When to "move the decimal points" ?

[Gavin Andresen]

Bitcoins are 50 times more valuable today than when I first heard about them six months ago.  If they just double in the next six months, they'll have risen 100-fold in a year.

It seems like a good idea to me to come to a consensus now about when to "move the decimal points" -- when should the Bitcoin program allow you to specify payments with more than two decimal places (e.g. "pay Gavin 0.001 BTC for his thoughts") ?

When should the Bitcoin program assume you're entering payments in 'millicoins' or 'microcoins' ?

And when should all of the internal minimums (e.g. smallest transaction fee or the trigger for the 'micro-transaction spam prevention') be lowered?


Here's a straw-man off the top of my head:

When Bitcoins are worth more than about ten dollars (or euros) each, I think it'll be time to allow sub-bit-penny payments.  And I think the "smallest free transaction" limit (and other internal minimums) should move in lock-step with that change.

When 1 Bitcoin is worth somewhere around $100 (in 2010 dollars), I think it'll be time for the client to switch to millicoins (e.g. .001 BTC), so if I'm buying a paperback book it costs 50 milliBTC  instead of  .05 BTC.

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[MoonShadow]

I think that it's already past time to set a block number for the decimal point shift.  At the rate the value is rising, if we set the block number in a predictable future and then start releasing clients that are aware of it, perhaps the change will be without confusion.  If not, then there will be clients out in the wild that don't represent the value in the same way, and confusion in a transaction with newbies who don't understand that a change in ongoing could be a very bad mark on Bitcoin's rep.

[theymos]

I think Pecunix allows you to transfer 0.0001 GAU, so I would add another decimal of allowed precision when 0.01 BTC is worth more than 0.0001 GAU (pretty soon, if prices keep rising).

The decimal should be moved when transfers over 1 BTC are less than 1% of all real transactions. So probably not for a long time.

[FreeMoney]

5 cents seems like a reasonable amount to ensure can be sent on the network. A cheap piece of candy is a reasonable minimum tip for an article/video. Once you can't send a nickel I think that's where a loss of utility starts.

Eventually generators will set their own fees, but as long as most people are using Satoshi's software's suggestions (wow, say that 5 times fast), I think this would be a reasonable goal.

[ribuck]

People have a certain familiarity with two decimal places (by analogy with many fiat currencies) so I don't think the change should be made any earlier than necessary.

More decimal places will cause a certain amount of confusion, and will need to be handled carefully in the user interface.

[FreeMoney]

People have a certain familiarity with two decimal places (by analogy with many fiat currencies) so I don't think the change should be made any earlier than necessary.

More decimal places will cause a certain amount of confusion, and will need to be handled carefully in the user interface.

Yes, would switching to 'BitMils' be clear enough? So .01BTC now would appear as 10BTM and then decimal places could be added from there as it became reasonable? I think this system can get us down 1000x from where we are now without any confusion.

In the transition there can be a very clear toggle button in the software so that people have to switch it manually the first time and are therefore completely aware, the toggle switch would also change how the balance would be displayed.

[da2ce7]

I think that we should put the 3rd decimal place in immediately, however pop up a warning if the transaction is less than the transaction fee(leave the transaction fee as it is).  I think that will be a useful tool to educate people about transaction fees.

Much later on (aka a year), we should change the units from BTC to BTCe-3. (and the associated extra 3 decimal places of precision).  The client should then have options to have BTC, BTCe-3, or BTCe-6 as it units. (each with 3 decimal places of precision... in th GUI)

At that point, allow people to choose a transaction fee of their choice.  The client software should also provide some statistics on how long it takes for a transaction of any given fee to be included in the block chain (based upon the block history), and a warning if the fee is likely to be wasteful.

I think the current system where the transaction fees are invisible gives a false impression on how the network works.

[MoonShadow]

I think the current system where the transaction fees are invisible gives a false impression on how the network works.

The system is difficult to wrap one's head around anyway, but I think that you are right about the hidden nature of transaction fees.

[caveden]

I think it's too early yet. 0,01BTC is still quite an insignificant amount.
And there is no need to try to predict the future by setting this change to happen automatically at block X. We can wait for the value to raise before performing such change. It's not like 1BTC will suddenly reach U$10,00 value.

By the way, I also think it's better to display with 1mBTC than 0,001BTC.

[ribuck]

Why not keep the behavior for new installs exactly as it is now, to keep it as simple as possible for new users.

But add a user preference for "number of decimal places" so that anyone who wants more decimals can experiment with having more. I don't think there's any reason why every client needs to display the same number of decimal places.

The block chain already contains transactions with more than the two decimal places displayed by the standard client.

[JohnDoe]

I think it would be a good time when 0.01 BTC is worth more than 1 cent.

Much later on (aka a year), we should change the units from BTC to BTCe-3. (and the associated extra 3 decimal places of precision).  The client should then have options to have BTC, BTCe-3, or BTCe-6 as it units. (each with 3 decimal places of precision... in th GUI)

Agreed, but it would be easier to name them mBTC (mili bitcoin), µBTC (micro bitcoin), nBTC (nano bitcoin), etc.

[ribuck]

µBTC (micro bitcoin)

I like this, but it's a real pity that the general public don't widely understand this metric prefix. It can also be typed as "u" instead of "µ" (electrical engineers are quite comfortable abbreviating microFarad as uF).

But many UK newspapers, including the Daily Mail, still refer to a microgram as "mcg" instead of "µg" or "ug". It's rather pathetic.

[bitcoinex]

My experience: I used the yuan in China. They have three units of currency:

1 CNY (yuan)
1/10 CNY = 1 jiǎo (角)
1/100 CNY = 1 fēn (分)

So, it is very inconvenient. Often confused between jiǎo and fēn. Most Europeans are also confused.

Please do not start using a new name, just enable using of 0.001 for BTC.

[ShadowOfHarbringer]

Agreed, but it would be easier to name them mBTC (mili bitcoin), µBTC (micro bitcoin), nBTC (nano bitcoin), etc.

This is theoretically good, however it is not enough. When bitcoin goes into 6th or 8-th decimal place, You will run out of prefixes which can be recognized by more than 1% of general population...

[ShadowOfHarbringer]

My experience: I used the yuan in China. They have three units of currency:

1 CNY (yuan)
1/10 CNY = 1 jiǎo (角)
1/100 CNY = 1 fēn (分)

So, it is very inconvenient. Often confused between jiǎo and fēn. Most Europeans are also confused.

Please do not start using a new name, just enable using of 0.001 for BTC.

I propose a new way to distinguish between bitcoins with different decimal numbers - BTCX.

1 BTCx0 = 1 BTC
1 BTCx1 = 0.1 BTC
1 BTCx2 = 0.01 BTC
1 BTCx3 = 0.001 BTC
1 BTCx4 = 0.0001 BTC

... and so on.

I know that it may look weird, but i think this is the most intuitive way describing different-sized parts of the same currency.
Unless somebody knows a way to further improve this.

EDIT:
Perhaps some other character that looks better can be used instead of "X" - for example:

Code:

1 BTC-0 = 1 BTC
1 BTC-1 = 0.1 BTC
1 BTC-2 = 0.01 BTC
1 BTC-3 = 0.001 BTC
1 BTC-4 = 0.0001 BTC

[JohnDoe]

This is theoretically good, however it is not enough. When bitcoin goes into 6th or 8-th decimal place, You will run out of prefixes which can be recognized by more than 1% of general population...

Actually the 8th decimal would use the micro prefix as micro stands for 10^-6, so the lowest possible unit would be 0.01 µBTC.

[MoonShadow]

5 cents seems like a reasonable amount to ensure can be sent on the network. A cheap piece of candy is a reasonable minimum tip for an article/video. Once you can't send a nickel I think that's where a loss of utility starts.

Eventually generators will set their own fees, but as long as most people are using Satoshi's software's suggestions (wow, say that 5 times fast), I think this would be a reasonable goal.

I disagree, there are many things that a payment of less than a nickel should be possible, such as per-email or per SMS usage of bandwidth.  I don't know that we would ever have a per-email charge system anywhere, but the main reason that we never have had such a thing is that the economies of scale combined with the inefficencies of fiat-credit exchanges make usage tolls on bandwidth prohibitively expensive.  Just think about the differences between the all-data cell packages and the per SMS or per-KB cell packages of today and yesteryear.  One doesn't have to be a particularly heavy messaging user to quickly justify the fixed monthly cost of unlimited data & texting.

[nanotube]

I suggest to remove all mandatory rounding. If i want to send 1.02345 btc, I should damn well be able to. (Well, I still can, with a modified client... but I shouldn't need to modify the client.)

The 'max 8 decimal places' can stay for a while... but the forced rounding should go. Now, the client may still trim trailing zeros to neaten display, that would be fine, but forced rounding has got to go.

As far as "moving decimal point"... I think maybe instead the client should just acquire a dropdown box next to the balance display and other amount displays, where you get to choose the units (bitcoins, bitcents, microcoins, etc). As bitcoin value goes up, the "default" unit may change, but full-coin-unit display should always be possible.

Just my 0.0298723 BTC

[MoonShadow]

The 'max 8 decimal places' can stay for a while... Just my 0.0298723 BTC

The 'max 8 decimal places' will have to stay for a long while, since that is a byproduct of how the bitcoin value is stored.  It's a very long (binary?) integer (64 bit, I think) and has no decimal point.  The clients simply display the values with a decimal point in the middle of the base 10 translation of the  integer, as there are 8 decimal places to each side of the display.  Changing that might prove to be a breaking change, and may not be an easy one.  I don't know how difficult it would be to switch to an 128 bit integer, but since I don't think that there is any OS that yet process 128 bit natively I imagine that might have to come first.

[jimbobway]

Using bitcoind server it's possible to send decimals under .01 right?  I think the default bitcoin client should by default show .01 but it should be adjustable in the menu.

[asdf]

The 'max 8 decimal places' can stay for a while... Just my 0.0298723 BTC

The 'max 8 decimal places' will have to stay for a long while, since that is a byproduct of how the bitcoin value is stored.  It's a very long (binary?) integer (64 bit, I think) and has no decimal point.  The clients simply display the values with a decimal point in the middle of the base 10 translation of the  integer, as there are 8 decimal places to each side of the display.  Changing that might prove to be a breaking change, and may not be an easy one.  I don't know how difficult it would be to switch to an 128 bit integer, but since I don't think that there is any OS that yet process 128 bit natively I imagine that might have to come first.

