Bitcoin Forum

I am newish to Bitcoin. I am wondering what your thoughts are on this. The average person doesn't have the time to calculate Bitcoin value out to the millionth decimal place. Would this be a problem for widespread adoption?

Good thing about bitcoinwallets is that they do all the calculation for you. :)

No, not what I think it would be. Besides that if you want to see the current value of the bitcoin, try searching on Google. It would help you out.  

Wouldn't simply using satoshis as a base value resolve this issue?

There has been some discussion about this, yes, many people have problems with math.

There is a proposal for the base unit to be 'bit', where 1 bit equals 100 satoshis or 0.000001 BTC, but like previous poster said, wallets can just show the desired fiat value of bitcoin holdings.

I'm having trouble understanding what you mean.
I mean, you don't go to the store and have them expect you to figure out the price of the product, taxes and exact change by yourself.. you know?
Why would it work any differently with Bitcoin?

If you're doing a friend to friend transaction most wallets tell you the price or you can look up the exchange rate yourself.

For example, what if you were in a Coffee shop, and the cup of coffee costed .000125 BTC

The average person would not want to waste time squinting at the decimal places and figuring up how much it actually is. Of course this is just my assumption that ordinary people would not want to do the math in their head all the time. I am decently intelligent and even I have to stop and think about it sometimes.

once the change to 'bits' is implemented this won't be a problem anymore.
and by scanning qr code with your smartphone problem is as good as solved.

(the actual purpose of the eight decimal places is a psychological one , not a technical one - people are used to dealing with pennies / 1 cent coins as the last decimal places on their currency - so when people see 2.56743721 they are psychologically trained to attribute a penny value to the 1 at the end , despite the utter ridiculousness of doing this for eight decimal places , because that's how they've always done it in every other currency they've ever used - basically this is the ultimate "trick" of bitcoin , built directly into it , that allows the stupid to place extremely high potential value on it , in this example 1M per bitcoin allows penny value per 1 satoshi at the end , much like all fiat money works today , and would attribute a value of $2,567,437.21 to the value 2.56743721 ... even though this isn't the case , obviously , that's what your brain is *trained* to want to consider correct , that that # at the end has to have value - buuuuut what if i told you I had a currency with 16 decimal places ! it can be expressed as 0.1234567812345678 - psychologically you want to attribute *some* value to the # at the end , the 8 , even though it's literally 10,000,000X less valuable than a satoshi - in the same way you want to attribute *some* value to the satoshi at the end of the bitcoin number you have , even though it's far far less valuable than a penny ... this is why we have delusionals here that genuinely think 1M per bitcoin is going to happen ... they've been psychologically tricked into thinking the digit at the end of the eight decimal places should have real tangible useful value ... :P )

Best wallet that display in bits is Xapo.

It is only nomenclature. If it is a problem, it will be fixed by people inventing words and customs. Already some people use 1 millibitcoin to mean 0.001 BTC, and 1 bit or 1 microbitcoin to mean 0.000001 BTC.

P2P is always smart ... you can view somes choices after a long long time after the start.
Like the 100 000 USD per BTC.  ;D

If Bitcoin reaches widespread adoption, the value per will go through the roof-- maybe even $100,000 - $1,000,000 USD per BTC.

If a Bitcoin reaches $1M, "Bits" (μBTC is the technical term) would be the normal denomination-- whereas 1.00 Bit = $1.00 USD.
1/100 of a Bit is a Satoshi, which would be like cents in USD. I can definitely picture people referring to the system as "Bitcoin", yet the normal denomination being called "Bits".

Since $1M USD = 1 BTC is pretty fantastical, this wouldn't be for a long time (if ever).
For now, I just refer to values in mBTC (1 BTC = 1000 mBTC).

I totally get what you mean-- having decimals will scare off a lot of potential Bitcoin users.

The amount "1 bitcoin" is a name for a large quantity of units, in the same way that "1 million bucks" is a name for a large quantity of dollars.

You wouldn't go to a coffee shop and expect that they would quote the price as "0.0000005 million dollars" would you?

The base unit in the bitcoin system is frequently called a "satoshi".  Therefore, your "0.000125 BTC" could much more conveniently be quoted as "12500" Satoshi.

If you like to have a few decimals so that it looks more like the "dollars and cents" that most Americans are accustomed to, then you can use nicknames that are associated with typical metric system units.

0.001 BTC is a millibitcoin (Call it a millibit, or a milli, or a millie, or a mil, or whatever you like).
0.000001 BTC is a microbitcoin (Call it a microbit, or a micro, or a mike, or a mick, or whatever you like)
0.000000001 BTC is a nanobitcoin (Call it a nanobit, or a nano, or a nan, or a nanny, or whatever you like)

So, your 0.000125 BTC could very easily be called "125.00 microbits" or "0.125 millibits".

I like the term "bits" and hate the term "satoshi." I think we should use bits as the standard.

A "kilo" equals one thousand bits. Kilo is a good word b/c it's short and would be a fun way to describe your money.

