Bitcoin Forum

We need a split into 1000 millibitcoins, which would be just over $1 each at the current price.  They'd fly off the shelves, and effectively kill LTC and all the other altcoins.

How can we initiate the change to mBTC?

We could all write to all the exchanges asking them to do this on January 1, 2014.  If we could convince the Bitcoin Foundation to make a recommendation and for the Bitcoin wallet programs to switch at the same time, then it could happen.

I already thinking in mBTC term, 1 mBTC = 0.001 BTC = around 1 USD, easy !

IMO its good idea too, BTC foundation would have to send reccommandation letter to all exchanges.

Good idea.  Anybody wanna take a stab at a succinct template email to them?  And maybe an email list of exchanges?  Then we could all fire away.

Sort of like those emails we receive to write our Congressmen

We need to use the word 'bits' for a millionth of a bitcoin instead.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1rmto3/its_bits/

I've been pushing for this kind of hard recently, but it's only because I think all the other naming schemes causes too much mental hiccups for some people. I've had plenty of conversations where people get confused by using the SI-system on currency. And their skepticism of it never seem to dissappear from that point forwards. Bits is the most intuitive name I've come across that seems to resolve this issue.

And I live in a country that uses the metric system.



Bits is so much more psychologically appealing as well. Imagine this conversation.

"Bitcoin is to expensive"

"You can buy bits of a bitcoin. 1 USD currently gets you 1000 bits."

"Oh"


Getting 1000 bits for your dollar sounds a lot better than getting a fraction of a bitcoin for your dollar, even if you call that fraction mBTC or uBTC. Logically it shouldn't matter much, but in order to get people to focus on the important parts, it seem to mather a lot.

Just my 2 bits.

well, if we keep this 1000 dollar price very stable... it might.
But, we will eventually end up using µBTC or bits as the guy mentioned above in the future ;D

You can set mBTC in Bitcoin-qt, what is the deal?

I don't think this is a very sophisticated strategy to kill LTC. (why kill it anyway, just buy some ltc and harvest great gains  :P )
I mean LTC can switch to mLTC and it 'll still be "cheaper" right?   ::)

I vote for Satoshi

0.000 000 01 BTC = 1 Satoshi (Sat)
0.000 01 = 1 kilo-Satoshi (kSat)
0.01 = 1 Mega-Satoshi (MSat)

currently $1 is 11.5 Mega-Satoshi

:D

I made a thread all about that. Not sure that "bit" is the best short name, though. One guy recommended bai.

People would be confused, 1mBTC = 1.10 USD  and 1 LTC = 40 USD ? They may think LTC is better because of higher price  :D
And buying LTC now? No way!

Definitely time to switch to mBTC IMO

I don't think it's a good idea to combat misconception with confusion.

I vote for mBTC, short and simple

It is inevitable

Why would you want to kill all the competition ? I thought free market libertarians believed in competition and were against monopolies.

i support this the mXBT/ mBTC movement 100% . I believe its an important step for the mainstream to get into bitcoin, right now the masses mentality is "bitcoin is too expensive" however when they look at it from mXBT / MBTC point of view it'll look affordable, especially if it's going to be used as a currency.

A good comparison is Gold, a TT bar is the equivalent of 1 Bitcoin and 1 ounce is the main unit of measure for the price of gold globally.

It's time to make the switch asap before Bitcoin going full mainstream in 2014, exchanges should start by pricing bitcoin by mxbt and xbt this will help the transition.

Why do you consider Bitcoin even at current prices to be the best investment ever but Litecoin at current prices to be bad? Litecoin does the same thing, can do it quicker, and at present still offers hobbyist miners a chance of getting involved.

BTC has a much stronger network effect, it is years ahead of LTC

LTC is like RC Cola compared to BTC Coke

mBTC would have a real effect on people looking to get in who perceive BTC to be "too expensive"

Considering how prices affect the decisions of newcomers i think yes thats possible.
40$ dollars is still quite cheap after all, if you think that something similar that was worth 40$ some months ago now worths 1000+ .

Link to your thread?

I don't see a problem with "bit". The only objection I've seen is that it could be confused with informational bits, but those very rarely come up in the same context. British use pound for both currency and weight, and that doesn't seem to be a problem. I think bits is a very marketable name with a real chance to catch on.

mBTC and uBTC are very easy to understand. Or do you think people using Bitcoin dont have idea what SI unit prefixes are ?

have you actually talked with newcomers about bitcoin using the SI-prefixes? They shouldn't be hard to understand, but they sure seem to be.