Wouldn't it by much easier to, for example, put a 1 as the first bit of the 64bit int to indicate a 16bit shift in the interpretation of the remaining bits?
so if I have 0000 ... 000110101 coins this could also be represented by 1000 ... 0001101010000000000000000, but now I have 16 more bits of low range precision.

It's not like the first bit will be used for anything else. no one will ever have 2^64 nanobitcoins. Alternatively you could change the precision after a agreed upon block number.

This seems to me much easier that changing the integer size. Clients just need to have a consensus about the protocol change.

[bitcoinex]

The 'max 8 decimal places' can stay for a while... Just my 0.0298723 BTC

The 'max 8 decimal places' will have to stay for a long while, since that is a byproduct of how the bitcoin value is stored.  It's a very long (binary?) integer (64 bit, I think) and has no decimal point.  The clients simply display the values with a decimal point in the middle of the base 10 translation of the  integer, as there are 8 decimal places to each side of the display.  Changing that might prove to be a breaking change, and may not be an easy one.  I don't know how difficult it would be to switch to an 128 bit integer, but since I don't think that there is any OS that yet process 128 bit natively I imagine that might have to come first.

Better go to the text (or TeX)

Also we get a numbers with an absolute accuracy: "1/3 BTC"

[ribuck]

Wouldn't it by much easier to, for example, put a 1 as the first bit of the 64bit int

Yes, a "signal bit" is a much better way of doing it than moving to 128-bit integers, because 63 bits of precision is plenty for any transaction.

But the 64th bit should not mean "shift everything by 16 bits", because we want to keep the subdivision of a bitcoin in decimal units, not binary units.

The 64th bit could mean "the remaining bits are an integer count of the number of 10^-16-bitcoins rather than the number of 10^-8-bitcoins".

55 bits is enough to store all of the bitcoins at the current level of precision (21,000,000.000 000 00), so there will be quite a few spare bits available when the time comes.

[ShadowOfHarbringer]

The clients simply display the values with a decimal point in the middle of the base 10 translation of the  integer, as there are 8 decimal places to each side of the display.  Changing that might prove to be a breaking change, and may not be an easy one.

Actually I think i remember Satoshi or Gavin saying that it actually is a quite easy change as bitcoin was designed so that decimal places can be added indefinately.

[nanotube]

The clients simply display the values with a decimal point in the middle of the base 10 translation of the  integer, as there are 8 decimal places to each side of the display.  Changing that might prove to be a breaking change, and may not be an easy one.

Actually I think i remember Satoshi or Gavin saying that it actually is a quite easy change as bitcoin was designed so that decimal places can be added indefinately.

Yes that has been my understanding as well... though I certainly haven't actually looked at any code to confirm.

[ribuck]

Actually I think i remember Satoshi or Gavin saying that it actually is a quite easy change as bitcoin was designed so that decimal places can be added indefinately.

An authoritative link would be really good, because this issue keeps coming up and it would be nice to have it answered once-and-for-all in the FAQ.

[Gavin Andresen]

Actually I think i remember Satoshi or Gavin saying that it actually is a quite easy change as bitcoin was designed so that decimal places can be added indefinately.

Wasn't me.  I don't remember Satoshi ever writing something like that, but I'm really good at forgetting things.

I agree with ribuck, if we ever need more than 21quadrillion bit-atoms, encoding more using the unused high bits in the 64-bit number will work nicely.

That would be a very nice problem to have.

[FreeMoney]

Actually I think i remember Satoshi or Gavin saying that it actually is a quite easy change as bitcoin was designed so that decimal places can be added indefinately.

Wasn't me.  I don't remember Satoshi ever writing something like that, but I'm really good at forgetting things.

I agree with ribuck, if we ever need more than 21quadrillion bit-atoms, encoding more using the unused high bits in the 64-bit number will work nicely.

That would be a very nice problem to have.

No doubt. Right there with "Oh, no, will all of my yachts fit in my private bay?"

[ShadowOfHarbringer]

Actually I think i remember Satoshi or Gavin saying that it actually is a quite easy change as bitcoin was designed so that decimal places can be added indefinately.

Wasn't me.  I don't remember Satoshi ever writing something like that, but I'm really good at forgetting things.

I agree with ribuck, if we ever need more than 21quadrillion bit-atoms, encoding more using the unused high bits in the 64-bit number will work nicely.

That would be a very nice problem to have.

No doubt. Right there with "Oh, no, will all of my yachts fit in my private bay?"

More like "i wonder what colour should i paint my space shuttle ?".

[jgarzik]

If there is to be any change, please change to use int64 integers with no decimal points at all.

[jgarzik]

If there is to be any change, please change to use int64 integers with no decimal points at all.

UPDATE:  After discussion on IRC, I think the change should be to represent "10.0" as a JSON string.

That will successfully (a) avoid JSON implementations' int limitations, while achieving the goal of (b) never use floating point to represent bitcoin amounts.

[doublec]

That will successfully (a) avoid JSON implementations' int limitations, while achieving the goal of (b) never use floating point to represent bitcoin amounts.

Won't this just move the problem to clients of the JSON interface? They'll either write their own buggy string to float/float to string implementations or use the one in the programming languages standard library which probably does a lossy conversion. How about providing additional JSON parameters for numerator/denominator so the amount can be expressed accurately as a rational number for those that what the safety.

[wobber]

I propose this notation, with something like a dropdown menu "UNIT OF BTC TO SEND". It would be easier than counting zeros if someday 1 BTC = 1000 USD and I want to send 1 cent , 0.00001 BTC

1 BTC = 10 dBTC (deci bitcoin) = 100 cBTC (centiBTC) = 1000 mBTC (miliBTC) = 10E-6 µBTC

[fergalish]

How about we call them "millibits", "microbits" etc.  Or, if you imagine how "BTC" might be pronounced, we could call them millibitch etc.  So if you buy a car, it'll cost you 100 bitches :-)

[ShadowOfHarbringer]

I propose this notation, with something like a dropdown menu "UNIT OF BTC TO SEND". It would be easier than counting zeros if someday 1 BTC = 1000 USD and I want to send 1 cent , 0.00001 BTC

1 BTC = 10 dBTC (deci bitcoin) = 100 cBTC (centiBTC) = 1000 mBTC (miliBTC) = 10E-6 µBTC

I already proposed something like this before, but easier to read, as "normal" people don't know the mathematics/physics prefixes.

1 BTC0 = 1 BTC
1 BTC1 = 0.1 BTC
1 BTC2 = 0.01 BTC
1 BTC3 = 0.001 BTC
1 BTC4 = 0.0001 BTC

Or with some adjustments:

1 BTX0 = 1 BTC
1 BTX1 = 0.1 BTC
1 BTX2 = 0.01 BTC

Or:
1 BTC-0 = 1 BTC
1 BTC-1 = 0.1 BTC
1 BTC-2 = 0.01 BTC

Or:

1 BT0 = 1 BTC
1 BT1 = 0.1 BTC
1 BT2 = 0.01 BTC

Or something like that.

[ShadowOfHarbringer]

Going back to the topic - it seems that we will be reaching parity soon, so perhaps default maximum decimal places should be changed to 0.001 BTC.

Also, I propose that the number of decimal places could be set somewhere in the GUI application for convenience.

[ribuck]

Also, I propose that the number of decimal places could be set somewhere in the GUI application for convenience.

I don't think this is needed (contrary to what I suggested previously).

If a transaction uses more than 2 decimal places, show them all. For everything else, show 2 decimal places. The "Send Coins" dialog already doesn't use any specific number of places.

For ease of use, I would suggest that decimals after the first two are shown smaller. This keeps it intuitive for new users, because the main digits are more like "bitdollars and bitcents".

Of course, the fee structure would need to be adjusted in the client. There's no point allowing people to send 0.001 BTC if it's going to cost them 0.01 BTC with the fees.

Why not just have a maximum fee of 0.001 BTC for every transaction? Why should "dust" be charged any differently to "bullion"?

[ShadowOfHarbringer]

Why not just have a maximum fee of 0.001 BTC for every transaction? Why should "dust" be charged any differently to "bullion"?

Not a bad idea, but this value cannot be static.
It should be adjusted automatically somehow, because otherwise fees will be too high as soon as bitcoin gains more value.

So i guess that if you can propose a very good algorithm for determining what the minimum fee should be, then this idea could have sense.

[ribuck]

Why not just have a maximum fee of 0.001 BTC for every transaction? Why should "dust" be charged any differently to "bullion"?

Not a bad idea, but this value cannot be static.

Of course I agree with you, but 0.001 would be a workable default for now.

As I understand it, fees work like this:

• The client offers a maximum fee.
• The generator can choose to process the transaction or not. If it processes the transaction, it can charge any fee between zero and the limit specified by the client.
• The block must be accepted by the majority of the network for the fee payment to "stick".

Feel free to set me straight if there's more to it than that.

[Hal]

This is how I understand transaction fees to work:

- the client offers a fee by creating a tx with a "surplus", ie. the input amount is greater than the output amount

- when a miner creates a block he can create a transaction paying himself up to 50 btc plus the sum of all the tx fees in the block

The miner doesn't have to pay himself that much but the tx fees are lost anyway.

[ribuck]

The miner doesn't have to pay himself that much but the tx fees are lost anyway.

Why don't the excess fees just get returned as change to the originator of the transaction?

[ShadowOfHarbringer]

Why not just have a maximum fee of 0.001 BTC for every transaction? Why should "dust" be charged any differently to "bullion"?

Not a bad idea, but this value cannot be static.

Of course I agree with you, but 0.001 would be a workable default for now.

A "workable default" will only work for some time. And looking and current rally, not very long time.
It would be better to make an algorithm instead. Perhaps one based on weighed average trade size.

[theymos]

Why don't the excess fees just get returned as change to the originator of the transaction?

It would require creating a new transaction, which might have to have its own fees, which might have to have its own change transactions, etc. The refunded amount would also be at risk of changing in a reorganize, which would invalidate all future transactions based on that one.

