Quick, answer! Is BTC 0.000152 big or small?

[dree12]

Yeah I know that, but since the entire thread is about making up stupid and possibly arbitrary newfangled notations I figured I might as have a go at it myself.

Plus, mine does not even require forking the blockchain!

Though I guess if this is really all about making up excuses for forking the blockchain, I suggest we use 128-bit numbers to get rid of the stupid 8-decimals restriction, and use binary coded decimal math libs, and use three fields for value so we can code Coins, Millis and Micros right into the blackchain as distinct fields.

Oh and while we are at it, I'd like a few million coins for me coded into the genesis block.

-MarkM-

Eventually, the blockchain should migrate to floating-point numbers (X*10^E) as to future-proof it. Proper restrictions on the exponent such as to avoid obscene values of X would be necessary, but could be changed in a decentralized manner. This will, however, require a blockchain fork.

[Hexadecibel]

holy crap.

I wish death and taxes would send me mBTC for telling him I had stupid ideas...

[grau]

And everybody else out there are engineers in electronics or looking to become one ... Problem solved.

I share your view, the current conventions are foreign to Joe Average and are a hurdle to mainstream adoption.
A single BTC is already too "expensive" to him and calculating in fractions smaller than 1/100 is a challenge. This is why stocks often perform well after a split, and why calculating with percentages is the mathematical event horizon to him.

The way to make this kind of change happen is however not trying to get buy-in from engineers.

What might work is a popular service that brands a name and a split, like the mentioned chips on seals.

[SimonL]

I can't believe nobody has mentioned "tonal" units yet https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Tonal_Bitcoin. Even Luke-jr was spruiking that one like mad

Seriously though, I can't believe this argument has gone on longer than a page. After D&T pointed out K(thousands), Mil(millions), Bil(billions) etc. is commonly used to express values of regular money the argument should have effectively ended.

[PrintCoins]

$1 today according to CPI is equivalent to $0.04 in 1900 (yep, I know CPI is far from perfect). That means that $1 today would have bought $25 in old money. Coincidentally, BTCs are worth $25 in mtgox as of today, so you are really using the equivalent of your ancestor's dollars, and they worked just fine for them, and they didn't even make half penny coins at that point.

Much of bitcoin's value is currently propped up by speculation and not true economic activity. Since it is speculation, the general consensus is that the future value of bitcoin will continue to be $25, otherwise if people believed it would be worth $30, than it would be worth $30 today. My belief is that once it becomes a more common currency for real economic flows, it will drop in value as velocity is a major factor in money value, and any drop will cause a massive devaluation.

In other words, don't worry about bitcoins being valued so highly that we have to sit there counting decimal places by 5 or 6 digits. It is unlikely to ever be a problem, though it would be a problem we would all like to have.

[Offthechain]

Even at $30 I think a lot of hoarders would continue to hold... I know I will.
I think $100 is a fair point to stabilize at.... once its there for a little while the hoarders will start to sell.