Shift the decimal point over?

[matrixfighter]

I'm not proposing that ALL the decimal points should be removed!  I'm proposing that the decimal point shifts to the right by 3 decimal places.  In other words, if the current Bitcoin =100,000,000 satoshis, the new Bitcoin =100,000 satoshis.

I'm not proposing that there should be more Satoshis printed.  The supply of money would stay exactly the same!  

Those who have 10 BTC will now have 10,000BTC -- nobody wants to dilute your precious Bitcoins.

In effect, Bitcoin would still remain the same deflationary currency that it is. And all those who think that a deflationary currency is a good thing can still knock themselves out with Bitcoin purchases.

The price of a the new Bitcoin would become circa $1 (considering the current price of circa $1000) and it would make more sense to people around the world.  They would perceive it as more affordable and will buy them.

Look: the total supply of global M2money converted to USD is $21,000,000,000,000.  I don't think that it is a coincidence that Satoshi Nakamoto chose the figure of 21,000,000 BTC - not 22mln or 84mln etc.  The whole thing is designed so that these 2100,000,000,000,000 satoshis one day replaces the $21trillion that is the M2 money around the world.

But for that to be achieved, it must be user-friendly, accessible, UNDERSTANDABLE, convenient, intuitive, useful and sensible to the Average Joe.  Right now it is not.

PS: I think the old Bitcoins should be called "Preciouses"   "My preciouses"

 

[ak84]

Having thought about this, I don't think it makes sense to change Bitcoin's denomination. That would be like changing the value of the dollar.

Instead, we should begin using mBTC as the standard Bitcoin unit. If mBTC ever hits $1000 then we can switch again to uBTC, and so on down to satoshi.

[Bitcoinpro]

Its not changing the value of anything its the way Bitcoin's are represented, the other Crypto's look more favorable because instead of collecting 0.0001 coins at a time you can collect 20,000 its just a more tangible way of presenting the volume.

[Coin_Master]

...those of us who are still here on Earth recognise the importance of Bitcoin's mass adaptability among the ordinary folk...I'm relatively new to Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. Came in in November...Before I knew it I discovered the alt-coins, and - you know what? - Yes Bitcoin has the first mover advantage, but there are 1 or 2 coins out there that are WAAAAY better then Bitcoin.

One of the persistent assumptions on this forum is that it would be desirable for Bitcoin to be adopted by "ordinary folk" (as you put it).  This assertion is fundamentally flawed and has been discussed at length some 4 years ago.  Satoshi Nakamoto has made it clear that the adoption of Bitcoin by the masses at this early stage would likely destroy us.
Quote: Dec. 5, 2010: 'No, don’t “bring it on” (Wikileaks). The project needs to grow gradually so the software can be strengthened along the way. I make this appeal to WikiLeaks not to try to use Bitcoin. Bitcoin is a small beta community in its infancy. You would not stand to get more than pocket change, and the heat you would bring would likely destroy us at this stage.'
It is important to understand that with the roll-out of Bitcoin there is a published schedule, and an unpublished schedule.  These proposals some people are making were discussed as far back as 2008 (that was 6 years ago).  It is simply not possible to publicly discuss critical aspects of Bitcoin, without putting at risk the future of Bitcoin.  Things will happen, when they are meant to happen.  Imagine a scenario where Bitcoin gets adopted by the "ordinary folk", in less than a week you would be hearing in the news that 50 million accounts have been emptied because most people have virus/trojan backdoors installed on their computers.  We have seen examples of this many times in the past, the "Storm" botnet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storm_botnet) is a good example "At its height in September 2007, the Storm botnet was running on anywhere from 1 million to 50 million computer systems".  The mainstream press would have a field day, imagine how they would blame Bitcoin, when really it is because "ordinary folk" are not smart enough to use computers safely yet.  The priorities are security, stability and scalability for now. Functionality and usability can come later.
As for your remark about how "there are 1 or 2 coins out there that are WAAAAY better then Bitcoin".  This was intended to happen by Satoshi Nakamoto, by creating software and then releasing it as open source, and licensed in such a way as to allow others to create new coins, it is part of the plan.  Everything that has happened, has happened for a reason

[justmyname]

I'm not proposing that ALL the decimal points should be removed!  I'm proposing that the decimal point shifts to the right by 3 decimal places.  In other words, if the current Bitcoin =100,000,000 satoshis, the new Bitcoin =100,000 satoshis.

I'm not proposing that there should be more Satoshis printed.  The supply of money would stay exactly the same! 

Those who have 10 BTC will now have 10,000BTC -- nobody wants to dilute your precious Bitcoins.

You can't. Their is already  over 12 million Bitcoins that have been mined. Move the decimal 3 places and you have a total BTC of 12 Billion. You can't change the rules in the middle of the game. Only 21 million can be mined period. That's why it has to be called a mBTC.   

