Bitcoin Forum

I don't know about you guys, but more and more often I find myself dealing with numbers like 0.004 BTC, 0.05 BTC, etc. in everyday transactions. I hate decimals and I think most of you are in the same boat as me. Our brain works much better with whole numbers. Given that 1 mBTC is in the same order of magnitude as 1 USD, why don't we start measuring our transactions in mBTC?

I personally prefer Satoshi, its way more fun to transfer a million satoshi than 0.01 btc or 10 mBTC.

No seriously, just use whatever you prefer, I think most are familiar with the denominations

1 BTC = 10⁸ (100 million) satoshi
1 mBTC = 10⁵ (100k) satoshi
1 µBTC = 10² (100) satoshi

Because sometimes Bitcoin or number of Satoshis is more appropriate. It all depend on specific tansaction whether Satoshis, mBTC or Bitcoins makes most sence to visualize in my brain when doing the transaction

$1 = 2.37 mBTC, they're perfectly comparable, no need for them to be equal to find using mBTC much more handy.

It is depended on people preferences, personally i hated to deal with decimals,
But i am familiar now, and i like more to deal with decimals instead of satoshis or mBTC

Satoshi is another great unit: I think it's too small for now, but certainly bound to become the default in the future.

The best is that all clients let you switch quickly to the unit you need at that moment.

Nah, I think it's more reliable to use the bigger unit rather than using a smaller one which is mbtc. Bitcoin is more volatile than others and with it's constant moving price, it's more preferable to use a unit as a whole and just a measure of it's part.

in my opinion.. i think it doesnt matter if its mbtc, satoshi or btc.
as all bitcoin users understands already what is it.
but when you tell that we start using ONLy mbtc. there will be some
debate over it. as some people will like instead change it to satoshi only. or btc only.
so i think theres no need to change the usual one. you can measure it in mbtc if you want.
but i doubt that everyone will agree using the same also for over all.

I find it easier just using satoshis, I prefer just 0.0001 or whatever. any time i see x mbtc i find it harder to work out than satoshis.

Maybe "bits" will be better, as we expect the value to increase significantly? At the moment 20 bits is about 1 Japanese Yen. Maybe soon it will be equivalent?

I think most people have gotten too used to saying BTC and get confused when their coins are denominated in mBTC.

It will happen sooner or later though, with increasing price it is inevitable.

1 BTC = 1 000 000 bits. easy.

Should we quote US currency in dollars or cents - it's a similar discussion. :)

i like to use more satoshi as the minimal divisor, i simply say i send you 0.01, 0.001 etc...

i don't have problem with rational numbers

It is working fine even with BTC and there will be time when mbtc and umbtc really will have value and then these symbols which seem rare will in spot light by themselves.We can change general trend so easy.People follow the trend so doing we too.

Agree with you we should start using mBTC instead quoting BTC.I think there less awareness about this even we see it everyday.I will start using from now onwards.I think is good initiative to debate and spread the word out.

using decimal sometime make people misleading count the zero behind,
and using mBTC would make hard to convert exact number to fiat,
so i totally agree with shorena, using satoshi are perfect for smallest unit of 1 bitcoin, easy looks.

Im fine with using Numbers like 0.001
No need to change anything.. but use whatever you want.

I think a much more suitable comparison is to discuss whether we should take body measurements in inches or miles ;)

In what unit you want to compare bitcoin is up to you depend upon how much bitcoin you handle regurarly. For faucet claimer even 1mbtc will be high and what they earn will be in decimal in whatever unit they compare it with.
There are many units to see bitcoin and you are free to use what suited you but bitcoin will be always counted as unit bitcoin rather than all those smaller unit.

mBTC is not user-friendly. If you say MBTC it's 4 syllables. If you say millibitcoin it's 4 syllables too. Much too long. That's the big problem. It needs a shorter name. 2 syllables top wouldn't be a luxury.

