The current nature of bitcoin is becomming a problem

[blacksmithtm]

a decimal of a dollar is not called a dollar.. it is called a cent
the decimal of a UK Pound is not called a pound its called a penny.

the decimal of a bitcoin is a bitcent. the decimal of that can be bitmills. the decimal of that can be microbitcoins. the decimals of that can be called satoshi's

this is alot easier then calling
0.01 a bitcoin
0.0001 a bitcoin
0.000001 a bitcoin
0.00000001 a bitcoin

so as alot of people that have been around for atleast a year call it this.
this is alot easier then calling
0.01 a bitcent
0.0001 a bitmill
0.000001 a microbitcoin
0.00000001 a satoshi

1 BTC is in fact 100.000.000 atomic units of bitcoin.

And i prefer to stick that way. It is a more intitutive way of denominating bitcoin, by calling the smallest atomic amount of it for bitcoin and then having wallets display how many atomic amounts of bitcoin you have. Of course shortening the numbers to make it easier to quickly understand and relate to. Shortening the numbers like the filesizes. ~1000 Bytes = 1Kilobyte ~1000Kilobyte = 1Megabyte

in bitcoins case that is
1000 atomic bitcoins = 1Kilobitcoin
1000 Kilobitcoin = 1Megabitcoin

So if you have 10 BTC atm. that is the same as 1000 Megabitcoin or 1 Gigabitcoin

[Rincewind]

franky1 just beat me to it. For nearly forty years I've somehow managed to function in a dollar economy despite the fact I'm handling pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters every single day. This satoshi naming issue is overblown. If people want to use it, they'll make an effort to figure it out. Of all the things in the Bitcoin universe, the decimal notation and naming is the least difficult to explain to a n00b.

If my wife can figure out the g/s/c conversion rate in World of Warcraft, she can figure out BTC when the time comes.

[smahopwi]

franky1 just beat me to it. For nearly forty years I've somehow managed to function in a dollar economy despite the fact I'm handling pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters every single day. This satoshi naming issue is overblown. If people want to use it, they'll make an effort to figure it out. Of all the things in the Bitcoin universe, the decimal notation and naming is the least difficult to explain to a n00b.

If my wife can figure out the g/s/c conversion rate in World of Warcraft, she can figure out BTC when the time comes.

Cents are easy for people.  True.  Or at least recognizable.

0.000001

Will be a barrier to entry for the non-nerds out there.

[blacksmithtm]

franky1 just beat me to it. For nearly forty years I've somehow managed to function in a dollar economy despite the fact I'm handling pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters every single day. This satoshi naming issue is overblown. If people want to use it, they'll make an effort to figure it out. Of all the things in the Bitcoin universe, the decimal notation and naming is the least difficult to explain to a n00b.

If my wife can figure out the g/s/c conversion rate in World of Warcraft, she can figure out BTC when the time comes.

explaining it is one thing, remembering it, and using every day is another. its not practical


Imagine if bitcoin was dollars for a second.

1 DTC = 100.000.000 Dollars

This is fine untill the Dollars get enough value, then you need new denominations that have less Dollars in them. But instead of basing the new denominations on the previous one, base it on what it actually represents, which is an amount of dollars. I guess its harder to explain than i thought. But basically there are about 2.1 quadriallion atomic units of bitcoin, in which about half have been found. Bitcoins denominations should represent the amount of atomic units of bitcoin they repsresent, not which fraction of BTC they are because then we end up with a confusing chart.

[kjj]

1 BTC is in fact 100.000.000 atomic units of bitcoin.

And i prefer to stick that way. It is a more intitutive way of denominating bitcoin, by calling the smallest atomic amount of it for bitcoin and then having wallets display how many atomic amounts of bitcoin you have. Of course shortening the numbers to make it easier to quickly understand and relate to. Shortening the numbers like the filesizes. ~1000 Bytes = 1Kilobyte ~1000Kilobyte = 1Megabyte

The atomicity of the satoshi is an accident of history, it comes from the current precision of the network.  It is not a constant fixed for all time, but bitcoin is.  When (or if) we switch to 128 bits, there will be a new atomic unit, but the bitcoin won't change.