I don't think that is going to be an issue. Although there are decimal places, we have unit of measurement such as mbtc, ubtc and bits although the more commonly used right now is mbtc. I don't see that as becoming a barrier that will prevent adoption because only a few people thought it will be confusing. Fact is, it's just numbers.

to answer the question..

what if the world only dealt with tonnes of gold
what if the world only dealt with 100 dollar bank notes
what if the world only dealt with barrels of oil
what if the world only dealt with whole bitcoins

.. well they dont

the world has grams, ounces of gold measure
the world has dollars and cents measures of fiat
the world has litres and gallons of oil measure
the world has bits and satoshi's of bitcoin measure.

so to answer your example
coffee = 12500 satoshi's          (1sat=0.00000001 bitcoin)
coffee = 125 bits                      (1bit=0.00000100 bitcoin)

If they try to sell me coffee for BTC, I will smack them around and say that bits is the better way to measure it.

Is the division of bitcoin fixed, or can it be adjusted in the future, allowing it to be divided into even smaller parts than currently possible if needed?

8 decimal places with hard fork required otherwise.

First let me ask you a questions Do you count your bitcoins yourself? Do bitcoins transfers can work without hardware? If you answered 'no'
They you probably noticed that you don't have to calculate anything, in fact, your mobile device, pc or other piece of hardware will do it for you.
You just have to press "send". Easy as that.

There is a unit already widely used in casinos, mBtc = milli btc =  0.001 btc.

Therefore 1m btc is more like tips or changes, is equivalent to 0.2X USD.

IMO, mbtc will be more popular in the future. And the bigger figure gives people more satisfactions. 1000mbtc looks better than 1btc, right?  ;D

It's possible to add even more decimal points, you just need a soft fork, although I think the current number of atomic units is already sufficient.

Instead of diverting the attention to whether there is or isn't a search button, it's good to note that people asking the same questions as have been asked is just another indicator of growth. In an industry that is inherently technical at that, and with "new" bitcoiners who are inherently less technical and should have a warm welcome. They are still pioneers/early adopters/whatever, and those who get involved five years from now should be given a warm welcome too.

I think the merchants who are accepting Bitcoin payment should label the two price, one is bitcoin, the other is fiat money! Then the customers will see right away!

Then maybe they should list three amounts.
1) Fiat cost
2) BTC cost and its fiat value

This is if they are offering a discount for using BTC. By offering a discount, you save money and they get more customers.

Honestly I have never thought about it like this but I can see how it would.  That is one of the ONLY one thing an alt coin could have over bitcoin. 

in fact i think bitcoin has too few of those.. and if bitcoin gains real value in future it will either have to make more or altcoins would be used for casual shopping..

atleast try to look at the numbers
21,000,000.00000000

imagine $1 =100sat/1bit (0.00000100)

=$21,000,000,000,000
=$21 trillian

more than enough!
especially when you consider demand/deflation would cause goods usually worth $1 today (milk or bread), to be able to be bought for far less than 1bit.
in short it will be like the 1920's again where multiple loaves of bread can be bought for $1 and a house costs only $5k

The problem isn't with the decimal places. It's because you're trying to value bitcoin against another currency. If you always used bitcoin, and know that starbucks sells coffee for .000125btc, macdonalds sells coffee for .000120btc, and so on, if you learned to value things in bitcoin, you don't need to do any math. You just intuitively feel how expensive or cheap it is.

On the other hand, if you go on vacation and use chinese yuan or japanese yen or something, even though the number of decimals is the same, you still need to do some math in your head to get the USD value or euro value or whatever currency you use.

It's about how used to the currency you are, not about the decimals.

It will likely be priced in a fiat value so you will know how much it really costs. All you need to do is scan a QR code and everything will be done for you so it's not like you have to type in all the decimal places yourself. Regardless of that I think it'll just take some getting used to but people will adapt to it over time.

Wallets automatically convert quantities into other currencies ,at least some do. Bitcoin-QT doesn't, but other more user friendly ones should do so this is not a problem.
Also in the future when 1 BTC is like 100K dollars, we'll be using mBTC as the standard anyway.

This is what usually happens. In fact, stores like computer exchange and newegg just list everything in fiat then when you go to checkout it tells you the price in bitcoins which is then easy to pay by scanning a qr code or whatever. I don't think it's such a big deal

maybe adding a text under you balance on bitcoin-core client

for example if you have 0.001, under that it will report "you have 1mbtc or 1m bitcoin"

With little practise it is not problem anymore. 8 decimal places is not so much anyway, I thinking in Bitcoins, miliBitcoins and Satoshis naturally now, like
1.1258965

I read as 1 Bitcoin, 125 mili Bitcoins and 89650 Satoshis.

When something is designed too well, it's too effective.  ;)

It makes no difference if you add 8 more zeroes to 21 million or 8 zeroes after a decimal place. Try to think about it more objectively. The decimals, psychologically speaking, make the numbers seem smaller and more manageable. That is all. Otherwise, yes, let the wallets and machines do the math.

If you like the many zeroes you can switch to mBTC, or bits or whatever views. This depends only on your client. So decimal places shouldn't be an issue.