[ribuck]

Thanks, Hal and Theymos, for clarifying this.

ShadowOfHarbringer: An algorithmic default fee would last longer than a fixed default fee, for sure, but it can't adjust to the future requirements of those who are generating the blocks. Therefore it still needs to be a default that can easily be changed.

It's probably more straightforward, and just as workable in practice, to ship the standard client with a fixed default. This default can be adjusted with each new release of the client to match the realities of the market, provided the end user still has the final control.

[mtve]

I see all comments are "pro" changes, so let me say "con".

Bitcoin was not designed for a big volume of small payments, neither in local data storage nor in network cloud.

All Satoshi's constants were considered very well.

Any changes should be deliberated quite deep.

Anybody could set up its own Bitcoin-backed micropayment service, it will not have all of BitCoin's advantages, but there could be a few players on this market.

--
mtve

[ribuck]

Bitcoin was not designed for a big volume of small payments

That doesn't really make sense, because the overhead of a micropayment is no bigger than the overhead of a large payment.

Perhaps what you mean to say is: "Bitcoin was not designed for a big volume of payments", but nowhere have I seen any statement that mentions what volume of payments Bitcoin was designed for.

[bitcool]

I already proposed something like this before, but easier to read, as "normal" people don't know the mathematics/physics prefixes.

1 BTC0 = 1 BTC
1 BTC1 = 0.1 BTC
1 BTC2 = 0.01 BTC
1 BTC3 = 0.001 BTC
1 BTC4 = 0.0001 BTC

I really like this idea, because it can be difficult for people to remember the exact meaning of all those prefixes: mili, micro, nano, centi, etc.

I'd propose another variant though, because of these reasons:
1. Having a number at the end of a unit can be confusing, especially if you have a list of values: 123 BTC3, 345 BTC3...
2. Pardon my ignorance but I never understood why there's a "T" in BTC  anyway
3. Most people associate bigger numbers with larger values.

B8C = BTC
B7C = 0.1 BTC
B6C = 0.01 BTC
...
B0C = 0.00000001 BTC

and if we are lucky:
BX1C = 0.000000001 BTC

[ribuck]

1 BTC0 = 1 BTC
1 BTC1 = 0.1 BTC
1 BTC2 = 0.01 BTC
1 BTC3 = 0.001 BTC
1 BTC4 = 0.0001 BTC

We are trying to drive the adoption of a new idea (i.e. Bitcoin). It tilts the odds towards failure if we also require people to learn other new things, such as unfamiliar notations.

For that reason, the notation should be well-known. It could either be decimal (e.g. 0.001 BTC), or it could use the standard metric prefixes (which are well-known just about everywhere in the world except perhaps the USA, e.g. 1 mBTC), or it could use different names for the smaller units (by analogy with dollars/cents, pounds/pence, e.g. bitcoins/bitcents/bitdust/satoshis/whatever).

[grondilu]

It could either be decimal (e.g. 0.001 BTC), or it could use the standard metric prefixes (which are well-known just about everywhere in the world except perhaps the USA, e.g. 1 mBTC), or it could use different names for the smaller units (by analogy with dollars/cents, pounds/pence, e.g. bitcoins/bitcents/bitdust/satoshis/whatever).

+1 for standard metric prefix.

We only need a name for the smallest unit (10^-8 BTC), since unfortunately is not any of the 10^3 subdivision.  bitdust woudld be fine I guess.

[ShadowOfHarbringer]

We are trying to drive the adoption of a new idea (i.e. Bitcoin). It tilts the odds towards failure if we also require people to learn other new things, such as unfamiliar notations.

Bitcoin is a difficult, geeky thing enough itself, and now you want to tech people mathematic notations ?
This is madness. It will take people ages to learn that (i mean majority of "normal" people).

Notation proposed by me is better simply because it is more intuitive by orders of magnitude than "mili", "micro", "nano" and such (which "normal", non-geeky people do not know). These are simply too "geeky" to be accepted & easily understood by general population.
Also AFAIK, these notations were never used in currency. Currencies have their own names for everything. So should bitcoin.

This is a simple matter:
If you want to make Bitcoin difficult - use the metrics notation.
If you want to make Bitcoin easily understandable & intiutive - use my (or similiar) notation.

Go on - ask your mother what "micro", "nano" and "mili" means. I wonder if she knows.

[grondilu]

Notation proposed by me is better simply because it is more intuitive by orders of magnitude than "mili", "micro", "nano" and such (which "normal", non-geeky people do not know).

Maybe you say that because you are american and most american are not familiar with the metric system, but I assure you that everywhere else in the world people know these prefixes.

Also AFAIK, these notations were never used in currency. Currencies have their own names for everything. So should bitcoin.

Yes they are, at least for "kilo".  I'm pretty sure I've heard an american person talking about how he earned 50 'K', meaning 50 K$, ie 50,000$.

Also, with computers people are getting used to standard prefixes.  They talk about the speed of their processor in KHz, the size of their RAM in Go, the length of a transistor in nm, and so on...

I'm pretty sure they won't mind talking about mBTC, µBTC etc.

Moreover, if the period of variation of value for bitcoin is slow enough, then people will only talk about one our two units in their life time.  They will trade in mBTC for their daily expenses, and talk in BTC for their wage.  50 years later, their children might talk about µBTC or KBTC, who knows,  but the range of their expenses will probably not cover more than 3 or 4 prefixes, I guess.

[markm]

Oh cool, when the megabucks get given out no-one will know wtf they are so there'll be all more for us!

-MarkM-

[ShadowOfHarbringer]

Notation proposed by me is better simply because it is more intuitive by orders of magnitude than "mili", "micro", "nano" and such (which "normal", non-geeky people do not know).

Maybe you say that because you are american

Well actually, I'm Polish.
I know a lot of "normal" people, and most of them doesn't know said math prefixes.

Moreover, if the period of variation of value for bitcoin is slow enough, then people will only talk about one our two units in their life time.

Well, this is a valid point.
Still, i think my way is more intuitive.

[grondilu]

Well, this is a valid point.
Still, i think my way is more intuitive.

I don't think they have to be mutally exclusive anyway.  I mean, I have enough room im my brain to remember several notation systems, as long as they are not too complex.

In my opinion, yours is not very usefull, since it doesn't even give any prononciation rule. But at least it's simple.

Let's just let people pick the system they like.

[sturle]

Go on - ask your mother what "micro", "nano" and "mili" means. I wonder if she knows.

Come on!  Everyone knows at least milli.  Perhaps with the exception of countries using some archaic units of measurement.  Millimetre and millilitre is common examples.  The exact meaning of micro and nano may be forgotten by people who are far past their primary education, but are by no means uncommon words.  Even my mother will know which is smaller, and I'll not be surprised if she knows their exact meaning either.

[sturle]

Bitcoins are 50 times more valuable today than when I first heard about them six months ago.  If they just double in the next six months, they'll have risen 100-fold in a year.

It seems like a good idea to me to come to a consensus now about when to "move the decimal points" -- when should the Bitcoin program allow you to specify payments with more than two decimal places (e.g. "pay Gavin 0.001 BTC for his thoughts") ?

When should the Bitcoin program assume you're entering payments in 'millicoins' or 'microcoins' ?

And when should all of the internal minimums (e.g. smallest transaction fee or the trigger for the 'micro-transaction spam prevention') be lowered?

I think we should allow three decimals now, to make very small payments possible, and have a default fee of one millibitcoin for transactions smaller than 0.01 to discourage overuse.  Note the use of millibitcoin to make people used to the word.  It should be configurable in the client to use bitcoins or millibitcoins as the default unit in the client, but for the time being it should default to using whole bitcoins.

Use familiar SI prefixes.  I do not think bitcoins should be used as a means to introduce an entirely new notation like BTC4 or B4C or whatever.  The concept of Bitcoin is hard enough to grasp itself for beginners.  While it s intuitive to most people that a microbitcon is the same as 0.001 bitcoin, just as one millimetre is 0.001 metre and 1 millilitre is 0.001 litre, it is not at all obvious what those alternative notations mean.

[markm]

It certainly seems to make sense to have the next term (or even couple of terms or conceivably/dubiously next few terms) already out there right in front of them long before the time comes that they'll actually want/need to use them.

If they've been seeing millibitcoin day after day and maybe wondering what the heck it means and why is it even mentioned by the time an entire week or month goes by and bitcoins have increased in value yet another hundredfold, maybe by then they might have actually googled the word or something.

-MarkM- (Mind you I haven't actually checked that the first results for the term aren't porn sites or anything like that...)

[Veltas]

Why don't we just add the option to trade in the minimum bit coin storable right now, and keep the 2dp for the main screen, leaving that option in some dialogue box somewhere.  That way you can review minute finances, but at the same time just see the 2dp on the main screen still.

If we try to do this algorithmically, then life will be made much harder for the p2p method.  Keep it simple!  My method means simple users can keep the 2dp they're used to, but you have the option to be more precise if you want!

[Fiery Winds]

Mega bump, but figured this was the best place to share my idea for naming small fractions of BTC.  It may seem complicated, but I think that with practice, this could be a manageable system for both online AND offline payments.  

Given that this is a global currency, and the metric system is used by the majority of the population, we should stick to a metric prefix system, similar to other ideas here in this thread.  I've added a few "rules" to help standardize and simplify the system.

Like so:

1 BTC = 1 Bit
0.1 BTC = 1 Decibit/Dec (Optional)
0.01 BTC = 1 Centibit/Cent
0.001 BTC = 1 Millibit/Mil
0.000,001 BTC = 1 Microbit/Micro
0.000,000,01 BTC = 1 Satoshi

In another form:

1 Bit = 10 Decs
1 Dec = 100 Cents
1 Cent = 100 Mils
1 Mil = 1,000 Micros
1 Micro = 100 Satoshi

Rules:  

1) The smallest unit possible is generally used.  Anything over 1 BTC is generally referred to in decimal (e.g. 1.35 BTC = "One point three five Bits")

2) Trailing zeroes should be used when interpretation of units is ambiguous. (See examples below)

3) Commas are used to the right of the decimal point every three spaces to assist unit assignment

4) Avoid awkward prices (e.g. 1.500,004,80 BTC).  Even so, could be read as "1.5 Bits and 480 Satoshi"

With this, you can easily speak lower prices without talking in decimals all the time. Generally, the fewer non-zero numbers in a BTC price, the better.