[justmyname]

I think moving the decimal place to the right makes sense, rather than

live with the confusion of calling it mBTC

Just call them bitcoins(the old bitcoin is then the old bitcoin, which is then 1000 bitcoins after moving the decimal place 3 places to the right)


After the proposed changes,

1 old bitcoin = 1000 new bitcoins


I agree that people are more likely to buy a $1 bitcoin rather than a $1000 bitcoin


Bitcoin is losing market share because of delaying moving the decimal place to the right.
One reason why bitcoin is losing market share, is because people are more inclined to go and
buy alt coins because of the perceived high price of bitcoin at $1000

Move the decimal 3 places to the right, and regain alot of market share, is what I think(people will come back to bitcoin, and drop alt coins, when they see they can buy bitcoins at $1 with also having speculative chances of increase from there)

How are you going to mark the coins so you know which BTC is old or new?

[prezbo]

live with the confusion of calling it mBTC

Why would it be confusing? The majority of the world uses kilometers/meters/millimeters/micrometers without a problem, but with bitcoins/millibitcoins/microbitcoins it would suddenly be confusing? I will go even further and claim if you ask anyone familiar with metric units that has absolutely no knowledge about bitcoin how many mbtc one btc is they would know.

Bitcoin is losing market share because of delaying moving the decimal place to the right.
One reason why bitcoin is losing market share, is because people are more inclined to go and
buy alt coins because of the perceived high price of bitcoin at $1000

Looking forward to the news titles like "Bitcoin crashes to 1$" and "Bitcoin company just created 20979 million new bitcoins".

[Piper67]

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/africa/02/02/zimbabwe.dollars/
"Zimbabwe removes 12 zeros from currency"
Will Bitcoin have the same problem?

NO it's the opposite problem for Bitcoin. Bitcoin is deflating not inflating.

It is the opposite, but Bitcoin is not deflating, it's inflating (at a minimum at a rate of 3600 bitcoins per day). Eventually it might become inflationary-neutral, but for now it's an inflationary currency... which means any day the price of BTC isn't going down, is a day in which BTC value is going up.

[Xav]

Actually one buys 100 million Bitcoin units for about $1000, so let's just invert the 'description' a little bit without changing anything:

For 1 dollar you get 100 thousand Bitcoin units.

[jbreher]

...but there are 1 or 2 coins out there that are WAAAAY better then Bitcoin.

Such as? (No really - I'm curious)

... Imagine you are in noisy pub buying beer and instead of the traditional "two fifty" the bartender shouts "zero point zero zero zero two five bitcoins". 

Except he wouldn't - barkeep would say "quarter millibitcoin". Message received.

Incidentally, I see what you did there - equating 'two fifty' (presumably $2.50 USD) with 0.00025 XBT - at a time when we are near rough parity of USD:mXBT. Was the deviation from 0.0025 XBT a gotcha? Assuming you meant roughly two and a half bux, barkeep's response would be 'two and a half millibitcions'. Again, clear as day. Or probably just 'two and a half'. If you couldn't assume order of magnitude, it is not the barkeep being dense.

[Coin_Master]

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/africa/02/02/zimbabwe.dollars/
"Zimbabwe removes 12 zeros from currency"
Will Bitcoin have the same problem?

NO it's the opposite problem for Bitcoin. Bitcoin is deflating not inflating.

It is the opposite, but Bitcoin is not deflating, it's inflating (at a minimum at a rate of 3600 bitcoins per day). Eventually it might become inflationary-neutral, but for now it's an inflationary currency... which means any day the price of BTC isn't going down, is a day in which BTC value is going up.

Deflation is about value not supply.  The number of Bitcoins is completely irreverent.
Here is a quote from wikipedia "deflation increases the real value of money"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deflation
Time and time again we see Bitcoiners talking about economics like they are qualified and have a degree.

Perhaps an example will help you understand:
In Janurary 2013 a loaf of bread cost 1 USD
100 USD would buy you 100 loaves of bread
1 Bitcoin would buy you 13 loaves of bread

In Janurary 2014 a loaf of bread now costs 2 USD
100 USD will buy you 50 loaves of bread (you get less for your money - inflation)
1 Bitcoin will buy you 500 loaves of bread (you get more for you Bitcoin - deflation)

Hope this helps.

[zimmah]

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/africa/02/02/zimbabwe.dollars/
"Zimbabwe removes 12 zeros from currency"
Will Bitcoin have the same problem?

NO it's the opposite problem for Bitcoin. Bitcoin is deflating not inflating.

It is the opposite, but Bitcoin is not deflating, it's inflating (at a minimum at a rate of 3600 bitcoins per day). Eventually it might become inflationary-neutral, but for now it's an inflationary currency... which means any day the price of BTC isn't going down, is a day in which BTC value is going up.

Deflation is about value not supply.  The number of Bitcoins is completely irreverent.
Here is a quote from wikipedia "deflation increases the real value of money"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deflation
Time and time again we see Bitcoiners talking about economics like they are qualified and have a degree.

