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Also the peak ATH on stamp is currently $1163... so that peak ATH part seems to be getting really reachable.. as if it were just hours away (even though there are currently about 890 for sale BTC standing on the books and in the way..
Come on, surely one of you guys has a million USD sitting around to punch us through the top. Let's get-er-done. |
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You are missing the point.
The important factor is the semantic re-basement, the terms used for the powers of ten can vary over time and geography.
The human instinct to hoard collectibles has driven the adoption of Bitcoin. For this to continue to be a strong driving factor, the amounts that typical new users are able to acquire should be referred to as full "bitcoins". At this point anything from 1 to 100,000 satoshis would work, but the smaller units scale farther into the future, if we assume further S-curve adoption.
Lakh is just a good term to refer to units of 100,000 of anything, because it is a simple single syllable term, and is already familiar to many people.
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And now we begin to see why redefining the word "bitcoin" is so ridiculous.
When I talk about bitcoins, I'll continue to use the word "bitcoin" to refer to the value that it is today (as will many other people) regardless of what all of you decide to do.
Meanwhile, _tenletters (and his friends and followers) will be using the word "bitcoin" to refer to an amount that is equivalent to 0.000001 BTC today, and BawsyBoss (and his friends and followers) will be using the word "bitcoin" to refer to an amount that is equivalent to 0.001 BTC today.
When a price is listed as 13 bitcoins, it's going to become very confusing as people try to figure out if that means 13 "original bitcoins", 13 "tenletters bitcoins", or 13 "Bawsy bitcoins".
Because of this confusion (similar to the confusion if we tried to redefine the names of colors), I don't expect many people to adopt either of your proposals.
The first semantic re-basement to take off in even a small way will win out, especially if adoption rates continue to follow an S-curve. New users will adopt the more intuitive system, and will quickly outnumber holdouts. Referring to 10^8 Satoshis as "one bitcoin" could (and should) become as anachronistic as insisting on using the official measurement units of the Ottoman empire. |
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A Proposal for the Mitigation of Bitcoin's Linguistic Transaction CostsI now think a better option would be for the re-valued bitcoin to be 100 satoshis instead of one: A full Nakamoto of bitcoins= a million bitcoins, 10^8 satoshis. (previously called a bitcoin before massive success forced a relabeling) One bitoin = 100 satoshis. One satoshi = 1/100 of a bitcoin, AKA a "bitcent", the smallest divisible unit in the current version of the Bitcoin protocol.
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A milliBTC is going to become a common unit, since it is going to be more or less scaled to similar amounts of USD or EUR. If you want to want to use a word for a milliBTC that does not have a current definition, more power to you.
Yes, I want to call what we now call A) 1 satoshi or B) 100 satoshis a BITCOIN and what we now call a 'Bitcoin' should be called a "full _____ of Bitcoins". We could even call it a "Full bar of bitcoins". |
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bitcoins "stock like split" it's mBTC Simple, already implemented.. Just need mBTC to become the standard. It will be done gradually, by exchanges and services, and users.. Already being adopted by some.. my client shows mBTC for few months now, im getting used to think in mBTC  No. This solves the problem by creating a much worse one. You are expecting people to learn a whole new obscure aspect of a system which already functions cryptically by definition. This essentially requires an entire re-branding. People have been hearing "bitcoin bitcoin bitcoin" in the media. "Bitcoin" is what they are familiar with, if they decide to participate, it is "bitcoins" they they will want, not some impotent sounding mouthfull of garbage called a Mil-E-Bit-Coin. They very concept of a coin is not consistent with something that costs hundreds or thousands of dollars. People already work their way around this. They talk about protecting or spending their "bitcoins" even when talking about less than 1BTC. Making this change just requires a modest conscious effort to go in the direction with the least linguistic resistance. A true semantic stock split will catch on and take over on it's own. Just like tipping a boulder off the edge of a steep slope. |
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Reeducating a million users is far easier and more productive than introducing a billion potential users to an ugly, cumbersome, and transactionally costly-to-communicate legacy naming convention.