Examples:

0.40 BTC = 4 Decs OR 40 Cents
0.45 BTC = 45 Cents
0.452 BTC = 452 Mils
0.002,500 BTC = 2500 Micros OR 0.002,5 = "Two and a half Mils"
0.087 BTC = 87 Mils
0.000,346 BTC = 346 Micros
0.000,049 BTC = 49 Micros
0.000,000,12 = 12 Satoshi
0.000,003,12 BTC = 312 Satoshi

Thoughts, suggestions, criticisms? Having just 8 decimal places instead of 9 makes it slightly less intuitive than it could be when dealing with hundreds of Satoshi, but it's no different than saying that $1.32 is 132 cents.

[alan2here]

1, BitCoin, BTC
0.01, BitCent
0.000,01, BitDost, Dost
0.000,000,01, Satoshi, Soe

21,000 BitGroup, BTG

Perfect

[manfred]

1 BTC = 1 Bit
0.1 BTC = 1 Decibit/Dec (Optional)
0.01 BTC = 1 Centibit/Cent
0.001 BTC = 1 Millibit/Mil
0.000,001 BTC = 1 Microbit/Micro
0.000,000,01 BTC = 1 Satoshi

1 BTC = 1 Bit
0.1 BTC = 1 Decibit
0.01 BTC = 1 Centibit
0.001 BTC = 1 Millibit
0.000,001 BTC = 1 Microbit
0.000,000,01 BTC = 1 Satoshi
0.000,000,000,01 BTC = 1 DeciSatoshi
0.000,000,000,000,01 BTC = 1 CentiSatoshi
0.000,000,000,000,000,01 BTC = 1 MilliSatoshi
............

U mean unlimited subdividing (its wrong anyway), no differed to  printing unlimited fiat
monthly rent for a house  in 1900 was $5

[Fiery Winds]

No, the protocol is subdivided to the Satoshi, all transactions are recorded in Satoshi, and that isn't going to change.  This is just a naming/writing system that makes it easier to work with very small numbers. 

[Shevek]

When 1 Bitcoin is worth somewhere around $100 (in 2010 dollars), I think it'll be time for the client to switch to millicoins (e.g. .001 BTC), so if I'm buying a paperback book it costs 50 milliBTC  instead of  .05 BTC.

We arrived.

And now...?

[alan2here]

Thats 5000 Dost.

[MoonShadow]

When 1 Bitcoin is worth somewhere around $100 (in 2010 dollars), I think it'll be time for the client to switch to millicoins (e.g. .001 BTC), so if I'm buying a paperback book it costs 50 milliBTC  instead of  .05 BTC.

We arrived.

And now...?

The client is capable of displaying the balance in mills, but has to be set to do so, as that is not the default.

[MoonShadow]

U mean unlimited subdividing (its wrong anyway), no differed to  printing unlimited fiatmonthly rent for a house  in 1900 was $5

That's not at all so.  No matter how it's represented, there is no way to inflate the currency base beyond the protocol.  Moving the decimal point for bitcoins is no more inflating the currency than if you were to start referring to all your exchanges and prices in cents rather than dollars or euros.  It's just division.

Beyond that, as others have already mentioned, the protocol doesn't really even care where we put the decimal point, as it simply counts in satoshis anyway.

[NothinG]

Wouldn't the only bad thing to come out of extending the decimal points be the increased size of the blockchain?
The scripts that people use would allow the extra decimals to be optional and just pass as 0's.
The only thing that would need to change would be, how far should it go out?
It's inevitable that one day we will be REQUIRED to move it further as the supply/demand increases. After-all, there will only be 21 million coins EVER.

[MoonShadow]

Wouldn't the only bad thing to come out of extending the decimal points be the increased size of the blockchain?
The scripts that people use would allow the extra decimals to be optional and just pass as 0's.

The effect would be neglible.

[NothinG]

Wouldn't the only bad thing to come out of extending the decimal points be the increased size of the blockchain?
The scripts that people use would allow the extra decimals to be optional and just pass as 0's.

The effect would me neglible.

If that's the case, then alt-coins will be a must.

[MoonShadow]

Wouldn't the only bad thing to come out of extending the decimal points be the increased size of the blockchain?
The scripts that people use would allow the extra decimals to be optional and just pass as 0's.

The effect would me neglible.

If that's the case, then alt-coins will be a must.

Why?

[finder_keeper]

How about adding 3 levels between bitcoin and satoshi:

1 Bitcoin = 100 Gold coins (or Gold bits, or Gold BTC).
1 Gold bit = 100 Silver bits
1 Silver bit = 100 Bronze bit
1 Bronze bit = 100 Satoshis.

Or substitute other ordered triads, something random like:

1 BTC = 100 King bits = 10k Queen bits = 1M Jack bits
1 BTC = 100 Mondo bits = 10k itty bits = 1M micro bits
1 BTC = 100 Jupiters = 10k Mars bits = 1M pluto bits

I don't know, something that rolls off the tongue more easily than deci- and milli- and nano

-- FK

We are trying to drive the adoption of a new idea (i.e. Bitcoin). It tilts the odds towards failure if we also require people to learn other new things, such as unfamiliar notations.

Bitcoin is a difficult, geeky thing enough itself, and now you want to tech people mathematic notations ?
This is madness. It will take people ages to learn that (i mean majority of "normal" people).

Notation proposed by me is better simply because it is more intuitive by orders of magnitude than "mili", "micro", "nano" and such (which "normal", non-geeky people do not know). These are simply too "geeky" to be accepted & easily understood by general population.
Also AFAIK, these notations were never used in currency. Currencies have their own names for everything. So should bitcoin.

This is a simple matter:
If you want to make Bitcoin difficult - use the metrics notation.
If you want to make Bitcoin easily understandable & intiutive - use my (or similiar) notation.

Go on - ask your mother what "micro", "nano" and "mili" means. I wonder if she knows.

[superresistant]

BUMP because nothing has changed.

Are we going to move the decimal or what ??

[MoonShadow]

BUMP because nothing has changed.

Are we going to move the decimal or what ??

Looks like the market answer is "no".  Instead, most clients have moved to an adjustable display with a default of millibits.

[superresistant]

BUMP because nothing has changed.
Are we going to move the decimal or what ??

Looks like the market answer is "no".  Instead, most clients have moved to an adjustable display with a default of millibits.

Market is shooting himself in the foot. Without opening the market to mainstream, Bitcoin will remain an experiment for ever.

People are dumb, that's a fact. They think Bitcoin is too expensive and they'll never change their mind.

Change the decimal now or it's dead. Wake up people !

[superresistant]

Change the decimal now or it's dead. Wake up people !

How about we call one-millionth of a BTC (i.e. a micro-bitcoin) a Finney? One million Finneys equal a Bitcoin.
Conveniently, 100 Satoshis equal a Finney, so we can use a convenient two digits after the decimal point, just like dollars and cents. So 0.0015 BTC becomes 1500.00 Finneys.
Forex traders don't like more than two digits after the decimal, so this notation should suit them perfectly.
A Finney is currently worth around a tenth of a cent, so it will remain a useful unit as the price of a bitcoin rises.
The Finney is named in honor of Hal Finney, of course.

Why not Finney ? It sound absurd to rename it "Finney" but it is much better than Bitcoin. As you said, decimals make no sense for normal people.

[MoonShadow]

BUMP because nothing has changed.
Are we going to move the decimal or what ??

Looks like the market answer is "no".  Instead, most clients have moved to an adjustable display with a default of millibits.

Market is shooting himself in the foot. Without opening the market to mainstream, Bitcoin will remain an experiment for ever.

People are dumb, that's a fact. They think Bitcoin is too expensive and they'll never change their mind.

Change the decimal now or it's dead. Wake up people !

Don't assume that you can predict such things.  Bill Gates thought the Internet was a fad.

[Xav]

Change the decimal now or it's dead. Wake up people !

How about we call one-millionth of a BTC (i.e. a micro-bitcoin) a Finney? One million Finneys equal a Bitcoin.
Conveniently, 100 Satoshis equal a Finney, so we can use a convenient two digits after the decimal point, just like dollars and cents. So 0.0015 BTC becomes 1500.00 Finneys.
Forex traders don't like more than two digits after the decimal, so this notation should suit them perfectly.
A Finney is currently worth around a tenth of a cent, so it will remain a useful unit as the price of a bitcoin rises.
The Finney is named in honor of Hal Finney, of course.

Why not Finney ? It sound absurd to rename it "Finney" but it is much better than Bitcoin. As you said, decimals make no sense for normal people.

For most people a "Finney" does not seem to refer to Bitcoin. A millibit sounds too cheap. So, let's introduce the "squareroot-Bitcoin" which is 10 000 Satoshi or 1/10 000th of 1 Bitcoin.

Notation:

1 USD = 12.5 rBTC

[knightcoin]

Thinking about scale up, large-scale adoption projections, etc reminds me lessons of the time everybody thought that an ip address size 32-bit should be enough for the internet, and now everybody is behind nat lol ... and as Vint Cerf once said "OK 32-bit It’s my fault, but now 128-bit space should be enough... at least will not be a problem to my generation anymore" ...

[CoinHeavy]

To avoid the recurrence of this issue, a symbol for the satoshi could be implemented and the satoshi itself should be a standard unit along side BTC.

I am much more likely to convince a prospective new member of the bitcoin community to purchase 100,000 satoshis for a dollar than .001BTC (or a full bitcoin for ~$1,000).

Large transactions could then be in BTC and small transactions could be in satoshis.  This would promote small transactions to get people comfortable using a new financial system.  It's more harrowing to be sending around fractions of something expensive than it is to be sending around lots of something cheap.

[shawshankinmate37927]

Change the decimal now or it's dead. Wake up people !