[Stunna]

I agree, the decimal places certainly may scare away newbies.

A bigger issue in my opinion is how volatile BTC is, I'd prefer to see them stable at any price than rising 5-10%/day, people are afraid and think it will inevitably fall.

[blacksmithtm]

if bitcoin cannot overcome the amount of decimal places, there is going to be another crypto to take its place

[christop]

1 BTC should be = 100.000.000 Bitcoin. What i mean by this, is we should start calling the smallest amount of bitcoin BITCOIN. Comparatively we dont call an atomic unit of gold, schwarzeniggel, we call it gold. No matter what quantity it is. However, if we have more gold, we denominate it in Kilos or whatever depending on which area of the world you are in.

Gold is a material, not a unit of measure, just like water or oil or sand. You can't say that you have "2 golds of rice" or that you weigh "150 golds" or even "5 golds of gold". You measure gold, silver, etc in grams or ounces (or pounds or tons for much larger amounts). Likewise, a Bitcoin is a well-establish unit of measure of money. It is equal to 10^8 satoshis, where a satoshi is the smallest "atomic" unit of measure of the Bitcoin measurement system. You can have 5 Bitcoins of money, for example, but you cannot have 5 golds of money.

So are we gonna have wallets displaying how many atomic amounts of bitcoin we have? YES, it is simple without being misleading. One problem arises tho, because even the poorest bitcoin owners will have millions of "atomic" bitcoin atm. So we need to start denominating it, just like we denominate gold..

It will be misleading, IMO. How many Bitcoins do you have? Is that in the "old" or "new" Bitcoin unit of measure?

Imagine that someone tried to redefine the meter to be what is currently a millimeter because small units like centimeter and millimeter are too "confusing" for idiots. Then a new kilometer will be the same as one old meter. How far do you have to drive to work? 5000 kilometers? Wow, that's a long drive! That'll take you days of driving! Oh, you mean "new kilometer", not "old kilometer". That should be a 5-10 minute drive.

The new denominations could probably draw inspiration from the filesystem. The file system automatically cleans up the number when its displaying file sizes. This is the kilobyte, megabyte, gigabyte system its quite easy to understand.

No filesystem I have ever used nor heard about does this (and I'm familiar with the filesystems on quite a few different operating systems spanning decades). Software like file browsers and directory listers (such as the dir or ls commands) display file sizes in kilobytes etc, but the filesystem always store file sizes in bytes or blocks or records.


What you're really suggesting is that everyone uses "new Bitcoin" (defined as the smallest atomic unit currently known as "satoshi") instead of using "old Bitcoin". You're also suggesting that this would somehow be less confusing to some imaginary users (frankly, I think you're the only user who is confused by this) than simply adopting other names like millibitcoin/bitmill/millie for the smaller Bitcoin denominations.

[blacksmithtm]

1 BTC should be = 100.000.000 Bitcoin. What i mean by this, is we should start calling the smallest amount of bitcoin BITCOIN. Comparatively we dont call an atomic unit of gold, schwarzeniggel, we call it gold. No matter what quantity it is. However, if we have more gold, we denominate it in Kilos or whatever depending on which area of the world you are in.

Gold is a material, not a unit of measure, just like water or oil or sand. You can't say that you have "2 golds of rice" or that you weigh "150 golds" or even "5 golds of gold". You measure gold, silver, etc in grams or ounces (or pounds or tons for much larger amounts). Likewise, a Bitcoin is a well-establish unit of measure of money. It is equal to 10^8 satoshis, where a satoshi is the smallest "atomic" unit of measure of the Bitcoin measurement system. You can have 5 Bitcoins of money, for example, but you cannot have 5 golds of money.

So are we gonna have wallets displaying how many atomic amounts of bitcoin we have? YES, it is simple without being misleading. One problem arises tho, because even the poorest bitcoin owners will have millions of "atomic" bitcoin atm. So we need to start denominating it, just like we denominate gold..

It will be misleading, IMO. How many Bitcoins do you have? Is that in the "old" or "new" Bitcoin unit of measure?