Like Pol Pot? I think you will find stiff resistance amongst the libertarian-oriented community of early bitcoin adopters. Like Pol Pot? Um, no... And if there is anything that early Bitcoin adopters will tend to have in common, it is the ability to quickly recognize a superior format. And if ten times as many new users adopt a new scheme everyone will follow. That's how language works. Mil-e-bit-coin is just a really stupid thing to call a unit of currency. The fact that it is four syllables is but one of the many reasons why. |
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Just do a 1/1,000,000 semantic stock split and be done with it.
Call them Bitcoins.
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Do this and then call them Bitcoins NOT 'microbitcoins'. Call 10^8 Satoshis something else, a "full ______ of Bitcoins." They are a million times apart in scale, this makes it easy to tell from context which system is being used, during the transition. And the transition wont take long once it gets started, since it is such a better scheme, for many reasons. Come one people, quit pussy footing around. This is the true semantic stock split that Bitcoin needs. Reeducating a million users is far easier and more productive than introducing a billion potential users to an ugly, cumbersome, and transactionally costly-to-communicate legacy naming convention. |
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We need to change what we call a 'Bitcoin'. What you fail to realize is there is no "we". You will never convince every single user to start calling a satoshi a "Bitcoin". Names only have meaning if they are consistent. Imagine if at the same time there was more than one definition for a meter, it would be kinda useless to provide units in meters (which definition of meters). In centralized institutions the central body can proclaim a new change in value (like redefining a meter, or kilogram) but that doesn't work in a decentralized network. I understand it. What you do not understand is how fatal the idea of a "coin" that costs hundreds or thousands of dollars is to the continued adoption of Bitcoin, a brand which leveraged the human tendency to ascribe value to collectibles beyond their mere utilitarian value, in order to to gain traction. That same leverage is needed to continue adoption, and fractional ownership does not push the same buttons in our ape brains. Can you imagine would utterly confusing it would be if everyone you talked to had a different definition of what 1 BTC was? Yes, but it is a much smaller problem than trying to convince people to collect .001 or .0001 Bitcoins by naming them something else. This is essentially a re-branding. It would just as hard as inventing a whole new coin, as far as public perception goes. And at least then you could make up less cumbersome names for units. I mean, 'Mil-E-Bit-Coin'? Come on... A BTC is NEVER EVER going to change. You sound like Bernanke talking about the Fed  To do so would require a consensus, it would require rewriting everything that has been written. It would still lead to confusion and chaos when people looked at outdated articles talking about (there will never be more than 21M BTC and the person own more than that himself). It simply is not going to happen. If even a minority of existing users switch to the new labels, then the holdouts will be quickly overwhelmed by new users choosing the more intuitive language, assuming the adoption rate holds steady. The scale is so immensely different that context will easily show which system a communication is using. Do you really think someone is accidentally going to sell their private jet for a 10,000 Satoshis, because of a misunderstanding of folk names? Most of the time you can't get 100 bitcoiners to agree on just about anything but somehow you are going to get millions of users to simultaneously change their definition of what a Bitcoin is? Really? That seems a viable solution to you? It is a solution that tackles the core of the problem, unlike all of the others, which is that for an item to be consistent with the concept of a 'coin', ownership of multiples of the unit needs to be realistically attainable. |
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Everyone is talking about this, but not coming upon or considering the necessary solution, which is this: We need a semantic change, nothing programmatic needs to happen to the core protocol. We need to change what we call a 'Bitcoin'. It should be much smaller, possibly what we now call a Satoshi, or 10 or 100 of what we now call a Satoshi. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT. To stay consistent with the concept of coin, 'Bitcoins' need to be something that people can acquire many of. The rest of the denominations should be ONE OR AT MOST TWO SYLLABLES. They should not be wholly invented, they should be adapted from popular language. A "grand" for 1000, or other simple common names for powers of ten from the top common globally used languages. What we currently call a Bitcoin should be called something else. "A full ____ of Bitcoins". I like 'Satoshi', although something else would be less confusing. Think of it and explain it like a bar of gold. A Proposal for the Mitigation of Bitcoin's Linguistic Transaction Costs |
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You can get all of the benefits of this without most of the disadvantages with entirely different coins and the ability to change between them.