How about we call one-millionth of a BTC (i.e. a micro-bitcoin) a Finney? One million Finneys equal a Bitcoin.
Conveniently, 100 Satoshis equal a Finney, so we can use a convenient two digits after the decimal point, just like dollars and cents. So 0.0015 BTC becomes 1500.00 Finneys.
Forex traders don't like more than two digits after the decimal, so this notation should suit them perfectly.
A Finney is currently worth around a tenth of a cent, so it will remain a useful unit as the price of a bitcoin rises.
The Finney is named in honor of Hal Finney, of course.

Why not Finney ? It sound absurd to rename it "Finney" but it is much better than Bitcoin. As you said, decimals make no sense for normal people.

For most people a "Finney" does not seem to refer to Bitcoin....

Using a new term for the smaller units of currency would have the additional benefit of making it easier to differentiate between bitcoins (the units of currency) and Bitcoin (the payment system/network/service).

For example:
 - PayPal is a payment system that allows for payments in dollars and cents.
 - Bitcoin is a payment system that allows for payments in finneys and satoshis.

[Xav]

Change the decimal now or it's dead. Wake up people !

How about we call one-millionth of a BTC (i.e. a micro-bitcoin) a Finney? One million Finneys equal a Bitcoin.
Conveniently, 100 Satoshis equal a Finney, so we can use a convenient two digits after the decimal point, just like dollars and cents. So 0.0015 BTC becomes 1500.00 Finneys.
Forex traders don't like more than two digits after the decimal, so this notation should suit them perfectly.
A Finney is currently worth around a tenth of a cent, so it will remain a useful unit as the price of a bitcoin rises.
The Finney is named in honor of Hal Finney, of course.

Why not Finney ? It sound absurd to rename it "Finney" but it is much better than Bitcoin. As you said, decimals make no sense for normal people.

For most people a "Finney" does not seem to refer to Bitcoin....

Using a new term for the smaller units of currency would have the additional benefit of making it easier to differentiate between bitcoins (the units of currency) and Bitcoin (the payment system/network/service).

For example:
 - PayPal is a payment system that allows for payments in dollars and cents.
 - Bitcoin is a payment system that allows for payments in finneys and satoshis.

All true, but there remains the problem of a symbol that's already assigned to Bitcoin; BTC. The dollar, USD uses $ for each and every amount. It wouldn't make much sense to have two symbols for Bitcoin; the already famous BTC and another one for "Finney." Each price now and in the future is written in BTC. Do you want to change this?

BTW A cent is in fact a dollarcent; for me a cent is a Eurocent.

[superresistant]

All true, but there remains the problem of a symbol that's already assigned to Bitcoin; BTC. The dollar, USD uses $ for each and every amount. It wouldn't make much sense to have two symbols for Bitcoin; the already famous BTC and another one for "Finney." Each price now and in the future is written in BTC. Do you want to change this?
BTW A cent is in fact a dollarcent; for me a cent is a Eurocent.

No need to add symbols. We already have the metric prefix from the International System of Units.

Name Prefix Factor

deciBTC dBTC 10−1

centiBTC cBTC 10−2

milliBTC   mBTC 10−3

microBTC μBTC 10−6

satoshi ?? 10−8

We only need a new symbol for satoshis.

[MoonShadow]

Besides, we already have a name for that unit.  It's called a gavin for the same reason that the smallest unit is called a satoshi.  You can call it whatever you want, but that doesn't mean I'm going to.  And those who favor the metric system can call it what they like as well.

[thms]

Using decibits, centibit, millibit or whatever name you come up for something, is not gonna work! How will you make all software wallets, all exchanges, all people agree on a unit??? Impossible!

The only way to do this would be by changing the core and make, for example, the new bitcoin worth 0.001 of the old bitcoin. From the beginning I hear that one of the advantages of bitcoin is that it's programmable money right? So why not take advantage of that?

[manfred]

Using decibits, centibit, millibit or whatever name you come up for something, is not gonna work! How will you make all software wallets, all exchanges, all people agree on a unit??? Impossible!

The only way to do this would be by changing the core and make, for example, the new bitcoin worth 0.001 of the old bitcoin. From the beginning I hear that one of the advantages of bitcoin is that it's programmable money right? So why not take advantage of that?

Why is it impossible, thats why there is a International System of Units

[thms]

Using decibits, centibit, millibit or whatever name you come up for something, is not gonna work! How will you make all software wallets, all exchanges, all people agree on a unit??? Impossible!

The only way to do this would be by changing the core and make, for example, the new bitcoin worth 0.001 of the old bitcoin. From the beginning I hear that one of the advantages of bitcoin is that it's programmable money right? So why not take advantage of that?

Why is it impossible, thats why there is a International System of Units

I don't understand what you mean. I didn't say it's impossible to use the international system.

[shawshankinmate37927]

All true, but there remains the problem of a symbol that's already assigned to Bitcoin; BTC. The dollar, USD uses $ for each and every amount. It wouldn't make much sense to have two symbols for Bitcoin; the already famous BTC and another one for "Finney." Each price now and in the future is written in BTC. Do you want to change this?

BTW A cent is in fact a dollarcent; for me a cent is a Eurocent.

I'm sure the metric prefixes and symbology aren't going to change, but perhaps informal or colloquial terms will eventually emerge for the milliBTC and microBTC units.  For example, we all agree that a "satoshi" is 0.00000001 BTC, 0.00001 milliBTC, or 0.01 microBTC, without needing a new symbol for it.

[MoonShadow]

Using decibits, centibit, millibit or whatever name you come up for something, is not gonna work! How will you make all software wallets, all exchanges, all people agree on a unit??? Impossible!

The only way to do this would be by changing the core and make, for example, the new bitcoin worth 0.001 of the old bitcoin. From the beginning I hear that one of the advantages of bitcoin is that it's programmable money right? So why not take advantage of that?

Technically, the satoshi is the base unit of Bitcoin.  There is no decimal point as far as the code is concerned, just an integer variable.  The clients can display that integer however you like.

[Xav]

All true, but there remains the problem of a symbol that's already assigned to Bitcoin; BTC. The dollar, USD uses $ for each and every amount. It wouldn't make much sense to have two symbols for Bitcoin; the already famous BTC and another one for "Finney." Each price now and in the future is written in BTC. Do you want to change this?

BTW A cent is in fact a dollarcent; for me a cent is a Eurocent.

I'm sure the metric prefixes and symbology aren't going to change, but perhaps informal or colloquial terms will eventually emerge for the milliBTC and microBTC units.  For example, we all agree that a "satoshi" is 0.00000001 BTC, 0.00001 milliBTC, or 0.01 microBTC, without needing a new symbol for it.

In marketing terms those metric prefixes sound very small and evoke the suggestion of dealing with tiny little fractions. Though I'm not much of a salesman, but arriving home and telling your girlfriend or wife, or both, you bought 100 milliBitcoins for $80 would not impress her and make her think of you making a great investment. The story turns 180 degrees when you tell her that you bought 1000 rootBitcoins for $80, doesn't it? Additionally there is no need to name each increase by the factor ten/hundred/thousand; nobody writes 1 gigaDollar or 1 megaDollar or 1 kiloDollar or 1 deciDollar.

[shawshankinmate37927]

In marketing terms those metric prefixes sound very small and evoke the suggestion of dealing with tiny little fractions. Though I'm not much of a salesman, but arriving home and telling your girlfriend or wife, or both, you bought 100 milliBitcoins for $80 would not impress her and make her think of you making a great investment. The story turns 180 degrees when you tell her that you bought 1000 rootBitcoins for $80, doesn't it? Additionally there is no need to name each increase by the factor ten/hundred/thousand; nobody writes 1 gigaDollar or 1 megaDollar or 1 kiloDollar or 1 deciDollar.

Yeah, I agree that those metric prefixes don't really "sound right" when talking about money.  I was an electronics tech for twenty years, so I'm accustomed to the metric prefix terminology when discussing millivolts, kilowatts, picofarads, etc., but it just doesn't seem quite right when talking about money.  I'm not sold on "rootBitcoins", but I'll go along with whatever term most in the community go with.  I don't have an adamant opinion on it, just tossing some ideas around.

As you know, bitcoins are very different than fiat currencies and there is less of a need for metric prefixes when discussing them because bankers just create more of them before they have a chance to appreciate in value ("deflation" they like to call it).  If the dollar supply had been controlled over the last hundred years the same way the bitcoin supply will be controlled for the next hundred years, they would have been forced to redefine the currency units (similar to a 10-for-1 stock split) or something along those lines.

[thms]

Using decibits, centibit, millibit or whatever name you come up for something, is not gonna work! How will you make all software wallets, all exchanges, all people agree on a unit??? Impossible!

The only way to do this would be by changing the core and make, for example, the new bitcoin worth 0.001 of the old bitcoin. From the beginning I hear that one of the advantages of bitcoin is that it's programmable money right? So why not take advantage of that?

Technically, the satoshi is the base unit of Bitcoin.  There is no decimal point as far as the code is concerned, just an integer variable.  The clients can display that integer however you like.

That's odd, so you are saying that nowhere in the code the value of 1 bitcoin is set to 100,000,000 satoshis?

[Xav]

In marketing terms those metric prefixes sound very small and evoke the suggestion of dealing with tiny little fractions. Though I'm not much of a salesman, but arriving home and telling your girlfriend or wife, or both, you bought 100 milliBitcoins for $80 would not impress her and make her think of you making a great investment. The story turns 180 degrees when you tell her that you bought 1000 rootBitcoins for $80, doesn't it? Additionally there is no need to name each increase by the factor ten/hundred/thousand; nobody writes 1 gigaDollar or 1 megaDollar or 1 kiloDollar or 1 deciDollar.

Yeah, I agree that those metric prefixes don't really "sound right" when talking about money.  I was an electronics tech for twenty years, so I'm accustomed to the metric prefix terminology when discussing millivolts, kilowatts, picofarads, etc., but it just doesn't seem quite right when talking about money.  I'm not sold on "rootBitcoins", but I'll go along with whatever term most in the community go with.  I don't have an adamant opinion on it, just tossing some ideas around.

As you know, bitcoins are very different than fiat currencies and there is less of a need for metric prefixes when discussing them because bankers just create more of them before they have a chance to appreciate in value ("deflation" they like to call it).  If the dollar supply had been controlled over the last hundred years the same way the bitcoin supply will be controlled for the next hundred years, they would have been forced to redefine the currency units (similar to a 10-for-1 stock split) or something along those lines.