I wouldn't personally object to the SI-prefixes, hell I was a proponent for them once. My problem with them is that they doesn't seem to work very well. I've had more than one conversations where the prefixes causes some sort of mental hiccup with people, shifting focus from the point I'm trying to get across. People aren't used to counting money in fractions, and this makes them very skeptical. Also, using too many different units is potentially a big problem as it could cause some huge fuck-ups. A currency needs as few names for different units as possible.

And as I said earlier, I live in a country that uses the metric system. If the SI-prefixes isn't very marketable for currency here, I don't think they are very usable anywhere.

Another user worded it perfectly in another thread.
"Bits" is simple, intuitive, marketable and forward-looking. I really think this is our best bet.

I don't like bits

I like bitcoins

I agree.

A bitcoin is 1 million times better than a bit.

Everything said.

In spoken language perhaps "Mills" mBTC and "Mikes" uBTC would work best.   mBTC is great for the screen but perhaps not so good for spoken language.

I think the debate is premature. Everyone could just use the local currency and "pay with bitcoins". People did that for many years in Europe when the old currencies were replaced by the Euro.

It's like $1000 in gold

I don't think that the change aims the super geeks that are among the early adopters. Those of course are familiar with those prefixes. The change is discussed with mass adoption being the big picture,

Better is explaining to newcommers every Bitcoin consist of 100.000.000 Satoshis, lowest possible unit

yep, I agree. people can still buy 100 thousand satoshies for only a dollar.

I am used to the SI symbols, and wondered if it would cause confusion as well.  However, I just noticed the other day that reddit tips are displayed in mBTC or uBTC (depending on amount and/or exchange rate, I'm not exactly sure).  In any case, I personally found it immediately obvious and actually quite natural.  Using the term "millibitcoins" and "microbitcoins" in conversation may be a bit awkward, but written down I don't think mBTC or uBTC is a problems.  

Maybe we could use "microcoins" instead?  I've seen rpetiela using "minicoins" for a while now and, while not technically correct (should be "millicoins") it does flow much better.

That being said, I think people should be using uBTC as the base unit at this point; 1000 uBTC per dollar is a reasonable exchange rate to use when quoting prices.

Thats an issue imho. I mean the fact that some people use mbtc while others use btc. That adds more confusion to newcomers. We need to decide as community to either use one or the other.

I do agree with this. Anyone can start using mBTC or whatever, but there needs to be some sort of a concensus because we don't want to confuse the newcomers.

you can change it to display mBTC in the client?

i would pull for the idea, but maybe after we get past the chances of going sub 1000/btc.

I bet nanobucks wins just because it doesn't make sense.

I recently changed to mBTC in my client :)

I personally write since the recent jump in price mBTC and I talk about "millibit" ("billibitcoin" is too long).

I think "millibit" or "millies" and "microbit" or "micros" are good names for the currency; But maybe we should consider just moving the decimal point 3 places every 5 years ;)

I prefer microbit to millibit, millibit for some reason makes me think its a millionth of a bitcoin...

+1 on the whole "bits" thing. Best solution I've heard yet.

And it's not just the 0.001 thing that confuses newcomers; this would solve the "there's only 21 million!?!" question too.

"Oh, but there's 21 trillion bits! That's more like it!"

+1 for "bits".

I have to agree, it was unfortunate to set Bitcoin at 100.000.000 Satoshis just so mined block can have 50 Bitcoin instead of 5.000.000.000 Satoshis (or Bitcoins). It was helptfull at beginning but now it causes small psychological problems (1 BTC for $1200 ? seems a lot when share prices are rarely above  $1000 )

mBTC and uBTC seems a lot easier to understand than private and public key basic usage.

Hopefully at some point you 'll be able to use your coins without having to deal or worry to much with private keys etc. Still you 'll have to deal with prices.

Me too. I've been talking about satoshis for much of the last year.

By the time bitcoins are worth $100,000 each, milliBTC will be as large and cumbersome as whole bitcoins are now.

We already have have satoshis which are small enough for the foreseeable future.

In the early days people had no problem referring to prices in thousands or tens of thousands of bitcoins (e.g. pizza) so it shouldn't be all that hard to say a pizza is worth around a million satoshis at today's prices.