Psychologically, what exchange rate should trigger a shift to millibits?

[jmw74]

It seems like the time to start pricing things millibitcoins might be approaching already.

At the current exchange rate of $31, a dollar is 32 millibits.

There are already quite a few foreign currencies worth the same or less than a millibit, 18 listed here:
http://www.x-rates.com/table/?from=USD&amount=.031

Including the yen and ruble.

I would expect that bitcoin adoption would increase if the exchanges, wallets, and shops showed prices in millibits today.  Why?  Because everyone's first foray into bitcoin is buying them, not selling them.  So $31 each sounds expensive, even though prices *in* bitcoin sound cheap.  No one cares how few bitcoins you can trade for a can of coke, unless they already have some bitcoins.

[marhjan]

I already basically think in bitmills (btm) for small purchases and gambling sites.

[Peter Lambert]

It seems like the time to start pricing things millibitcoins might be approaching already.

At the current exchange rate of $31, a dollar is 32 millibits.

There are already quite a few foreign currencies worth the same or less than a millibit, 18 listed here:
http://www.x-rates.com/table/?from=USD&amount=.031

Including the yen and ruble.

I would expect that bitcoin adoption would increase if the exchanges, wallets, and shops showed prices in millibits today.  Why?  Because everyone's first foray into bitcoin is buying them, not selling them.  So $31 each sounds expensive, even though prices *in* bitcoin sound cheap.  No one cares how few bitcoins you can trade for a can of coke, unless they already have some bitcoins.

There are already places that price things in millibits, and you can choose how amounts are displayed in the client so you can use millibits all you want. All it takes is people actually quoting prices in millibits and it will become the de facto standard.

US Dollars are currently going for about 31.8 mBTC each.

[titus]

I think at some point the exchange rate starts to sound silly. If I tell a friend that 1 BTC is worth $1,000 dollars, he's going to laugh at me.

I would say, just on my gut, that > $100 is tough to swallow psychologically.

Since all transactions are written in satoshis, could the clients just move the decimal place at some point?

[Peter Lambert]

Since all transactions are written in satoshis, could the clients just move the decimal place at some point?

you can choose how amounts are displayed in the client so you can use millibits all you want.

Learn to read previous posts, please.

[jmw74]

I am aware clients and some other sites/software allow you to choose the units.  However most places it is not the default or even worse, you can't change it at all.

Mtgox is a pretty major example.  As far as I can tell you cannot change the setting.

[BBQKorv]

When you have to compare BTC to your native currency and you end up having 0.00xxxx either way. Values bigger than 1 are usually easier to keep in mind than those pesky decimals.