"Bits" is cool, for micro-bitcoins, though. Only problem is that "bit" is a common word with a lot of meanings. And also it sounds funny for French speakers like me because it's pronounced in a similar fashion to the french word "bite" which means "dick". Imagine the conversation; "oh yeah, I bought that beer for 3 dicks". Yes that's how French speakers feel when they have to use the word "bit" in a French sentence. Awkward  ;D
Also, the bit still a very small unit. Unless bitcoin drastically increases in value, bits won't be worth much. Which is not practical either :-/

I hate when people make calculations in satoshis. Satoshis are meant to be bitcents. Not a unit for larger amounts. No one says "30,000 euro cents". That's stupid. You say "300 euros" and that's it. Amounts calculated in satoshis should never exceed two digits.

To be honest, I still use the 0.001 BTC unit. I find it to be very easy as I have been using it since I came into Bitcoin. My Bitcoin core wallet gives me the option to choose mBTC, but I'm not going to use it as my main unit any time soon.

Yes that will be my prefered unit in a few years as well I think.
Instead of mBTC and µBTC, bits is really simple to understand.
And in terms of accumulating it is always fun to "Each bit counts!" :D

for now it's eaier to me to use mBTC in transactions because it's more used but for the other rich users it will not be comefortuble to use for them they will need to dobble in tripple check what are writed before sending

This.

You don't have to convince everyone to switch to certain unit, you can just choose which one you prefer.

But I've noticed that mBTC gained a lot of popularity lately, most bitcoin poker sites would use it.

yes also in many sports gambling websites they use mBTC as units in my opinion he could just uses a converter to USD or Euro to do his txs

I understand what you are saying, but I do not understand how that would be move convenient.  People need to understand what a Bitcoin is and when we do this, you will confuse people.  When  first started with Bitcoin, I did a faucet thinking I was getting more than I was because it was in mBTC.  It is just confusing for newbies.

yes true, I strongly agree, even too many zeros after the decimal point increasingly seen little value, I also wonder kenpa people not wearing the unit mBTC, but it is looking good and elegant, like transactions 5 mBTC or 10mBTC, looks cool does not it?

mBTC doesnot fits for speaking out the numbers like 5 Btc is said 5000 mBtc.
5 Btc is easier to speak than 5000mbtc

I personally like satoshis and just plain BTC with the decimals. You get accostumed to the zeros at some point.

I feel that are more common and that is why they are easier to read. Got accostumed to mBTC when I used coinbase a lot, but then lost it somehow when I stopped seeing amounts on mBTC.

You get good at reading what you read most.

I find dealing in mBtc abit confusing sometimes aswell, especially when using differant devices and wallets.

I agree to this and allot of sites using BTC already started doing so, The 1 unit is so large that it's not practical to actually consider the BTC a base currency.

Wrong approach according to me. That does not mean that I am right and the OP has wrong. That mean only that my brain don't work like the brain of OP. My brain need more than 5 hours to understand the real value in bitcoin if it is shown 10 mbtc or 3.5 cmbtc (if exist this measure). While absorb immediately every amount told or write in btc. Not only this. But understand almost immediately even the value of these figures in fiat (mainly us dollar). So I vote for the btc and not for the its subdivisions.  ;)

BTC will rise in value and once it hit the $1000 barrier again the most functional thing to do is to start using the Mbtc measure. It will have much more utility that way, once it hit $1000

Let's not. I personally get really confused when I see something in mBTC or other variants, I started thinking in BTC and now it's been pretty hard to reroute my brain :)

My mobile wallet defaults to bits too, and I have to think carefully when I want to make a transaction and the QR doesn't ask the amount automatically or there's just an address.

Anyways, I can get used to it, eventually, but I do prefer the BTC denomination only. As long as most services allow presenting amounts either in BTC or mBTC, everything will be fine

mBTC and satoshis are not actual units of bitcoins.

They are sub-units actually just like grams and milligrams.

So the main unit is BTC and is easily recognizable.

mBTC are complicating and you have to calculate in BTC again.

So why you go in the wrong way?

It's not the wrong way, actually it would be the right unit to use in order to have the smallest whole numbers in most everyday transactions. As I was saying in another post, currently, it's as if we took body measurements in miles instead of inches. Of course it's just a suggestion, I'm not forcing anyone to use it.

