Previously I criticised other proposals for improving bitcoin denominations, so fairness requires that I also lay out my opinion to be criticised by others.
First of all, here's the current bitcoin unit system as used in most wallets, etc.:
[base unit] = 1 BTC
0.001 BTC = 1 mBTC
0.001 mBTC = 1 µBTC
0.01 µBTC = 1 sat
This system has some flaws:
- It is a top-down system, i.e. we start with a large unit and subdivide it further and further. The subunits are thus designated as fractions of the base unit; but the human brain prefers to deal with multiples, not fractions.
- It involves the greek letter "µ" which can sometimes be difficult to type, necessitating ugly workarounds. It is also tempting to abbreviate "micro" as "m", causing confusion with "mBTC".
- The definition of one bitcoin being hundred million satoshis is completely arbitrary and not encoded anywhere in the protocol or blockchain. Internally, all transactions are in satoshis anyway, so it just doesn't seem right to base the system on this purely arbitrary unit.
The first point is actually the most important one: Remember when you learned about integers (1, 2, 3, ...) in school? Remember when you learned about fractions (½, ⅓, ¼, ...)?
Fractions are tought later as it's the more difficult subject. Multiples, on the other hand, are easier and more intuitive, which is an important property to make bitcoin viable for the masses.
The weakness of the current bitcoin unit system is that new units are created through
division by 1000, e.g.
1/
1000 BTC = 1 mBTC, which involves fractions.
So, to get this straight we have to create new units through
multiplication with 1000, e.g. 1000 sat = 1 ksat, thereby removing any fractions from the system.
Strictly speaking, the resulting system would look like this:
[base unit] = 1 sat
1000 sat = 1 ksat
1000 ksat = 1 Msat
100 Msat = 1 BTC
But in practice, there won't be a difference between "1k sat" and "1 ksat", nor between "1M sat" and "1 Msat", i.e. the spacing is insignificant.
It doesn't require learning any greek prefixes either: Everyone already knows that "k" means thousand and "M" means million, which makes the meaning of "ksat" and "Msat" self-explanatory.
[base unit] = 1 sat
1000 sat = 1k sat
1000k sat = 1M sat
100M sat = 1 BTC
It is very important to stress that the intermediate units (ksat/Msat) don't need to be explained because they are so intuitive that many people use them without noticing.
So the only thing that this system requires to learn is that 100M satoshis = 1 BTC, and this learning exercise is unavoidable anyway.
This proposal is definitely not new, but it strikes me through its simplicity, so I wonder why it isn't widely employed already. Thus, my question to you is: What are the objections against this kind of unit system?