I see what you mean. In the old days a Coke costed maybe $0.10 and an average workingman earned about a few hundred bucks a month. If he would spend all his income to Coke he would have a few thousand of them. Nowadays the average workingman has an income of a few thousands and a Coke costs about $2.00. Guess what, he still can buy a few thousand of Cokes each month. Is there a need for a decimal shift in the currency? I think not.
A view in the Bitcoin-future; a bit optimistic though. Today BTC1.00 = $800, so a Coke will cost rBTC25.00 (prefix r for square root of 100 million Satoshi). Twenty years later the same Coke will cost maybe 1000 times less in Bitcoins, because Bitcoin value has rocketed. Still no need for any decimal shifting, because we have the good old tiny little guy called Satoshi, which we can use as a prefix also. This future Coke might be rBTC0.025 = sBTC250.
We only need two prefixes; "root" and "Satoshi". My humble opinion.

[Its About Sharing]

In marketing terms those metric prefixes sound very small and evoke the suggestion of dealing with tiny little fractions. Though I'm not much of a salesman, but arriving home and telling your girlfriend or wife, or both, you bought 100 milliBitcoins for $80 would not impress her and make her think of you making a great investment. The story turns 180 degrees when you tell her that you bought 1000 rootBitcoins for $80, doesn't it? Additionally there is no need to name each increase by the factor ten/hundred/thousand; nobody writes 1 gigaDollar or 1 megaDollar or 1 kiloDollar or 1 deciDollar.

Yeah, I agree that those metric prefixes don't really "sound right" when talking about money.  I was an electronics tech for twenty years, so I'm accustomed to the metric prefix terminology when discussing millivolts, kilowatts, picofarads, etc., but it just doesn't seem quite right when talking about money.  I'm not sold on "rootBitcoins", but I'll go along with whatever term most in the community go with.  I don't have an adamant opinion on it, just tossing some ideas around.

As you know, bitcoins are very different than fiat currencies and there is less of a need for metric prefixes when discussing them because bankers just create more of them before they have a chance to appreciate in value ("deflation" they like to call it).  If the dollar supply had been controlled over the last hundred years the same way the bitcoin supply will be controlled for the next hundred years, they would have been forced to redefine the currency units (similar to a 10-for-1 stock split) or something along those lines.

So, as thms said (or rather discovered  ), the base unit is actually a Satoshi and not a BTC (in the code.) I've thought often of the stock split idea before.
That sounds like the easiest solution. At this point, I think following the dollar (at least until it pops and gets out of hand inflation wise), might be worth considering.
How about an adjustment during key levels when price stabilization takes place (like around now)? We could do a 1000 for 1 split and put 1 BTC close in value to a dollar.
Of course, what this would do is open the floodgates for new buyers, guaranteed.
But, does it hurt us in another sense?

Notice that America is like one of the only countries not on the Metric system yet?...

[thms]

We could do a 1000 for 1 split and put 1 BTC close in value to a dollar.
Of course, what this would do is open the floodgates for new buyers, guaranteed.

That I agree, it's 100% confirmed that more people would buy if the decimal point is shifted to the right place

But, does it hurt us in another sense?

Notice that America is like one of the only countries not on the Metric system yet?...

I don't know why you think that, it's just about moving the decimal point, it doesn't change the number system, it would still be the decimal system. And AFAIK the US uses the decimal system for currency too.

[thms]

So, as thms said (or rather discovered  ), the base unit is actually a Satoshi and not a BTC (in the code.)

I'm really having trouble understanding this concept. Yes, the base unit is satoshi, fine. But the definition of 1 BTC = 100,000,000 satoshis is just set on paper then?

[MoonShadow]

Using decibits, centibit, millibit or whatever name you come up for something, is not gonna work! How will you make all software wallets, all exchanges, all people agree on a unit??? Impossible!

The only way to do this would be by changing the core and make, for example, the new bitcoin worth 0.001 of the old bitcoin. From the beginning I hear that one of the advantages of bitcoin is that it's programmable money right? So why not take advantage of that?

Technically, the satoshi is the base unit of Bitcoin.  There is no decimal point as far as the code is concerned, just an integer variable.  The clients can display that integer however you like.

That's odd, so you are saying that nowhere in the code the value of 1 bitcoin is set to 100,000,000 satoshis?

Correct.  There is nothing in the protocol or the running code that requires that the client display the unit in any particular way.  The protocol isn't even aware of the Bitcoin unit, in fact.  The clients display the units the way they do because the programmers wanted to make the mental math for humans easier.  You can shift the decimal point in your own client anytime you like, so long as it's not less than a satoshi.

[MoonShadow]

So, as thms said (or rather discovered  ), the base unit is actually a Satoshi and not a BTC (in the code.)

I'm really having trouble understanding this concept. Yes, the base unit is satoshi, fine. But the definition of 1 BTC = 100,000,000 satoshis is just set on paper then?

Not even on paper.  It's just an arbitrary unit that Satoshi decided upon early, because the value of any bitcoin unit would be so small to start with.  The transactions hold the value as a 64 bit integer, Satoshi just added a decimal in the middle of the base-10 representation of that 64 bit integer, with 32 bits to either side.  Again, that's nowhere in the code or protocol, just something Sathoshi decided upon to make the mental math easier for users.  Note, also, that means that there are a lot of unused bits to the big end of that 64 bit integer; which permit a 'flag' to be placed there in the future to denote a 'value shift' allowing sub-satoshi values to be held and transfered as well.  Like having addresses that hold normal values, and then other addresses that hold only change/dust values less than a satoshi.  So, in the future, even sub-satoshi values would be possible and easy.

[MoonShadow]

I don't know why you think that, it's just about moving the decimal point, it doesn't change the number system, it would still be the decimal system. And AFAIK the US uses the decimal system for currency too.

For the most part, yes.  It's more than rare these days for prices to be expressed in "bits", which is one-eighth of a traditional (not a federal reserve note) dollar.  The traditional dollar was one troy ounce of silver.

[Its About Sharing]

We could do a 1000 for 1 split and put 1 BTC close in value to a dollar.
Of course, what this would do is open the floodgates for new buyers, guaranteed.

That I agree, it's 100% confirmed that more people would buy if the decimal point is shifted to the right place

But, does it hurt us in another sense?

Notice that America is like one of the only countries not on the Metric system yet?...

I don't know why you think that, it's just about moving the decimal point, it doesn't change the number system, it would still be the decimal system. And AFAIK the US uses the decimal system for currency too.

So, we theoretically can be the first "stock" that had a 1000 to 1 split     (And when all is said and done, a few of them).
Really, I wonder if talk might start in this area.

Regarding my "Does it hurt us in another sense. " comment,  I mean it is all about perception and I wonder what happens to the perception.
Instead of 21 million total "BTC's" in existence, we have 21 billion. Now, nothing has changed in reality, but it is another shift in terms (to the common man).
Or, does the value in a way "decrease" due to a peg of sorts (with the split) to the dollar? Again, I'm talking in the minds of people. All theoretical here. I don't know.
This game (apparently) is just as psychological as it is practical as it is actual...

And, I put a "?" there because I don't really know and am open to what others think. I wonder why more people haven't mentioned this before.
I mean what is more difficult, using terms like "mili bitcoin, micro bitcoin, etc." for mom and pop, common people, etc. or just saying "bitcoin"?
A hell of a lot easier to just do splits, (for now anyway), than come up with new terms imo. Not sure that is a long term solution though.

I really think this topic of a split needs to be looked at further.

[manfred]

Where does this nonsense come from that the base unit is the satoshi? Its is agreed upon to stick to 8 decimal places for time being (can be changed to 6 or 10 or whatever) and its called a Satoshi.
If someone wants to be cheap i am sure he can find some crappy coin on a crappy exchange.

[Its About Sharing]

Where does this nonsense come from that the base unit is the satoshi? Its is agreed upon to stick to 8 decimal places for time being (can be changed to 6 or 10 or whatever) and its called a Satoshi.
If someone wants to be cheap i am sure he can find some crappy coin on a crappy exchange.

The "nonsense" comes from a few places. I've heard it on the Let's Talk Bitcoin podcast and here it is in the first line of the Bitcoin Wiki:

Bitcoin is a decentralized digital currency created by developer Satoshi Nakamoto. It does not rely on a central server to process transactions or store funds. There are a maximum of 2,100,000,000,000,000 Bitcoin elements (called satoshis), currently most commonly measured in units of 100,000,000 known as BTC.

Perhaps you can list your sources. Did you get your information from the source code? I imagine since you are calling the other information "nonsense", you must have.

And regarding your derogatory remark of "If someone wants to be cheap..." - I don't think any of us implied or alluded to that at all. We are talking about an ease of use in denominations for the AVERAGE user, not IT or tech guys. Even IT guys or technical people (like a few of the hosts of LTBTC) got the different denomination conventions mixed up on more than one occasion.

With posts like yours it makes fewer people want to take part in a discussion.
So, learn some manners Manfred.

ITS ABOUT SHARING

[MoonShadow]

We could do a 1000 for 1 split and put 1 BTC close in value to a dollar.
Of course, what this would do is open the floodgates for new buyers, guaranteed.

That I agree, it's 100% confirmed that more people would buy if the decimal point is shifted to the right place

You can only speak for yourself, although you probably are here.

This argument is why I pointed out that the market has already decided how to handle it.  There is nothing for us to debate, no one has any power to effect this kind of change if the users don't wish to do it themselves.  The unit of display isn't decided by the code or protocol.  This whole thread is like arguing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin!  There is nothing that any of us can do!  Even if we could all agree.

If you don't like how your client displays the unit, change it.  You can in your own client anytime you like.  It would have zero effect on your net spending power, nor would it have any effect whatever on your ability to buy bitcoins in any fraction or number you are able.  If people don't buy bitcoins because the price of a whole bitcoin is $800, why does it matter if they might buy a millibit for 80 cents?  Their economic ignorance isn't a reflection on you, is it?  Nor is it a reflection on Bitcoin itself.  If Bitcoin fails, it won't be because a portion of the potential user pool doesn't understand the unit.

