Why I'm switching to mXBT — and why you should too

[dree12]

Bitcoin is known by many but owned by few.

Most of my friends know about Bitcoin. There are few exceptions. News coverage recently has been phenomenal.

But I can't say the same about their opinion of Bitcoin. One pointed out, "who would spend hundreds of dollars on that thing?". Another replied, "yeah, the price is way too high".

For perfectly rational human beings, the price is not an important factor. After all, a single bitcoin can be divided into 100000000 units—this is so large a number that the satoshi, worth 0.00000001 BTC, is worth a third that of the lowest physical denomination of currency: the Uzbekistani tiyin.

But rational and human together form an oxymoron. Whereas my friends were easily corrected on the ability to purchase fewer than one bitcoin, the psychological barrier cannot be ignored. People do not consider using something unless they have at least one of them. Nobody buys half a car, or 0.25 houses. We can't eat 0.03 apples, and we would reject a gift of 0.007 trees.

These comparisons obviously do not apply to bitcoins, as they are effectively divisible anywhere. But because Bitcoin is abstract, we tend to compare a bitcoin to something physical. As a result, we balk at not being able to own a single bitcoin.

This also hurts the economy. Most are so accustomed to spending dollars, quarters, etc. that the thought of spending 0.007 BTC is awkward. Even worse, some merchants reject Bitcoin because they feel that 0.05 BTC is unfair compensation for the products they offer.

What if we used mBTC by default? Then merchants would get payed 50 mBTC. The "dollar" store would offer products for 1 mBTC. Et cetera.

For those living in countries with a currency valued at or higher than the US dollar, also recall that most countries have lower-valued currencies. The mBTC, among currencies, would be right in the middle of the pack.

For all these reasons, I will begin to use mBTC. It just makes sense. And I hope we could demonstrate the power of the decentralized system of governance, and band together to do so. I aspire to transact with others only in mBTC by the end of May. And I hope you will too.

[1715086126]

1715086126

[Birdy]

I fully agree on this.

I will add it to my sig.
Let's all do that and try if we can change something!

[pa]

I agree. Switching to mɃ from now on. I suggest we just call these "millibits," which is easier to say than "millibitcoin".

(I finally figured out how to type the "B with bar" character in OS X Mountain Lion--need to go to System Preferences/Language & Text/Input Sources. Then scroll down and select "Unicode Hex Input" and select "show input menu in menu bar."  Then go to the input menu selector icon in the menu bar, choose Unicode, and hold down the Option/Alt key while typing "0243".)

[Elwar]

I agree. Switching to mɃ from now on. I suggest we just call these "millibits," which is easier to say than "millibitcoin".

Millies have been agreed upon for millibitcoins and Mickeys for microbitcoins.

[Welsh]

Interesting read, I totally agree with the statements made.
Most of my friends are the same.

[pa]

Millies have been agreed upon for millibitcoins and Mickeys for microbitcoins.

I could get used to "millies" and "mickeys". . . although they sound a bit like street names for illicit substances.

[Frozenlock]

I don't understand what's wrong with "millibitcoin".

Are USians so afraid of the metric system? 

[Birdy]

Mickeys sound like we are promoting Mickey Mouse.

[Kluge]

Mickeys sound like we are promoting Mickey Mouse.

- and here I was just thinking it was a racial slur. "Legend has it, their country was so poor, the famine ended once the EU sent them one Mickey, quintupling their GDP." ... I'm not very good with jokes, sometimes.

[MADinMelbourne]

how do I get the bitcoin symbol for my keypad? 

[amincd]

how do I get the bitcoin symbol for my keypad? 

I believe the one used in the OP is a custom font-type that only works in this forum. You can display the Baht symbol, ฿, by inputting unicode 0x0E3F.

[wyodude]

Good post. I hope it has legs.

[BigJohn]

I actually believe this is a pretty big problem in the marketing aspect of this thing, and that it's not really a good idea to have the base-unit that everyone uses be 1/21million of the total units ever.

What's funny is that when I explain Bitcoin to people, the first question they have is "So what actually IS a bitcoin", and I have to explain that there's no such thing, that it's just a ledger with entries, and that the base-unit is actually a Satoshi which makes 1 BTC be 100million base-units. Then the reaction to that is usually "Oh so it's like futuristic "credits" from the sci-fi movies", which isn't all that inaccurate really. And people grew up watching all these sci-fi movies where in the future you just have ambiguous "credits", and that's how they relate to it.

If the base-unit was 1-credit (which is just 1 satoshi), then it would solve all these problems. You'd just buy 1million credits for like a dollar, and there would never be a need to adjust any of this stuff. Even if we start calling it mXBT, at some point that's going to become "too expensive" as well. Why not just use the actual base-unit and call the whole thing by its real name?

[dree12]

I actually believe this is a pretty big problem in the marketing aspect of this thing, and that it's not really a good idea to have the base-unit that everyone uses be 1/21million of the total units ever.

What's funny is that when I explain Bitcoin to people, the first question they have is "So what actually IS a bitcoin", and I have to explain that there's no such thing, that it's just a ledger with entries, and that the base-unit is actually a Satoshi which makes 1 BTC be 100million base-units. Then the reaction to that is usually "Oh so it's like futuristic "credits" from the sci-fi movies", which isn't all that inaccurate really. And people grew up watching all these sci-fi movies where in the future you just have ambiguous "credits", and that's how they relate to it.

If the base-unit was 1-credit (which is just 1 satoshi), then it would solve all these problems. You'd just buy 1million credits for like a dollar, and there would never be a need to adjust any of this stuff. Even if we start calling it mXBT, at some point that's going to become "too expensive" as well. Why not just use the actual base-unit and call the whole thing by its real name?

There are only 2.1 quadrillion "base units" that will exist, ever. This is clearly not enough in a growth situation as you suggest, so the base unit will have to be changed anyways. Better deal with fixed-value units than volatile-value ones.

[BitcoinBarrel]

100 years ago a quarter would get you a gallon of milk.

[dree12]

100 years ago a quarter would get you a gallon of milk.

100 years ago things were sold in pennies.

[FreeMoney]

The psychology of this goes both ways. People are various surprised, impressed, proud and/or pleased that the value of our unit is bigger than governments' units. Many units and phrasings will be used in different contexts.

Seals chips are now mBTC, as they always have been.

[justusranvier]

People are various surprised, impressed, proud and/or pleased that our unit is bigger than governments units.

Like this:

http://www.meetup.com/Dallas-Bitcoin-User-Meetup/events/117641062/

I been reading about bitcoin quick answer the us dollar has less value than bit coin ? 1 bit coin = to $117.49 usd ? that shit is fucking crazy I want fucking in on this shit lol

[FNG]

This is what Bitcoin needs IMO.

Most people do not want to buy less than 1. A lot of people would get on board if they felt like they were able to purchase a lot more. It also gets rid of the psychological factor of the previous crash.

[mccorvic]

It really is funny how bad the human brain can function.

Like how terrible altcoin users try to say that their altcoin of choice is better than BTC because it has 4x more coins meaning the coins are cheaper!  It doesn't technically matter because is something costs 100USD it'll cost 100usd worth of BTC or whatever coin.

But yes, it'll help in the long run the sooner we can switch to mBTC/mXBT