Redomination mBTC, XBT, do nothing

[grau]

PLEASE READ BEFORE VOTE

Currencies have popular names like Yen, Dollar and standard names like JPY, USD.
This is not about renaming Bitcoin, but to define a unit for application's UI and database to enhance compatibility and ease of use to help adoption.
It is not about us old Bitcoiners, who are used to Bitcoins' world, but newcomer and the rest of financial software infrastructure.

Alternatives:

1. BTC:
Means: 1 BTC = 100,000,000 satoshis.
For: We got used to it.
Against: Became a pain for small payments since a value of 1 USD is now just about 0.0077 BTC and transaction dust limit is 0.000054. BTC ISO currency code is actually already taken by Bhutan.

2. mBTC and uBTC
Means: 1 BTC = 1000 mBTC, 1mBTC = 1000 uBTC, 1mBTC = 100,000 satoshis, 1uBTC = 100 satoshis.
For: Known idea since long.
Against:  Complex for newcomer and non-engineers, not 3 capital letters (not ISO), 5 digits precision needed for mBTC in storage.

3. XBT
Means: 1 XBT = 100 satoshi.
For:
Traditional currencies are dividable by 100 (and not more), therefore virtually none of existing financial databases support currency columns with higher precision, further existing financial software uses 3 capital letter ISO standard code for a currency. This is why it is suggested that the unit should be: 

        1 XBT = 100 satoshi 

that also leads to
       
        1 Bitcoin = 1 million XBT

The notation is handy since:

        1,234,567.89 XBT = 1.2 Bitcoin or 1,234 mBTC or 1,234,567 uBTC

The thousand separator helps you to read the other units if you prefer them too. XBT is actually uBTC with an ISO name.

It is XBT because X is used in ISO for supranational currencies and commodities and BT is free.
Against: Let us know.


4. None of the above
Please suggest an other alternative only if you have arguments other than your personal taste to support it and then elaborate.

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[dillpicklechips]

I kind of like bitcent. cBTC. 1 bitcent = 0.01 BTC.

[grau]

I kind of like bitcent. cBTC. 1 bitcent = 0.01 BTC.

OK, you kinda like it.

[dillpicklechips]

I kind of like bitcent. cBTC. 1 bitcent = 0.01 BTC.

OK, you kinda like it.

I think I'm in the minority though. I voted for mBTC since it probably has the most chance of actually be used though.

[justusranvier]

3. XBT
Means: 1 XBT = 100 satoshi.
For:
Traditional currencies are dividable by 100 (and not more), therefore virtually none of existing financial databases support currency columns with higher precision, further existing financial software uses 3 capital letter ISO standard code for a currency. This is why it is suggested that the unit should be: 

        1 XBT = 100 satoshi 

that also leads to
       
        1 Bitcoin = 1 million XBT

The notation is handy since:

        1,234,567.89 XBT = 1.2 Bitcoin or 1,234 mBTC or 1,234,567 uBTC

The thousand separator helps you to read the other units if you prefer them too. XBT is actually uBTC with an ISO name.

It is XBT because X is used in ISO for supranational currencies and commodities and BT is free.
Against: Let us know.

I still personally prefer the idea of using the BTC currency code with or without ISO's permission but this is a compelling argument, especially the part about legacy financial software. I voted for XBT.

[Razick]

I definetly support a move. Originally, as you can tell by my recent thread on the subject, I supported mBTC, but Grau has me convinced. The large numbers will be annoying at first, but as the exchange rate grows as I beleive this will help it do, that problem will seize to be one.

[austonst]

We already have multiple threads discussing this exact same topic. I guess the poll is new, but let's all keep in mind that there's a lot of other threads to read through for finding thorough discussion. I guess I'll reiterate what I said earlier (more complete post at https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=220322.msg2330960#msg2330960 )

I voted for none of the above. Using BTC for everything is crazy, and "BTC" should probably get phased out in favor of something more ISO compliant. Though, to defend alternative 2 and metric in general, is it really all that complex for newcomers and non-engineers? Are we not already comfortable referring to weights in kilograms and distances in kilometers and millimeters? We still should solve ISO compliance and database storage, though. Bitcoin should try to conform to published standards, so I support a change to XBT, but I do not agree with XBT's re-denomination to µBTC. I do not believe it is the burden of Bitcoin to work with current financial software. There are two ways databases can support current BTC usage.