[MoonShadow]

Where does this nonsense come from that the base unit is the satoshi? Its is agreed upon to stick to 8 decimal places for time being (can be changed to 6 or 10 or whatever) and its called a Satoshi.
If someone wants to be cheap i am sure he can find some crappy coin on a crappy exchange.

Well, I first noticed it when I read Satoshi's white paper.  I've been told by many of the developers that the satoshi is the base unit as well.  Can't see any reason to call it nonsense, myself.

[Its About Sharing]

We could do a 1000 for 1 split and put 1 BTC close in value to a dollar.
Of course, what this would do is open the floodgates for new buyers, guaranteed.

That I agree, it's 100% confirmed that more people would buy if the decimal point is shifted to the right place

You can only speak for yourself, although you probably are here.

This argument is why I pointed out that the market has already decided how to handle it.  There is nothing for us to debate, no one has any power to effect this kind of change if the users don't wish to do it themselves.  The unit of display isn't decided by the code or protocol.  This whole thread is like arguing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin!  There is nothing that any of us can do!  Even if we could all agree.

If you don't like how your client displays the unit, change it.  You can in your own client anytime you like.  It would have zero effect on your net spending power, nor would it have any effect whatever on your ability to buy bitcoins in any fraction or number you are able.  If people don't buy bitcoins because the price of a whole bitcoin is $800, why does it matter if they might buy a millibit for 80 cents?  Their economic ignorance isn't a reflection on you, is it?  Nor is it a reflection on Bitcoin itself.  If Bitcoin fails, it won't be because a portion of the potential user pool doesn't understand the unit.

True to a point, but if we just change the name of the unit on e.g. our wallet, then we will be saying e.g. 1 mBTC, right? That is a problem right there. It is no longer a "bitcoin", it is a "milibitcoin". I think we are talking about more than an adjustment in perception, now that you bring up that good point. Unlike regular money, we don't yet have the familiarity with the equivalent  of say "a penny" in our Bitcoin vocabulary. And it sounds so geeky to say "milibitcoin" for Grandma! LOL But who knows, really...

Perhaps we can easily make the adjustment. It is an interesting part of the experiment, eh? Having a money that increases so much in value that you have to start refering to it in thousandths or the like.

[MoonShadow]

We could do a 1000 for 1 split and put 1 BTC close in value to a dollar.
Of course, what this would do is open the floodgates for new buyers, guaranteed.

That I agree, it's 100% confirmed that more people would buy if the decimal point is shifted to the right place

You can only speak for yourself, although you probably are here.

This argument is why I pointed out that the market has already decided how to handle it.  There is nothing for us to debate, no one has any power to effect this kind of change if the users don't wish to do it themselves.  The unit of display isn't decided by the code or protocol.  This whole thread is like arguing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin!  There is nothing that any of us can do!  Even if we could all agree.

If you don't like how your client displays the unit, change it.  You can in your own client anytime you like.  It would have zero effect on your net spending power, nor would it have any effect whatever on your ability to buy bitcoins in any fraction or number you are able.  If people don't buy bitcoins because the price of a whole bitcoin is $800, why does it matter if they might buy a millibit for 80 cents?  Their economic ignorance isn't a reflection on you, is it?  Nor is it a reflection on Bitcoin itself.  If Bitcoin fails, it won't be because a portion of the potential user pool doesn't understand the unit.

True to a point, but if we just change the name of the unit on e.g. our wallet, then we will be saying e.g. 1 mBTC, right? That is a problem right there. It is no longer a "bitcoin", it is a "milibitcoin". I think we are talking about more than an adjustment in perception, now that you bring up that good point. Unlike regular money, we don't yet have the familiarity with the equivalent  of say "a penny" in our Bitcoin vocabulary. And it sounds so geeky to say "milibitcoin" for Grandma! LOL But who knows, really...

Perhaps we can easily make the adjustment. It is an interesting part of the experiment, eh? Having a money that increases so much in value that you have to start refering to it in thousandths or the like.

Outside of the core Bitcoin community, I suspect that units will have many names across nations, cultures and languages, and I don't think there is any way to avoid that.   So why try?  There is no need to have an "official" unit name, people who trade across borders will make it their business to be aware of the differences in unit nomiclature and division.  People who don't trade across borders don't give a shit what it's called elsewhere.  Note that gold has 200+ names.

EDIT:  BTW, if you're willing to dig into the archives of this forum, you'll find that I'm the person who suggested that the smallest unit be called a satoshi.  Yes, me, personally.  I really have been here that long.  The reason that I gave then was that most people chaff at using scientific names, and that (much like the faces on the US currencies) the most important historical characters tend to be on display on the smallest units of currency, so that they will be seen more often.  That's why George Washington is on the $1 bill (first US president under the constitution, not the first Us president) and Ben Franklin is on the $100 bill (founding father, not a president ever).  For this reason, and the fact that the names were so uncommon, I proposed that the smallest unit be called a satoshi and the smallest unit times 1000 be called a GAvin.  That stuck because it was a good idea and was received well by the community at the time, not because I had any authority over the matter.

[Xav]

Code:

 * Example: 0104835800816115944e077fe7c803cfa57f29b36bf87c1d358bb85e
 *          <><><--------------------------------------------><---->
 *          |  \                  |                             /
 *    version   code             vout[1]                  height
 *
 *    - version = 1
 *    - code = 4 (vout[1] is not spent, and 0 non-zero bytes of bitvector follow)
 *    - unspentness bitvector: as 0 non-zero bytes follow, it has length 0
 *    - vout[1]: 835800816115944e077fe7c803cfa57f29b36bf87c1d35
 *               * 8358: compact amount representation for 60000000000 (600 BTC)
 *               * 00: special txout type pay-to-pubkey-hash
 *               * 816115944e077fe7c803cfa57f29b36bf87c1d35: address uint160
 *    - height = 203998
 *
 *
 * Example: 0109044086ef97d5790061b01caab50f1b8e9c50a5057eb43c2d9563a4eebbd123008c988f1a4a4de2161e0f50aac7f17e7f9555caa486af3b
 *          <><><--><--------------------------------------------------><----------------------------------------------><---->
 *         /  \   \                     |                                                           |                     /
 *  version  code  unspentness       vout[4]                                                     vout[16]           height
 *
 *  - version = 1
 *  - code = 9 (coinbase, neither vout[0] or vout[1] are unspent,
 *                2 (1, +1 because both bit 2 and bit 4 are unset) non-zero bitvector bytes follow)
 *  - unspentness bitvector: bits 2 (0x04) and 14 (0x4000) are set, so vout[2+2] and vout[14+2] are unspent
 *  - vout[4]: 86ef97d5790061b01caab50f1b8e9c50a5057eb43c2d9563a4ee
 *             * 86ef97d579: compact amount representation for 234925952 (2.35 BTC)
 *             * 00: special txout type pay-to-pubkey-hash
 *             * 61b01caab50f1b8e9c50a5057eb43c2d9563a4ee: address uint160
 *  - vout[16]: bbd123008c988f1a4a4de2161e0f50aac7f17e7f9555caa4
 *              * bbd123: compact amount representation for 110397 (0.001 BTC)
 *              * 00: special txout type pay-to-pubkey-hash
 *              * 8c988f1a4a4de2161e0f50aac7f17e7f9555caa4: address uint160
 *  - height = 120891

https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/master/src/coins.h

Also, miners "earn" a fixed (predefined; 25 at this moment) amount of BTC and fees are charged depended on fractions of 1 BTC and a few other conditions.

[Its About Sharing]

We could do a 1000 for 1 split and put 1 BTC close in value to a dollar.
Of course, what this would do is open the floodgates for new buyers, guaranteed.

That I agree, it's 100% confirmed that more people would buy if the decimal point is shifted to the right place

You can only speak for yourself, although you probably are here.

This argument is why I pointed out that the market has already decided how to handle it.  There is nothing for us to debate, no one has any power to effect this kind of change if the users don't wish to do it themselves.  The unit of display isn't decided by the code or protocol.  This whole thread is like arguing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin!  There is nothing that any of us can do!  Even if we could all agree.

If you don't like how your client displays the unit, change it.  You can in your own client anytime you like.  It would have zero effect on your net spending power, nor would it have any effect whatever on your ability to buy bitcoins in any fraction or number you are able.  If people don't buy bitcoins because the price of a whole bitcoin is $800, why does it matter if they might buy a millibit for 80 cents?  Their economic ignorance isn't a reflection on you, is it?  Nor is it a reflection on Bitcoin itself.  If Bitcoin fails, it won't be because a portion of the potential user pool doesn't understand the unit.

True to a point, but if we just change the name of the unit on e.g. our wallet, then we will be saying e.g. 1 mBTC, right? That is a problem right there. It is no longer a "bitcoin", it is a "milibitcoin". I think we are talking about more than an adjustment in perception, now that you bring up that good point. Unlike regular money, we don't yet have the familiarity with the equivalent  of say "a penny" in our Bitcoin vocabulary. And it sounds so geeky to say "milibitcoin" for Grandma! LOL But who knows, really...

Perhaps we can easily make the adjustment. It is an interesting part of the experiment, eh? Having a money that increases so much in value that you have to start refering to it in thousandths or the like.

Outside of the core Bitcoin community, I suspect that units will have many names across nations, cultures and languages, and I don't think there is any way to avoid that.   So why try?  There is no need to have an "official" unit name, people who trade across borders will make it their business to be aware of the differences in unit nomiclature and division.  People who don't trade across borders don't give a shit what it's called elsewhere.  Note that gold has 200+ names.

EDIT:  BTW, if you're willing to dig into the archives of this forum, you'll find that I'm the person who suggested that the smallest unit be called a satoshi.  Yes, me, personally.  I really have been here that long.  The reason that I gave then was that most people chaff at using scientific names, and that (much like the faces on the US currencies) the most important historical characters tend to be on display on the smallest units of currency, so that they will be seen more often.  That's why George Washington is on the $1 bill (first US president under the constitution, not the first Us president) and Ben Franklin is on the $100 bill (founding father, not a president ever).  For this reason, and the fact that the names were so uncommon, I proposed that the smallest unit be called a satoshi and the smallest unit times 1000 be called a GAvin.  That stuck because it was a good idea and was received well by the community at the time, not because I had any authority over the matter.