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Today what we call one 'Bitcoin' is made up of 100 Million Satoshis. This makes most transactions total less than one full Bitcoin, and makes it hard for innumerate users to conceptualize and communicate about portions smaller than .01 BTC. This has led to current proposals and conventions for naming sub 1 BTC units, which all involve prefixes to the word 'Bitcoin', or unique names like the Finney or Satoshi. All of these result in multi-syllable words that increase Bitcoin's linguistic transaction cost, and for this and other reasons make the ecosystem harder than it needs to be to learn about and to use. A more elegant and smoother convention would be as follows: Switch the names of one Bitcoin and one Satoshi, and use existing common and slang names for the powers of ten, chosen from the most widely used languages. New naming convention:- 100,000,000 One Full Satoshi of Bitcoins Like a brick of gold. Originally named the 'Bitcoin' until massive growth forced a renaming of units.
- _10,000,000
- __1,000,000
- ____100,000 One Lakh Pronounced "Lack". A unit in the South Asian numbering system equal to one hundred thousand, widely used both in official and other contexts in Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. It is often used in Indian, Pakistani, and Sri Lankan English.
- _____10,000
- _______1000
- ________100
- _________10
- __________1 One Bitcoin the smallest unit, in context simply referred to as a 'coin'. Originally named the 'Satoshi' until massive growth forced a renaming of units.
That is the core structure of the proposal. Before you reject it out of hand based on how different it is to what you have learned, how it turns our current convention upside down, please remember that for every one of us that uses the ecosystem now, hundreds and then thousands of others are likely to use it in the future. For them there will be no effort involved in switching, they will simply learn a much more intuitive system that humbly fits into existing habits of speech rather than demanding entirely new ones. This is the change to make, and now is the time to make it. This naming convention scales to the moon. Stay with me now... More than a billion people are already intimately familiar with using Lakhs to conceptualize currency units of 100,000. And not just the billion in South Asia, but traders anywhere who do business with South Asians are likely to have heard the phrase "one lakh Rupees". If you do not know how ubiquitous the word's usage is, and especially for currency, just ask around, it will not be hard to confirm. One Lakh Rupees. One lakh Rupees is probably about enough to buy the Indian made motorcycle he is sitting on when it was new, for perspective. We all know that the naming conventions are fully arbitrary. We roll our eyes and sigh when people tell us Bitcoin can not possibly be a good deal at hundreds of dollars for one single coin. But even with full awareness of this, it is easy to understand how much less attractive the prospect of buying .0016 BTC for $1 USD worth of one's currency is than spending the same $1 on a full Lakh of Bitcoins. Or $10, or even $100. You are getting a WHOLE Lakh of Bitcoins! By making the ecosystem easier to talk about it becomes easier to use. Which is how this semantic stock split will make all the little Bitcoins more valuable, as well as every full Satoshi. If you are still not convinced do one last thing for me, say out loud, thirty times in a row, "Mil-E-Bit-Coin". Go ahead, say it. Thirty times. Are you annoyed? Then say "Lakh" thirty times. Now imagine that multiplied by a billion users multiplied by thousands of days. As far as names for other units, ' Crore' is used for ten million by the same billion or so speakers who use Lakh. And of course 'grand' is a widely used single syllable word for one thousand. The addition of those two would limit the jump between any two units to two orders of magnitude, except for 1-1000, which is three, but those are the three that people are used to dealing with. The result would be a much easier to understand ecosystem. It will be interesting to find out what other single syllable common or slang words there are for the powers of ten in other widely used languages. EDIT: No.
The problem is there is no central agency of weights and measures for Bitcoin. So lets say some people adopt your provision and some don't. You would see people saying "selling my steam game for one million Bitcoins" and other people being utterly confused as to why someone would be willing to pay close to $1B USD for a video game. You can't force everyone to use your (or any) naming system, so any naming system which attempts to revalue a Bitcoin is dead before the author finished writing it.
