked like this: 23,402,455,945 or 6,942,382,230?)

I like the superscript. This is how inputs.io shows BTC (I mentioned this in a post above).

However, my reasoning with trying to find a symbol is to make it more universal. A semicolon is easily found on any keyboard and can be easily added in line to any number regardless of the whether it's plaintext or not, if superscript of subscript is available, etc. etc.

As for it being chump change, again, that is correct, but in some contexts the 10x difference between 0.00000002 and 0.0000002 could be huge (for example, a bet on Just Dice, or say if that's the payment per click for some service, etc.).

Now if those numbers are written as 0.000;000;02 and 0.000;000;2 the difference in magnitude is immediately obvious, no?

The superscript is kind of a disaster.  Is it possible to have 1.23⁴⁵⁶⁷⁸⁹ ?   That is a huge number.  Like owing one dollar and being charged 23% over 456,000 years with compound interest.  The balance you pay would be 1.23⁴⁵⁶⁷⁸⁹.  I know commas are disliked by people for use as thousands separators but you could use spaces instead.  It's all in your Windows control panel and it is also settable in Linux.  I think it is an environment variable.  As for internationalization, by default my Electrum fork pulls the preference from the locale preferences.   That means:

The number 1000000.42312 is displayed as 1,000,000.423,12 in the default config for US Windows and 1.000.000,423.12 in Spain or 1 000 000.423 12 (which is an S.I. convention) if you set up your computer to display numbers this way.  You may specify any character: Semicolons, at symbols or exclamation points.  There is no superscripting character in Unicode, in spite of Unicode containing things like poker cards and a picture of a baby.

Download it at : https://github.com/shawnpringle/electrum

Shawn