1) Databases themselves can be changed. Their precision can be increased and 3-character boxes can be changed to have 4 (I wouldn't be surprised if many systems already have support for more characters), or to ease transition, a new table could be added to store a metric prefix for each listed currency. With existing currencies, not much would have to change. Let's keep in mind that Bitcoin is not the only new currency to be growing. What if Litecoin, along with many of the others, all began being listed in databases? Financial systems would have to adapt to support the variety of names, abbreviations, and denominations. Even the ISO standards should probably be adjusted in the future to accommodate the now common idea of non-national currencies.

2) In case for some reason the databases cannot be modified, we can use an abstraction layer between the database and the presentation. Already, very few end users are going to be typing in straight-up SQL to pull from a database; there's always some sort of software that performs the query, parses it, and displays it in a nice way to the user. Why not have the database store an entry labeled BTC, but storing an amount of µBTC? Whatever software parses the information can present it to the user in any way they want: BTC, mBTC, µBTC, etc. This would really only be a temporary solution until the software itself changes to support the wide variety of currencies that are emerging.

So the way I see it, grau's XBT causes a good thing (ISO compliance) and a not-so-good thing (unnecessary re-denomination). What benefits would we get from denominating XBT as µBTC, aside from compatability with outdated databases (which I don't see as an issue)? With the current exchange rate, we'd probably want to use kXBT anyway so that 1 USD = 7.7 kXBT. Why not go for the ISO compliance without the unnecessary re-denomination? Let's have XBT = BTC, use the metric system which we all are comfortable with, and be done with it. We can still use mBTC (mXBT) and µBTC (µXBT) for the handy comma separators.

[Razick]

We already have multiple threads discussing this exact same topic. I guess the poll is new, but let's all keep in mind that there's a lot of other threads to read through for finding thorough discussion. I guess I'll reiterate what I said earlier (more complete post at https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=220322.msg2330960#msg2330960 )

I voted for none of the above. Using BTC for everything is crazy, and while metric is nice, BTC should probably get phased out in favor of something more ISO compliant. Though, to defend alternative 2 and metric in general, is it really all that complex for newcomers and non-engineers? Are we not already comfortable referring to weights in kilograms and distances in kilometers and millimeters? We still should solve ISO compliance and database storage, though. Bitcoin should try to conform to published standards, so I support a change to XBT, but I do not agree with XBT's re-denomination to µBTC. I do not believe it is the burden of Bitcoin to work with current financial software. There are two ways databases can support current BTC usage.

1) Databases themselves can be changed. Their precision can be increased and 3-character boxes can be changed to have 4 (I wouldn't be surprised if many systems already have support for more characters), or to ease transition, a new table could be added to store a metric prefix for each listed currency. With existing currencies, not much would have to change. Let's keep in mind that Bitcoin is not the only new currency to be growing. What if Litecoin, along with many of the others, all began being listed in databases? Financial systems would have to adapt to support the variety of names, abbreviations, and denominations. Even the ISO standards should probably be adjusted in the future to accommodate the now common idea of non-national currencies.

2) In case for some reason the databases cannot be modified, we can use an abstraction layer between the database and the presentation. Already, very few end users are going to be typing in straight-up SQL to pull from a database; there's always some sort of software that performs the query, parses it, and displays it in a nice way to the user. Why not have the database store an entry labeled BTC, but storing an amount of µBTC? Whatever software parses the information can present it to the user in any way they want: BTC, mBTC, µBTC, etc. This would really only be a temporary solution until the software itself changes to support the wide variety of currencies that are emerging.

So the way I see it, grau's XBT causes a good thing (ISO compliance) and a not-so-good thing (unnecessary re-denomination). What benefits would we get from denominating XBT as µBTC, aside from compatability with outdated databases (which I don't see as an issue)? With the current exchange rate, we'd probably want to use kXBT anyway so that 1 USD = 7.7 kXBT. Why not go for the ISO compliance without the unnecessary re-denomination? Let's have XBT = BTC, use the metric system which we all are comfortable with, and be done with it. We can still use mBTC (mXBT) and µBTC (µXBT) for the handy comma separators.

I agree with most of what you are saying, but I definetly think mBTC at least (or mXBT) should be the PRIMARY denomination. The thing I like about re-denomination though is not having to use those unwieldy prefixes. What naturally follows then, is that IF XBT was to be anything but full BTCs, it should be uBTC so that we never have to move again. mBTC may be enough, but I'm not sure. Also, it should not be lower than uBTC so we can still have to two-place precision divisibility.

[wachtwoord]

Against:  Complex for newcomer and non-engineers

Come on. This cannot be complex for anyone with a high school diploma ....