There needs to be no central agency to enforce anything formal. This proposal needs only to overcome the initial friction from current users resistant to change. It is much more intuitive and could win consensus and become the standard in a short amount of time if even a sizable minority got behind it, because it simply makes far more sense than "coins" that costs thousands of dollars, or ridiculous seven syllable Hun-Dred-Ki-Lo-Sa-To-Shi units. Holdouts will be quickly outnumbered by new users, who will overwhelming adopt the simpler system, if given the choice. One of the properties of Bitcoin that was essential in it's initial adoption as a unit of value was a property that it shared with the earliest forms of currency, that of collectibility. Nick Szabo (emphasis mine): Menger called this first money an "intermediate commodity" -- what this paper calls collectibles. An artifact useful for other things, such as cutting, could also be used as a collectible. However, once institutions involving wealth transfer became valuable, collectibles would be manufactured just for their collectible properties. What are these properties? For a particular commodity to be chosen as a valuable collectible, it would have had, relative to products less valuable as collectibles, at least the following desirable qualities:
(1) More secure from accidential loss and theft. For most of history
this meant carriable on the person and easy to hide.
(2) Harder to forge its value. An important subset of these are products
that are unforgeably costly, and therefore considered valuable, for
reasons explained below.
(3) This value was more accurately approximated by simple observations
or measurements. These observations would have had more reliable
integrity yet have been less expensive.
Humans the world over are strongly motivated to collect items that better satisfy these properties. Some of this motivation probably includes genetically evolved instincts. Such objects are collected for the sheer pleasure of collecting them (not for any particularly good explicit and proximate reasons), and such pleasure is nearly universal across human cultures. One of the immediate proximate motivations is decoration. According to Dr. Mary C. Stiner, an archaeologist at the University of Arizona, "Ornamentation is universal among all modern human foragers." [W02] For an evolutionary psychologist, such a behavior that has a good ultimate explanation, in terms of natural selection, but has no proximate rationale other than pleasure, is a prime candidate to be a genetically evolved pleasure that motivates the behavior. Such is, if the reasoning in this essay is correct, the human instinct to collect rare items, art, and especially jewelry.
Point (2) requires some further explanation. At first, the production of a commodity simply because it is costly seems quite wasteful. However, the unforgeably costly commodity repeatedly adds value by enabling beneficial wealth transfers. More of the cost is recouped every time a transaction is made possible or made less expensive. The cost, initially a complete waste, is amortized over many transactions. The monetary value of precious metals is based on this principle. It also applies to collectibles, which are more prized the rarer they are and the less forgeable this rarity is. It also applies where provably skilled or unique human labor is added to the product, as with art.
We have never discovered or made a product that does really well on all three scores. Art and collectibles (in the sense that word is used in modern culture, rather in the technical sense it is used in this paper) optimize (2), but not (1) or (3). Common beads satisfy (1) but not (2) or (3). Jewelry, made at first out of the most beautiful and less common shells but eventually in many cultures out of precious metals, comes closer to satisfying all three properties. It is no coincidence that precious metal jewelry usually came in thin forms such as chains and rings, allowing for inexpensive assaying at randomly chosen locations. Coins were a further improvement -- substituting small standard weights and trademarks for assays greatly reduced the costs of small transactions using precious metals. Money proper was just a further step in the evolution of collectibles.
The concept of one coin being 100,000,000 of the smallest unit in the Bitcoin network was fine when users were able to collect multiple coins, but from here on out the majority of new users will own less than 1 BTC. The conceptual nature of a coin makes it far more compatible with being the smallest unit, the grain in the granularity, at this point and forward in Bitcoin's adoption than some arbitrary unit 10 8 times higher, that most will never even see. At this point the coin in Bitcoin is no longer small, and transaction amounts can happen entirely three places to the right of the decimal, units who's value are no longer easily able to be approximated by simple observation. People's instinct will be triggered much more strongly to collect something that they can have many of, than something they can only have a portion of, even though this is to a degree irrational, since the purchasing power is the same. For reasons of evolutionary psychology going back thousands of years, the end of the S adoption curve for Bitcoin should be verbally similar to the beginning, with units of 50 coins being a normal, in scale number of coins for the average user to acquire.The effort in transitioning will pay off in short time in reduced linguistic transaction costs and extra adoption from increased collectibility. |
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+1 Everyone cremated or buried will be dead and gone. Alcor, well, there is a >0 chance. 2140 is 124.8 years away. This lady lived to be 122.4 years old. Even without any increases in average lifespan at all, the increased population makes it likely someone alive today will be alive in 2140, without defrosting anyone. |
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It was only worth 10k btc if you got the garlic butter.
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