I prefer using BTC over any other denominations. I guess with time I've become used to the BTC decimals and know how to deal with transactions using only BTC.

It's a matter of what you're conditioned to, but I think it's just much easier to use BTC's as the main unit of measurement.

I prefer using a whole BTC as a unit but it's most important to have a united system (either mBTC or BTC as a whole) because it would be even less convenient if every site has a different denominator they use (mBTC, satoshi, Bitcents, whole BTC).

i find working with decimals very easy and smooth. i could also use mbtc, but that requires me to get used to it. not really a big deal, but still... i much rather work with btc.

Yes, and do you see what the common denominator is here?  It's the satoshi unit, and that's one of only two that should be used in my opinion.  I strongly, strongly believe that one should either use satoshi (or ksat: 100ksat = 1btc) or BTC.  Everything else is unnecessary and only introduces more steps in describing what should be a very simple quantity.

Most of us have had training in science, right?  Think of how many garbage units we have to deal with just to describe a single quantity.  Back when I learned about the ideal gas law, there were so many different R constants because Pressure could be in torr, atm, mmHg; Volume could be in liters, CC, M^3; and Temperature could be in Celcius, Fahrenheit, and Kelvin.  It was ludicrous and there are so many other examples of this it makes my head spin just trying to think about all of it again.

So for me it's Satoshi or BTC.  Nothing else.  Not Bits, not mBTC, not uBTC.

This is a very old and familiar issue in science and engineering, where quantities have values that may vary over orders of magnitude.
It's been resolved by referring to quantities in SI engineering units (milli, micro, nano, kilo, mega etc).
The idea is you figure out the 'closest' of those units to use where 'close' is defined by the unit leaving an integer value with maybe one or two decimal points.
Noone would ever use stuff like 0.000001 btc, for example. It would simply be 1 microbitcoin (1uBTC).
Even if satoshis were considered the base unit,  noone would ever use 100000000 satoshis, it would be 100 megasatoshis (probably 100MS if it became common enough).

So, at the moment if we're dealing with USD, a millibitcoin is the best unit for every day transaction sizes.

It requires some familiarity with the SI engineering units, but it's sensible to take a lead from the people who deal with ranges like this every day, right?
Even the financial world (where they like to add many zeroes) is now using 'k' to indicate a 1000 multiplier.
People know what 'k' and 'M' mean now as well. It's not so hard.

There's a couple of sensible options (everything in SI units with satoshis as the base, or everything in SI units with bitcoin as the base). It's unfortunate Satoshi made the smallest unit 10^-8 btc instead of 10^-9 (a nanobitcoin). if he had, we'd not even need satoshi as a unit.

And there's no need to add an unnecessary new unit like 'bit', when all it is is a microbitcoin (maybe 'micro' for short) - that's just stupid and confusing.

MBTC is like pennies compared to BTC though. I don't like this idea

Well, I already do deal with bitcoin in terms of mBTC.  That's the wonderful thing about the decimal system...one can think about it in any terms they wish.  It my help some who have a problem comprehending decimals to learn engineering notation.  It's a great format to simplify decimal places in one's mind on the fly.

i like how some wallets actually let you change your main unit of currency from btc to mbtc like copay. i really enjoy using those kinds of wallets because they make me feel like i own more btc and i actually own.

Yeah, why not? mBTC can be easier for micro transaction and small earnings for us newbies, whereas BTC are more used by miners and large companies. I suppose different units of bitcoin can be used in different places, so each is useful in some way. :) Many sites now also offer mBTC as a unit, like coinad, but it makes the earnings look small. :P

Yeah, I agree with you. Btcclicks use it too. So, the member can feel if they are gain a great value..

hey maybe you got little bit of misunderstood him .op is saying to count the transaction in mbtc until we get a 1bitcoin that means a whole number and by the way op you can use the mbtc viewinv setting almost present in every wallet and alsomt in every site there are a lot of people who had thought the same stuff and i am sure you will find some of them at bitcointalk community too.hey but in my opinion i dont think mbtc will be a good idea i always go for satoshi unit when ever i see any bitcoin transaction its the perfect unit of me

Yes, based on the volume we can use different notations for bitcoin.
But with foreseeing view, we will be forced to use least available unit satoshi when satoshi = 1 USD or 1 cent.
Value and volume will decide the unit of bitcoin time to time for our convenience.

