starting from scratch

[blacksmithtm]

hello,

whenever i handle bitcoins it just doesent feel right. when i see my balance it just doesent feel right. 0,53434734 on my phone and now 10,9999995 on my secured wallet. 10,999995 because i didnt know the transaction fee was taken after the amount you send (but it makes sense so thats all well and good) but now i have an ugly number there as well. what i really wanted was to have precicley 11. Anyway, i was wondering if it was possible to change the denominations to make them more user friendly, if not look better or have a better feel.

it seems there is a maximum of 2,099,999,997,690,000 (just over 2 quadrillion) atomic units of bitcoin. The way we represent the smallest unit today is with 0.00000001. and i think thats a little awkward. Why not have the smallest unit be 1, and then the larger units be several of those. For sake of simplicity im gonna call the smallest unit bitcoin. So 1 BTC would be 100,000,000 bitcoin. Please correct me if wrong, but in this case what i had in my wallet would be the equivalent of 1,099,999,500 bitcoin. That is basically as simple a represenation we can get. But having a balance of 1,099,999,500 seems just as crazy as having a balance of 10,999995, although it has a better feel. However it becomes a nightmare trying to price anything in bitcoin if it there werent simpler denominations. Imagine coffée costing 100.000 bitcoin. Anyway the early developers of computers etc. had a similar problem. As the size of their files increased so did the length of numbers to display the size so they invented kilobyte, megabyte, gigabyte and so on. And i think bitcoin can draw some inspiration from that:)

But first, even tho bitcoin is a competitor to fiat. I mean, most bitcoiners dont really like fiat, but we can still learn from it. Most modern fiat currencies are built up in hundreds. Or their denominations are in hundreds. For example 100 cent to a dollar, 100 pennies to a pound, 100 cent to a euro. This is pretty neat, because it makes it easy to understand and compare a price while still giving sufficient scalability for the seller etc.

Moving on. So i think bitcoin should try to imitate this. Bitcoin denominations should be by the 100's, but since the numbers are so big atm. 1 denomination is not enough. So back to the programmers and the file size problem... Lets call the smallest amount of bitcoin, bitcoin. Then when you 100 of those, you would have a kilobitcoin. (i know in the file size world you would need ~1000, but thats too much for a currency, imagine if you bought something and it cost 1 dollar and 993 cent...) 1 bitcoin is 1 bitcoin, 100 bitcoin is 100 bitcoin OR 1kilobitcoin. 100 kilobitcoin would be 1 megabitcoin, 100 megabitcoin would be 1 gigabitcoin so on so forth. I dont know what you think about this? Im pretty sure it would be possible, for all that is required is to change the way software displays the amounts to the end user while still adhering to the "proper" methods underneath (the 0,00000343 one etc.).

[DeathAndTaxes]

Bitcoin works on consensus.  For it to work everyone must use the same terminology.  It would be like if three different groups each defined a foot as 12", 9" and 5000" and each group simply called their "foot" a "foot".  One could see how it would be complete chaos.

Since Bitcoin works on consensus and you will never convince 100.00000000000000000000000% of users to change to a new naming convention it simply will never happen.  You can (depending on the wallet) has it show amounts in mBTC or nBTC or Satoshis (the smallest unit) if you prefer.  They aren't Bitcoins. 

1 BTC is 100,000,000 satoshis.  There will be no more than 21M BTC.

[blacksmithtm]

Ok but how did america agree on inches? It had to start some place. If for example one mining pool adopted a different practice, the rest of the market would follow soon enough, providing the practice was good enough. So saying its not gonna happen because everyone has to agree at the same time.... that is a fallacy.

[DeathAndTaxes]

Ok then make it happen, I'll wait.  In the meantime set your client to show mBTC, nBTC or satoshis.

[PachucoBro]

Ok then make it happen, I'll wait.  In the meantime set your client to show mBTC, nBTC or satoshis.

Well Said.

[blacksmithtm]

what a retard, hes just going to wait? how about getting a little involved, being a little more constructive or just shutting the fuck up? how does he know what client i use, wether it is even capable of those denominations? ....

[PachucoBro]

I don't adopt the already common denominations because I don't think in BitCoins.... but if I did I would use those already posted in Wikis etc.

What you are suggesting would take some viral youtube video or social media and maybe a celebrity or two to get the ball rolling and have people rethink what they have been seeing and reading since 2009-2010.

Good luck buddy.

[blacksmithtm]

No, thats what you need to do someting. You need some kind of authority to tell you what to do i bet. Doesent mean other people cant spot problems and solutions without some percived authority like a popular youtube video or celebrity telling them they are

[PachucoBro]

This looks good enough for me...

What do I call the various denominations of bitcoin?
There is a lot of discussion about the naming of these fractions of bitcoins. The leading candidates are:

1 BTC = 1 bitcoin
0.01 BTC = 1 cBTC = 1 centibitcoin (also referred to as bitcent)
0.001 BTC = 1 mBTC = 1 millibitcoin (also referred to as mbit (pronounced em-bit) or millibit or even bitmill)
0.000 001 BTC = 1 μBTC = 1 microbitcoin (also referred to as ubit (pronounced yu-bit) or microbit)

The above follows the accepted international SI prefixes for hundredths, thousandths, and millionths. There are many arguments against the special case of 0.01 BTC since it is unlikely to represent anything meaningful as the Bitcoin economy grows (it certainly won't be the equivalent of 0.01 USD, GBP or EUR). Equally, the inclusion of existing national currency denominations such as "cent", "nickel", "dime", "pence", "pound", "kopek" and so on are to be discouraged; this is a worldwide currency.

One exception is the "satoshi" which is smallest denomination currently possible 0.00000001 BTC = 1 satoshi (pronounced sa-toh-shee), which is so named in honour of Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonym of the inventor of Bitcoin.


If you want to add your naming convention... better get to work on adding it to some Wikis.