That last story is pretty amazing. I was just Skyping a friend and joking with him about when the Universe intervenes or directs us in a moment to listen... Check.
Great way to come up with the Satoshi. And at some time soon GAvin may be a highly used word when talking btc units. And then the Satoshi will come! LOL

Regarding your point of view on naming or the nomenclature here, I was really throwing that idea out. I'm not strongly tied to it, though i have wondered about it. You make some good points but I guess it will come down to what it comes down to... I never though AOL would succeed with there CD everywhere campaign, but I was wrong. Though I called that internet thing pretty well...

Back to units of measurement, I was considering calling .01 btc "bank disruptors" (or a de-Lawskies, CK's (Corruption Killers), FED Ups or something like that. Funnily possible). What do you think?
"How much for the Wiki Leaks lifetime member membership? A - 100 Bank Disrupters." Nice reminder and prophetic meme propagator. (What a proud memory that would be! And congrats on your coming up with the Satoshi name, truly. In hindsight, it HAD to be that way. Well done.)

[thms]

So, as thms said (or rather discovered  ), the base unit is actually a Satoshi and not a BTC (in the code.)

I'm really having trouble understanding this concept. Yes, the base unit is satoshi, fine. But the definition of 1 BTC = 100,000,000 satoshis is just set on paper then?

Not even on paper.  It's just an arbitrary unit that Satoshi decided upon early, because the value of any bitcoin unit would be so small to start with.  The transactions hold the value as a 64 bit integer, Satoshi just added a decimal in the middle of the base-10 representation of that 64 bit integer, with 32 bits to either side.  Again, that's nowhere in the code or protocol, just something Sathoshi decided upon to make the mental math easier for users.

So what these lines in  bitcoin / src / util.h are for?

Code:

static const int64_t COIN = 100000000;
static const int64_t CENT = 1000000;

and then in bitcoin / src / core.h we see this:

Code:

static const int64_t MAX_MONEY = 21000000 * COIN;

[thms]

 

     

     We could do a 1000 for 1 split and put 1 BTC close in value to a dollar.
      Of course, what this would do is open the floodgates for new buyers, guaranteed.
      

     That I agree, it's 100% confirmed that more people would buy if the decimal point is shifted to the right place
  

You can only speak for yourself, although you probably are here. This argument is why I pointed out that the market has already decided how to handle it.

The market is continuously deciding and can always change how to handle it.

There is nothing for us to debate, no one has any power to effect this kind of change if the users don't wish to do it themselves.

Look who's also speaking for himself... You don't want to debate it is very different from there's nothing to debate. And if currently 1 BTC corresponds to 100,000,000 units, it means that someone changed or set it in the past right? If it was possible in the past, then sure it must be possible today. This is just logical thinking, no idealism here.

The unit of display isn't decided by the code or protocol. If you don't like how your client displays the unit, change it.  You can in your own client anytime you like.

You are confusing things, we are not discussing the unit of display!! Even if we shift and unshift the decimal point, the unit of display will always be configurable.. Two different things.. BTW see my post above where the BTC value is set in code.

If people don't buy bitcoins because the price of a whole bitcoin is $800, why does it matter if they might buy a millibit for 80 cents?  Their economic ignorance isn't a reflection on you, is it?  Nor is it a reflection on Bitcoin itself.  If Bitcoin fails, it won't be because a portion of the potential user pool doesn't understand the unit.

You need to know more about how the average person thinks, not just how you think. Wasn't one of Bitcoin's goals to support people who are explored by the banking system? Guess what, people in this category are "economically ignorant" as you put it...

[MoonShadow]

So, as thms said (or rather discovered  ), the base unit is actually a Satoshi and not a BTC (in the code.)

I'm really having trouble understanding this concept. Yes, the base unit is satoshi, fine. But the definition of 1 BTC = 100,000,000 satoshis is just set on paper then?

Not even on paper.  It's just an arbitrary unit that Satoshi decided upon early, because the value of any bitcoin unit would be so small to start with.  The transactions hold the value as a 64 bit integer, Satoshi just added a decimal in the middle of the base-10 representation of that 64 bit integer, with 32 bits to either side.  Again, that's nowhere in the code or protocol, just something Sathoshi decided upon to make the mental math easier for users.

So what these lines in  bitcoin / src / util.h are for?

Code:

static const int64_t COIN = 100000000;
static const int64_t CENT = 1000000;

and then in bitcoin / src / core.h we see this:

Code:

static const int64_t MAX_MONEY = 21000000 * COIN;

Taht's just the display code.

[thms]

It's not for display.

why would someone set a constant MAX_MONEY = 21000000 * COIN; for display purposes? The display would never go past that so it would be useless to set that constant just to control display.

So in fact, the BTC value is set in code.

[theymos]

It's not for display.

why would someone set a constant MAX_MONEY = 21000000 * COIN; for display purposes? The display would never go past that so it would be useless to set that constant just to control display.

So in fact, the BTC value is set in code.

The transaction fee per kB is also set in the code. That doesn't mean that it can't be changed.

COIN is used in various places in the code to make BTC amounts easier for programmers to read. MAX_MONEY = 21000000 * COIN is the same as MAX_MONEY = 2100000000000000. Except in a small amount of code very close to the UI, all Bitcoin values in the code are stored as integer satoshi amounts. (MAX_MONEY is used in transaction verification, but its unit is not BTC.)

[thms]

I get the point now.

But see, even the programmers need something that "makes it easier for them to read" as theymos stated. The average person also needs something that makes their everyday lives "easier to read". That's the point of shifting decimal numbers.

It's unfortunate that the decimal place is not defined in core. Maybe for some people it doesn't make sense to define this in core but I think that at least it should be as a form of unification and guidance to client software.

There must be some connection between programmers and the people who are supposed to use cryptocurrency. Some are excellent programmers but fail to understand the mind of average people.

Imagine some unprivileged people in Africa fleeing their country in civil war with trouble understanding what 0.0128974 is.. I guess some people here will tell them they are "too ignorant" to use Bitcoin.

Imagine another scenario, someone dealing with another person in another country. In one's country, BTC is worth 100,000,000 satoshis, in the other country BTC is worth 100,000 satoshis. It's possible right? You guys told us that everyone can pick whatever they like for their units right? You can picture the confusion right there.

[Xav]

It's not for display.

why would someone set a constant MAX_MONEY = 21000000 * COIN; for display purposes? The display would never go past that so it would be useless to set that constant just to control display.

So in fact, the BTC value is set in code.

The transaction fee per kB is also set in the code. That doesn't mean that it can't be changed.

COIN is used in various places in the code to make BTC amounts easier for programmers to read. MAX_MONEY = 21000000 * COIN is the same as MAX_MONEY = 2100000000000000. Except in a small amount of code very close to the UI, all Bitcoin values in the code are stored as integer satoshi amounts. (MAX_MONEY is used in transaction verification, but its unit is not BTC.)

In general, changing the code equals changing the rules. Hey, I thought we were done with centralised regulation. Think about it, a miner gets 25 BTC today, which is a fixed portion of the total amount of 21 million BTC (2 100 000 000 000 000 units). Bitcoin is fine as it is; the only minor problem is defining a nice and catchy pricing notation. By definition (design) 1 BTC is 1/21 millionth of the total amount, because of the mining strategy (50, 25, 12.5, and so on).
It will be very confusing/misleading/deceiving if you/they change the already familiar symbol BTC, or its abbreviation BTC, for something else than 1 BTC; i.e. 1/21 millionth of its totality.

[T.Stuart]

How about:

Bitcoin = 1
Bitcoi (pronounced like Russian ballet company the "Bolshoi") = 0.1
Bitco = 0.01
Bitc (pronounced Bitsey) = 0.001
Bit = 0.0001
Bi (pronounced "bi"cycle) = 0.00001
B = 0.000001
Nak (Nakamoto) = 0.0000001
Satoshi = 0.00000001

I think it will help people to remember the number of decimal places - before learned by heart you can count the missing letters to remind you where you are behind the decimal point.

Or is this the stupidest idea yet?

[sturle]

Or is this the stupidest idea yet?

Yes, it is.  The SI system already help you remember the number of decimal places, and even currencies adopt it.  Think of a cent as a centieuro.  Creating a new one is just confusing.

[MoonShadow]

It's not for display.

why would someone set a constant MAX_MONEY = 21000000 * COIN; for display purposes? The display would never go past that so it would be useless to set that constant just to control display.

So in fact, the BTC value is set in code.

The transaction fee per kB is also set in the code. That doesn't mean that it can't be changed.

COIN is used in various places in the code to make BTC amounts easier for programmers to read. MAX_MONEY = 21000000 * COIN is the same as MAX_MONEY = 2100000000000000. Except in a small amount of code very close to the UI, all Bitcoin values in the code are stored as integer satoshi amounts. (MAX_MONEY is used in transaction verification, but its unit is not BTC.)

In general, changing the code equals changing the rules. Hey, I thought we were done with centralised regulation. Think about it, a miner gets 25 BTC today, which is a fixed portion of the total amount of 21 million BTC (2 100 000 000 000 000 units). Bitcoin is fine as it is; the only minor problem is defining a nice and catchy pricing notation. By definition (design) 1 BTC is 1/21 millionth of the total amount, because of the mining strategy (50, 25, 12.5, and so on).
It will be very confusing/misleading/deceiving if you/they change the already familiar symbol BTC, or its abbreviation BTC, for something else than 1 BTC; i.e. 1/21 millionth of its totality.

Some of the code impliments the protocol; within exists rules that cannot be broken, and others that are more flexible within constraints.  All the rest of the code within a given client is there for users' ease, and can be modified without problems.  How the client displays the stored value is of the latter type, for the protocol doesn't specify a display unit and isn't even aware of one besides the satoshi, and not even by that name.  There are many aspects of the system that are like this.  This is not an example of centralization.

[sana8410]

There is no decimal point in the ledger. The protocol doesn't see a decimal point. There are none.

[superresistant]

There is no decimal point in the ledger. The protocol doesn't see a decimal point. There are none.

Yes but it is on every clients, every exchanges, every services and in all conversations.