Imagine that someone tried to redefine the meter to be what is currently a millimeter because small units like centimeter and millimeter are too "confusing" for idiots. Then a new kilometer will be the same as one old meter. How far do you have to drive to work? 5000 kilometers? Wow, that's a long drive! That'll take you days of driving! Oh, you mean "new kilometer", not "old kilometer". That should be a 5-10 minute drive.

The new denominations could probably draw inspiration from the filesystem. The file system automatically cleans up the number when its displaying file sizes. This is the kilobyte, megabyte, gigabyte system its quite easy to understand.

No filesystem I have ever used nor heard about does this (and I'm familiar with the filesystems on quite a few different operating systems spanning decades). Software like file browsers and directory listers (such as the dir or ls commands) display file sizes in kilobytes etc, but the filesystem always store file sizes in bytes or blocks or records.


What you're really suggesting is that everyone uses "new Bitcoin" (defined as the smallest atomic unit currently known as "satoshi") instead of using "old Bitcoin". You're also suggesting that this would somehow be less confusing to some imaginary users (frankly, I think you're the only user who is confused by this) than simply adopting other names like millibitcoin/bitmill/millie for the smaller Bitcoin denominations.

you bore me

[virtualmaster]

Bitcoin price is booming because many people realized that bitcoin is very good not only for transfer but for investing also.
Let us say that bitcoin capitalization one day will arrive to a cap of 1% of the global currency reserve, which would be more than 400 billions of $ and wouldn't grow any more.
Even if this would be the case why would somebody withdraw it ? To put in a bank in Cyprus or Panama ?
When bitcoin will fill all the market gap where it is needed will not crash but will become stable and will grow in price(vs $) only 3-5% /year to compensate the inflation of the dollar.
The deflation will exist only until this balance is achieved.

[bonker]

Time to start talking in Satoshis?

[dacoinminster]

The deflationary nature of bitcoin will be a problem hindering commerce denominated in bitcoin for the foreseeable future. However, bitcoin is not destined to be used directly in ordinary commerce. Think about how HTTP is built on top of TCP/IP. In the same way, we will build new, stable currencies on top of bitcoin. They will be pegged to dollars, gold, oil, and anything else your heart desires.

I wrote a paper about this future, and if you come to the bitcoin conference in San Jose in May, you can hear me talk about it and ask questions at the "Bitcoin in the Future" panel.

The take-away is that buying bitcoins now is the best way to bet that these "child currencies" will be successful. They depend on bitcoin, and if they are successful, bitcoin values will go up.

[sedeki]

I don't understand the discussion at all.
As other people have said, if 0.0001 BTC is hard to talk about, just alias it?

Also, since Bitcoin is deflationary in nature, you have to get used to the volatility in any case. Which means that no software designer in the world can predict in what range "normal prices" lie in.

[marcus_of_augustus]

There's so much to be OCD about in Bitcoin, isn't there?

... best comment ever ... it's like a mad autistics playground.

"there will only ever  be 2.1 quadrillion satoshis !" just doesn't have the same ring for the dumbells on CNBC

[marcus_of_augustus]

1 bitcoin = 100 MegaSatoshi

how hard can that be?

[yvv]

OP, you suggest to call half full glass half empty, nothing more. WTFD between counting money in millions or 1/millions?

[Ichthyo]

1 BTC is in fact 100.000.000 atomic units of bitcoin.

OP, while your whole thread is quite funny to read, you should note and correct a fundamental misunderstanding in your argumentation.

Bitcoin has no atomic unit.
Bitcoin uses a symmetrical scale, like any serious scientific unit of measurement. It can scale up and down by arbitrary orders of magnitude.

What you propose is actually to introduce an absolute unit of measurement, which you want to call "BITCOIN". This would be a similarily retarded design, as using 1 cent as an absolute unit of measurement for currency amounts. Unfortunately the whole conventional finance industry is littered with retarded people with the firm believe that a number 1.10 is more "clean" than a number 3.141592....

Indeed 1.10 might feel more clean and easy to grasp, but that is a subjective psychological effect. Thus, at places where psychology is important, prices may well be represented in a grippy way. But this doesn't mean that the real stuff, the numbers and the units of measurement should be dictated by psychological considerations.