Yes, the unit of bitcoin for our ease of use and for better understanding. So, one all time standardization is not possible for bitcoin and for any commodity/currency also. So, let the users to choose for their convenience.

I feel like mBTC is just casinos' attempt to make us feel richer :P

Well, it's the nature of human's greed
More number in yo wallet = more happiness (even tho sometimes it's cheap)

Yeah me too, i'm more comfortable using satoshi. I used it because sometimes mbtc is confusing in my part as well as others bitcoiners I guess they are confused or they dont know the conversation of mbtc to satoshi.

100ksat is not 1BTC though, you might wana be careful when trading.

I used to use the unit satoshi to divide bitcoin as my first experience with btc was through faucets.
And if some one used bit, mbit, I got confused :D

I don't exactly see a point of using mbtc instead of BTC as it just happens to be pointless. Just like using Satoshis. Bitcoin in its own is fine.

I like using BTC because it is the least confusing. mBTC could work better but there are some people who do bigger transactions.

I agree completely that if mBTC is the base currency it will be much better, a full BTC is simply too expensive to use it as a corner for BTC trades and transactions and it gives the general public a view that BTC is just less useful since they don't fully understand how one satoshi can be exchanged.

yup. I really hate the ammount of zeros in front. Especially if the price per BTC would grow and you would have to pay something like 0.0002134 for coffee for example. Would have been better so the price would be like 2,2134.

But it takes some adapting. It is frustrating right now seeing mBtc and Btc sometimes, so you are left confused.

Not to mention less f%%ck ups. So you wont send 0.01 instead of 0.001 to somebody again :D

I use sometimes mBTC but not like you, having some decimals don't bother me. So for me, that's not a priority to use mBTC everywhere.

the problem with this is that not everybody knows what mili, micro and similar things mean. i have seen topics about what does mBTC or uBTC means and how much are they.
for this to work, everybody needs to have an understanding of the units. but satoshi or using decimals is going to be universally understandable.

i believe no only you guy that confused and asking about this,some forum and group dealing with mBTC for measuring bitcoin amount,and some wallet give some option with decimal or mBTC,for m,its more simple use decimal,even i hate decimal,but i can calculate bitcoin easily with decimal :)

I had my wallet set to mBTC for a long time but I just switched to BTC because too many things are priced in BTC and I wanted to avoid confusion.

None of the websites where I spend money use mBTC so it doesn't make sense for my wallet to be in mBTC.

that is the good thing about bitcoin. you can change these things to your liking. for instance in Electrum wallet that i use, you can set it to any unit you like and set the decimals it shows. and i have seen websites that accept bitcoin do this too with a simple dropdown list that changes the price to mBTC, uBTC, or USD,...

More or less i know about all bitcoin units. Still i feel comfort only when i use BTC unit and i feel little confusion when i use other units.

Nah.
The advantage in using subunits is to minimize the complication.
Usually, in the examples people use, that simply means minimizing the number of zeros needed to pad the number out.
More generally you know how many significant figures you want to preserve, look at the zeros required to pad to the decimal point, then choose a subunit that reduces these.

simple examples:
0.001 btc = 1 millie
100000 satoshi =  1 millie

cubits would be more appropriate if the size was the only consideration.
But fortunately the world has an actual standard set of units here, so we'd use meters.

sometimes i was so confused with mBTC because already familiar with decimal in btc also using decimal is more popular than use mBTC and i think we must be stay in decimal for everyday use than using mBTC

I already do it. Setted up my Mycellium wallet to show balances and transactions in mBTC and it made my life a lot easier. It's hard to deal with several zeros after the comma!

No more confusing than grams and milligrams, or meters and millimeters.
If you're confused by all those, you better pay more attention.

for me its more confusing using mbtc than btc..whenever 1 mbtc is equal to 0.001 btc. i think i prefer 0.001 bcause the first time and alrdy in my head is 0.001 not the 1mbtc.
actually that 1mbtc make me confusing alot.
does everyone feel the same like me?