[kakobrekla]

Here is what we use

1 drop of bitcoins = 1 satoshi = 0.00001 mBTC = 0.00000001 BTC
1 teaspoon of bitcoins = 120 satoshi = 0.0012 mBTC = 0.00000120 BTC
1 dessertspoon of bitcoins = 240 satoshi = 0.0024 mBTC = 0.00000240 BTC
1 tablespoon of bitcoins = 360 satoshi = 0.0036 mBTC = 0.00000360 BTC
1 cup of bitcoins = 5400 satoshi = 0.054 mBTC = 0.00005400 BTC
1 pint of bitcoins = 10800 satoshi = 0.108 mBTC = 0.00010800 BTC
1 quart of bitcoins = 21600 satoshi = 0.216 mBTC = 0.00021600 BTC
1 peck of (dry) bitcoins = 172800 satoshi = 1.728 mBTC = 0.00172800 BTC
1 hand-full of bitcoins = 20736000 satoshi = 207.36 mBTC = 0.20736000 BTC
1 piggy bank of bitcoins = 44375040 satoshi = 443.7504 mBTC = 0.4437504 BTC
1 black leather case (german made) of bitcoins = 995328000 satoshi = 9953.28 mBTC = 9.95328 BTC
1 shovel of bitcoins = 2388787200 satoshi = 23887.87 mBTC = 23.88787 BTC
1 bag of bitcoins = 7882997760 satoshi = 78829.9776 mBTC = 78.8299776 BTC
1 wheelbarrow of bitcoins = 33108590592 satoshi = 331085.90592 mBTC = 331.08590592 BTC
1 double cherry truck of bitcoins = 960149127168 satoshi = 9601491.27168 mBTC = 9601.49127168 BTC

mBTC conversion for tortilla.

[grau]

I do not believe it is the burden of Bitcoin to work with current financial software. There are two ways databases can support current BTC usage.

1) Databases themselves can be changed. ....

2) In case for some reason the databases cannot be modified, we can use an abstraction layer between the database and the presentation. ....

You can not expect that all financial software is changed for Bitcoin. Bitcoin is revolutionary but NOT to accounting. It will not trigger a change there.

The 8 digit precision is not yet a problem since a few companies really account for Bitcoin. Most just let BitPay convert it to USD, problem solved. Is that the way forward indefinitely?

[grau]

Against:  Complex for newcomer and non-engineers

Come on. This cannot be complex for anyone with a high school diploma ....

Make your own test on the street, you will be surprised how many people are not able to tell if m is 1/1000 or 1/100, not to mention u.

[austonst]

I agree with most of what you are saying, but I definetly think mBTC at least (or mXBT) should be the PRIMARY denomination. The thing I like about re-denomination though is not having to use those unwieldy prefixes. What naturally follows then, is that IF XBT was to be anything but full BTCs, it should be uBTC so that we never have to move again. mBTC may be enough, but I'm not sure. Also, it should not be lower than uBTC so we can still have to two-place precision divisibility.

The whole point of talking about bitcoins in terms of BTC, mBTC, or µBTC is to ease communication, especially in person where it's hard to verbally say .0245 BTC. Our languages and methods of speaking numbers have reached a point where we are most comfortable speaking numbers with three to four digits to the left of the decimal place and two to the right of the decimal place. Most people would understand if I spoke 123.45 as "one hundred and twenty three point four five" or 432.25 as "four thirty two point twenty five". While we are more comfortable with speaking in the thousands than speaking in the thousandths with 54,321 as "fifty four thousand, three hundred and twenty one" compared to 2.1234 as "two and one thousand two hundred thirty four ten-thousandths", we still naturally gravitate towards discarding low decimal places and lowering the number as a whole.

If 1 XBT = 1 µBTC were to be accepted as the standard today, many of the digits would be so insignificant that they would be ignored in verbal discussion. When we see something being sold for 4.25 USD, we'll usually tell our friends "It's four bucks", because cents are pretty worthless nowadays. Verbal discussions would instead use kiloXBT, or some slang derived from that. If my coffee is two dollars, or ~15,000 XBT, I'm pretty likely to pick up the slang and say "It's fifteen kilobits". Talking about larger purchases would be even more extreme (MXBT?).

I guess what I'm saying is that right now, people would be comfortable referring to most amounts of bitcoins in the range between BTC and mBTC. Switching the digital representations to be based on 1 XBT = 1 µBTC would not remove the prefixes, just make people use different ones. If we're going to be using prefixes either way, why take the extra step of re-denominating? Moving around in verbal discussion between different prefixes may take some years for everyone to get used to, but it will be done, regardless of what the base unit is. We shouldn't fully change our means of referring to bitcoins just because some software will require some readjustment.

[Stampbit]

Lets have a vote, how should we rearrange the chairs on the titanics raft? I vote for side by side instead of stacked.