Perhaps an example will help you understand:
In Janurary 2013 a loaf of bread cost 1 USD
100 USD would buy you 100 loaves of bread
1 Bitcoin would buy you 13 loaves of bread

In Janurary 2014 a loaf of bread now costs 2 USD
100 USD will buy you 50 loaves of bread (you get less for your money - inflation)
1 Bitcoin will buy you 500 loaves of bread (you get more for you Bitcoin - deflation)

Hope this helps.

And yet people keep using fiat.

[MoonShadow]

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/africa/02/02/zimbabwe.dollars/
"Zimbabwe removes 12 zeros from currency"
Will Bitcoin have the same problem?

NO it's the opposite problem for Bitcoin. Bitcoin is deflating not inflating.

It is the opposite, but Bitcoin is not deflating, it's inflating (at a minimum at a rate of 3600 bitcoins per day). Eventually it might become inflationary-neutral, but for now it's an inflationary currency... which means any day the price of BTC isn't going down, is a day in which BTC value is going up.

Deflation is about value not supply.  The number of Bitcoins is completely irreverent.
Here is a quote from wikipedia "deflation increases the real value of money"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deflation
Time and time again we see Bitcoiners talking about economics like they are qualified and have a degree.

Perhaps an example will help you understand:
In Janurary 2013 a loaf of bread cost 1 USD
100 USD would buy you 100 loaves of bread
1 Bitcoin would buy you 13 loaves of bread

In Janurary 2014 a loaf of bread now costs 2 USD
100 USD will buy you 50 loaves of bread (you get less for your money - inflation)
1 Bitcoin will buy you 500 loaves of bread (you get more for you Bitcoin - deflation)

Hope this helps.

And yet people keep using fiat.

Out of convience and habit only.  When I can actually buy a loaf of bread with bitcoin at the grocery store, without a series of inconvient additional steps, it will be used muchmore often.

[Bitcoinpro]

how much longer can it last with so many decimal places

[Coin_Master]

And yet people keep using fiat.

Out of convience and habit only.  When I can actually buy a loaf of bread with bitcoin at the grocery store, without a series of inconvient additional steps, it will be used muchmore often.

That time is coming my friend.

[prezbo]

I don't know why there should be any problems with moving the decimal to the right.
Its still the exact same amount of bitcoins created, and exactly the same amount of bitcoins yet to be mined.

But it would be easier to use bitcoin, if the decimal was moved to the right.

its easier to understand 199 bitcoins, compared to trying to understand 0.19900000 bitcoins

Some of you may have more math training, but many other people do not, and even if we did,
we really don't want to be bothered by those decimal places, and errors in calculations are likely
increased by using a decimal currency with high dollar values associated to the decimal places.
Most of us are accustomed to the decimal place coming after the 1 dollar column,
so 1.99 means 1 dollar and 99 cents to us, but currently with bitcoin
1.99 means $1,990 ( seriously, I believe it is confusing )


consider how they look exactly the same:

1.99 (dollar ninety-nine) looks exactly the same as

1.99 ( $1,990  or one thousand nine-hundrend and ninety dollars )

Ideally, once bitcoin stops going up, then arranging to have the one dollar column
one decimal place to the left of the dimes column, would be preferable and easier for people to understand.
For now though, bitcoin is a long ways away from stopping going up, is what I think.

1 bitcoins has always been and in the minds of the majority always will be 100,000,000 satoshis. If you want another unit you'll have to call it something else - like milibitcoin, which has been in use for a long time and also follows using metric prefixes that the majority of the world knows/uses.

[prezbo]

1 current bitcoin simply becomes 1000 bitcoins is all that happens.

1 bitcoin would still have the same amount of satoshies as it always had.

But what is regarded as 1 bitcoin now, would become 1000 bitcoins after moving the decimal place 3 places to the right.

I think this would all become very confusing, with new and old bitcoin. In any case, I'm 100% sure bitcoin will remain bitcoin in the official client, however there is no one stopping anyone from forking it and shifting the decimal 3 places to the right, then the majority will decide.

[prezbo]

Why do you find that confusing?

1.00000000 bitcoins before moving the decimal 3 places to the right

1.00000000 bitcoins after moving the decimal 3 places to the right

There is still the same number of satoshis per bitcoin, before and after, for 1.00000000 bitcoins.



according to the poll in this thread, the majority have already decided they want to be bitcoin millionaires

This pool is 3 years old. I'm sure the general opinion now is very different to what it was back then.

This would mean a hard fork in the protocol, something that should be avoided at all cost for a small change like that.

It would be confusing because the value of bitcoin would change 1000-times.

[the_poet]

Moving the point to the right would make BTC increase its value in people's eyes and would help the general public become more familiar with the currency. It's undeniable that people love integers and hate decimals.

[nobbynobbynoob]

The point is moving to the right, every time a client or website (most of the serious wallets, Bitcoinity...) implements mBTC display option.

1000 mBTC = 1 BTC