Ah but if you have ever had physics or chemistry etc. you always use the SAME units because it avoids mistakes.

Physics tends to use mks - meter, kilogram, second. Chemistry tends to use cgs - centimeter, gram, second.

Using the same units for everything avoids accidental mistakes.

Hence why I am using BTC in my wallet even though mBTC would be preferred. Since the places I spend present prices in BTC then I should use BTC to reduce odds of human error when converting between the two, even though the conversion is always an exponent of 10.

It would be nice if markets presented prices in mBTC but very few do, BTC is what the market has chosen.

I like more to make deals with decimals instead of 1mBTC or 1bits or satoshi, 0.01 is just enough to say instead of thousands of satoshi.

i dont like using mBTC,because i always getting hard to calculate it to other currency,if i use mBTC of course if i want to trade that bitcoin,i will calculate to decimal,so i not use mBTC anymore.

'Tis true that scientific equations are constructed so that all components use the same units or subunits.
It does more than prevent accidental mistakes - it enables anyone to use them without checking what subunits are required for each variable value. All you need to know is the system used (e.g mks)/

With the current discussion, we're talking really simple conversions tho. Not algebraic, just arithmetic.
The operations involve only decimal point shifts (3 to the right, 3 to the left etc) and a simple multiplicative factor to get to/from fiat.
As you say, you wouldn't mix subunits even in the arithmetic calculations (like say adding btc to millies, or adding btc to dollars); you normalize the units first.

For these arithmetic operations, the units don't matter. The only requirement is to not mix units.

So your 'same units' can still be btc or mbtc in any one calculation. The subunit chosen doesn't affect the calculation (like it would if the units needed to be exponentiated in a physics equation for example).

Right but when I make payments, I never "click" the link or scan the QR code because of the possibility of an XSS attack or malware that alters the url fed to my bitcoin client.

I copy the amount and address into a text editor, verify that they match (and that the payment makes sense)

Then I initiate the payment, make sure the address matches, and enter the amount.

That's where a mistake can happen.

If the item costs 0.5 BTC and my client is in mBTC then it is possible that instead of entering 500 mBTC I enter 50 mBTC or 5000 mBTC.

If the units are the same however, it is easier to visually see that amount.

-=-

Yes I know the address could potentially be altered on the web page itself by an XSS attack, it would be beautiful if more sites used CSP to protect against that, and it also would be beautiful if payment addresses could be pre-generated and added to DNS especially with DNSSEC so that their validity could be verified the same way a DNSBL or DNSWL works with spam filtering.

But anyway, since I cut and paste the amount into a text editor and then cut and paste the amount into my client, it is less mistake prone if both use the same units.

I'm prefer using BTC instead of mBTC because i think using BTC is more easier than mBTC. and people around the world more know about BTC instead mBTC.

that is the problem though. you want to see mBTC another person wants to see bits instead of all these and some other person comes along and wants to see satoshi instead of all these.

so to solve this the website have to either show all the desirable units to satisfy all of their customers or they can use the decimal with standard bitcoin (0.5 BTC) so nobody can complain.

I don't mind decimals and like both mBTC and Satoshi.  With time you get used to all of it.

I like to see mbtc in my balance but even if it is mbtc or BTC , it will not change the value so its like so-so for me.

some forum and site also use mBTC for bitcoin transaction,and i comfort with that,but some exchange never use that,and its being problem for me,so i often use decimal than use mBTC.

I prefer using bits. Xapo uses bits. In my Electrum wallet I have chosen bits for my currency format. But with future perspective I wish everyone will use satoshi as a unit for bitcoin. If exchanges starts their trading with satoshi, that would boost bitcoin price for sure.

Come on, decimals are not that hard. It's just a simple calculation to find out the value of your coins. It hasn't bothered me at all. On the contrary, it always makes me anxious to see all those zeros become a whole 1 BTC.

Not that hard but also not difficult to make a simple mistake in the head, which is why whenever doing anything scientific, you standardize on the unit to be used and if you use units different than the standard your field had chosen you better have a damn good justification.