[Tacticat]

I have voted for other because, while I do like the idea of mBTC and uBTC I don't like how they sound or they are written.

From a communication standpoint it is very important that we do NOT try to redifine what a Bitcoin is. mBTC and uBTC are great because they are related to Bitcoin, but XBT is something entirely new. I do like XBT but it might be too much trouble to introduce and explain as it sets a new standard basic unit.

The Bitcoin standard unit should always be the Bitcoin or BTC or XBC (or whatever).

Smaller denominations:

Given that the only problem I have with mBTC and uBTC is the way they are written and sound, I would propose the following:

Millibit - mbit
Microbit - ubit

Officially known by their long names, they are pronounced as "embit" and "youbit" in their informal short names (two syllables only!)

We do not need 10 different ISO names. One is enough and when we get it, it should belong to the Bitcoin which is still, technically, at the heart of the system.

Take the Dollar for example:

ISO: USD
1/10: dime
1/100: cent
1/1000: mill (it previously existed)

We don't need a three letter code for each subdivision.

[Mageant]

What I think will eventually happen if Bitcoin does go mainstream is that a millibitcoin (or microbitcoin) will become the new "bitcoin" and that a true bitcoin will become a "whole bitcoin".
I've already noticed some people saying they own X "whole bitcoins".

[scintill]

Voted XBT.  This was the most sensible argument I've heard.  mBTC always seemed dumb to me; the only reason it kind of makes sense is that the price happens to be around $100 right now.  The XBT value is a bit unwieldy for human consumption, but the argument for two decimal places and an ISO-compatible code are sound.

We should try to use microformats or something, so that (with a browser extension) the user can decide to display values in mBTC or whatever, or even convert to their native currency via exchange rate.  Bitcoin clients that received payment requests via bitcoin: URI or whatever, can also display whatever the user wants.  A browser extension might also decode values out of the bitcoin: URI and display them on the page.

[wachtwoord]

Against:  Complex for newcomer and non-engineers

Come on. This cannot be complex for anyone with a high school diploma ....

Make your own test on the street, you will be surprised how many people are not able to tell if m is 1/1000 or 1/100, not to mention u.

That would make me sad

Maybe it's different in the US because you (not sure if you are) use some system from medieval times instead of metrics, but everyone here should know as kilometer, meter, centimeter, millimeter and even micrometer are used in everyday life (well micrometer only on TV I guess). I would seriously expect the average 12 year-old to know this.

[Razick]

Against:  Complex for newcomer and non-engineers

Come on. This cannot be complex for anyone with a high school diploma ....

Make your own test on the street, you will be surprised how many people are not able to tell if m is 1/1000 or 1/100, not to mention u.

That would make me sad

Maybe it's different in the US because you (not sure if you are) use some system from medieval times instead of metrics, but everyone here should know as kilometer, meter, centimeter, millimeter and even micrometer are used in everyday life (well micrometer only on TV I guess). I would seriously expect the average 12 year-old to know this.

The metric system is taught in US schools nationwide, but it's not used in everyday life so some people forget it. Also, schools usually teach deci, centi and milli (on the fractional side) but not micro and nano.

EDIT: The standard system is greatly loved here. The unfortunate thing is that some fields have a mix. Aviation for example uses feet, nautical and statute miles, knots, miles per hour, etc. but, of all things, chose the most useless aspect of the metric system, centigrade temperatures for measuring temperature.

[Razick]

I have voted for other because, while I do like the idea of mBTC and uBTC I don't like how they sound or they are written.

From a communication standpoint it is very important that we do NOT try to redifine what a Bitcoin is. mBTC and uBTC are great because they are related to Bitcoin, but XBT is something entirely new. I do like XBT but it might be too much trouble to introduce and explain as it sets a new standard basic unit.

The Bitcoin standard unit should always be the Bitcoin or BTC or XBC (or whatever).

Smaller denominations:

Given that the only problem I have with mBTC and uBTC is the way they are written and sound, I would propose the following:

Millibit - mbit
Microbit - ubit

Officially known by their long names, they are pronounced as "embit" and "youbit" in their informal short names (two syllables only!)

We do not need 10 different ISO names. One is enough and when we get it, it should belong to the Bitcoin which is still, technically, at the heart of the system.

Take the Dollar for example:

ISO: USD
1/10: dime
1/100: cent
1/1000: mill (it previously existed)

We don't need a three letter code for each subdivision.

The mill still exists but is rarely used. There is no physical coin, but it's used in accounting and, interestingly enough, at gas stations. (Look at the sign next time you buy fuel)