A new notation for Bitcoin?

[thoughtfan]

I think it is important to make it just different enough that people do not confuse it. 19.10 btc is very different from 19.01 ^btc.

How about something like ²¹100 ^btc = 1.00 btc, so ²⁰5 is a cheap pizza, ¹⁹94 is a USD, etc?

OK, I'm liking that.  It alludes to exponentiation whilst being different enough (both from 'mathematically correct' exponentiation and from a simple decimal) to be immediately recognisable.  As the 'native' way of writing power bitcoin I think this could work.

There's a disadvantage in that it's not as simple to do with a keyboard as just typing a character but my first impression is the advantages outweigh that.  We'd also need a way of verbalising it and of communicating ^btc numbers in plain text for instance for use in SMS where ^sup is not an option.  And maybe this same plain text representation would be usable in a spreadsheet in such a way that that a formula can separate out the elements to do calculations then express the result back in the plain text representation.  Ideas anyone?

In bitcoin wallets and on web pages with ^btc functionality there could be two textboxes with relative font sizes and positioning to reflect this visually so in order to type in ²¹1 one would just type in '211' with the cursor simply moving to the significand textbox after the first two typed digits.  Where a single digit exponent was required '01' could be used or just '1' then Tab to the next box.  I can see this working.

[1715193637]

1715193637

[1715193637]

1715193637

[Jessica]

Nobody will accept this, because it's too complicated lol

[Nootropic]

Certainly an interesting idea. Only quarrel I have with it is that it seems to add another level of abstraction to the mess. As previously stated most people would probably be more inclined to simply counting decimals

[thoughtfan]

OK, thanks all.

I've got to a stage now where I'd like to rewrite the OP from scratch utilising where we've got to so far and move this whole thread to a more permanent home (maybe to the general 'Bitcoin Discussion'?)

However, I'd like to give myself some time to do this right and I simply haven't got the time now so I'll need to leave it a few weeks.

Thanks again to all who added to this discussion to date.

Tf

[casascius]

I'm tempted to go make a batch of penny-like coins that are similar to Casascius Coins, but say "1 INTERNET".  In place of VIRES IN NUMERIS, they'd say 0.01 BITCOIN.

I wouldn't ever fund these, I'd just make them available for sale in rolls of 50.

By penny-like, they'd be copper-plated zinc coins just like US pennies, they'd just be worth 16 times as much... assuming they were loaded with BTC (which I wouldn't do, I'd just make them available as roll-your-owns, with the spot on the back for a private key).  They'd also have a bit larger diameter than a penny.  Their main purpose would be promotion of Bitcoin to others.

The only thing stopping me is I don't know that the majority of the community would be interested in calling 0.01 BTC an "internet" and possibly enough people dislike the term that maybe I'd get flamed for it.

[Stephen Gornick]

In place of VIRES IN NUMERIS, they'd say 0.01 BITCOIN.[...[

[...]
I'd just make them available as roll-your-owns, with the spot on the back for a private key).

[...]
The only thing stopping me is

I'ld be more concerned about being the "issuer" of a coin marked 0.01 BTC  (where 0.01 BTC is worth about twenty cents today) which is [potentially going to be] floating around without any 0.01 BTCs on it.

[bitcoinbear]

In place of VIRES IN NUMERIS, they'd say 0.01 BITCOIN.[...[

[...]
I'd just make them available as roll-your-owns, with the spot on the back for a private key).

[...]
The only thing stopping me is

I'ld be more concerned about being the "issuer" of a coin marked 0.01 BTC  (where 0.01 BTC is worth about twenty cents today) which is [potentially going to be] floating around without any 0.01 BTCs on it.

Maybe you could set aside the bitcoin, but not actually put it on the coins? So if you make 100, then you would put 1 btc in a safe place. Then if sometime in the future somebody wants to redeem it for the 0.01 btc worth 500 usd, you can just raid the stash instead of buying new expensive bitcoins?

[casascius]

In place of VIRES IN NUMERIS, they'd say 0.01 BITCOIN.[...[

[...]
I'd just make them available as roll-your-owns, with the spot on the back for a private key).

[...]
The only thing stopping me is

I'ld be more concerned about being the "issuer" of a coin marked 0.01 BTC  (where 0.01 BTC is worth about twenty cents today) which is [potentially going to be] floating around without any 0.01 BTCs on it.

Isn't this already true of my 1BTC roll-your-owns if nobody adds a private key, or if someone redeems a 1BTC coin and cleans it off?  The idea that someone could know that bitcoins are valuable but not know any way to spend them or that they are a strictly digital currency would be a bit of an oxymoron.  It would take an incredible coincidence for a willing scammer to meet a willing victim all to burn him out of 20 cents.  Someone who ends up learning the hard way that bitcoin is actually digital currency, not a new kind of metal, will have gotten a bargain on knowledge for 20 cents next time he sits down and Googles if he so happens to get burned accepting one without a sticker.

The only reason I wouldn't sticker them myself is I couldn't charge a price for it that would make it economically rational both for me to do so and for buyers to buy it.  But for someone willing to sticker them themselves, it would make a lot more sense.

[thoughtfan]

Bump!

I thought I'd bump this one from back in the day because twice today on r/Bitcoin I've had reason to refer to this discussion and the idea of using a variant of scientific notation as a useful means of handling Bitcoin's price deflation working its way through the orders of magnitude...

How about something like ²¹100 ^btc = 1.00 btc, so ²⁰5 is a cheap pizza, ¹⁹94 is a USD, etc?

Today, this would be something like:  '... ²¹100 ^btc = 1.00 btc, so ¹⁸2 is a cheap pizza, ¹⁷23 is a USD!

Isn't that potentially easier to read than the whole 0.000226398 malarkey, let alone when we've gone a couple more orders of magnitude?

I still don't see how we'd overcome the inertia and the need to understand a whole new way of seeing numbers but I like it as an idea. Anyone up for coding an Electrum GUI or something for this for fun?