The Bitcoin decimal issue

[bitcoinbear]

Once upon a time, there was a guy that didn't understand the difference between physical goods with mass, and abstract money.  He wrote a story comparing bread to bitcoin.  Sadly, everyone laughed at him, because each tiny little bit of bread can only be consumed once, so the whole loaf has only a fixed amount of sustaining power, no matter how divided, while money circulates to be used over and over again without ever being consumed.

+1

Is the OP saying the problem lies in the fact that one man has 10 bread while the rest of the village lives on 1 bread, so the inequality is killing them? Or is he saying that there are 10 breads, which clearly is not enough to feed the 1000's of people, so no matter how they cut it they are going to starve?

Are we complaining about how the early adopters have too many coins, or that the money supply of bitocins is only like a billion dollars, which is clearly too small for a global economy?

The obvious solution to the OP's story is to printbake more bread.

We don't have to print more bitcoins because they can just expand to fill the needs of the economy. That might mean the USD value of a single Bitcoin will go up a few orders of magnitude, but that is okay because we can divide bitcoins down eight decimal places. See, the divisibility is the solution after all, you just have to look at it the right direction.

You divide bitcoins down to 8 decimal points and you will see people starving, holding off for a cheaper loaf of bread

That makes no sense. Bitcoins are already divided down to 8 decimal places. Anybody starving because they are hoping their bitcoins will go up in value is an idiot. Food today is worth more than the possibility of food tomorrow.

[weisoq]

If someone popped up asking if the software could safely hold up his aquarium without bending or cracking, there isn't much that can be said by way of direct reply.

Such was his analogy.  He is deeply confused.  It is neither defensive nor tangential to point that out.

Tangential in that it doesn't address his point, rather ones own. Defensive in responding with mutual and valueless memes to distract from the possibilty of any merit. We might not all agree, but we do all understand the point he was making. If you hope to build cryptos into anything more than a zero-sum techie plaything I suggest it's time to stop playing and skirting around the questions everyone outside this small circle will have. If you don't, then as you were.

There was no point to address.  Bitcoin is not bread.  The sustaining power of a loaf of bread is fixed, and dividing it up doesn't change the sum.  One loaf cannot feed a herd of angry villagers.  The money power of bitcoin is not fixed.  1 BTC can serve the exchange uses of the entire world.

Value is not a thing that exists outside of our minds.  We aren't embedding some of it into our money.  We are measuring it, like we measure temperature or distance, just not with a coherent or standardized scale*.  No one is worried that there won't be enough temperature to go around, or enough kilometers.  Worrying that there won't be enough money for everyone demonstrates a serious confusion.

Once again, it is not defensive to point out that someone's thinking will not lead to useful questions, much less useful answers.

*  Although bitcoin is the world's best attempt at a coherent measure for value, by far.  The far end of the scale is subject to the whims of politicians or bankers.  If only that were the only problem...

His point referred to distribution not division. The only value that Bitcoin has, beyond niches, is that ascribed to it in supplanting something else of value and this remaining so.

You have two choices, as do I. The first is to maintain the myths for as long as possible, make what you will of good fortune (and perhaps work, I don’t know you and don't dispute efforts expended), continue facilitating zero-sum intellectual and capital investment and waste an incredible opportunity for crytocurrencies to revolutionise finance and personal empowerment that would far surpass short-term personal gains. The second is to recognise that if bitcoins are not scarce because they may be replicated (for all intents and purposes, with just a name change) then what is their value, or if they are scarce then people will find something else to use instead; and thus something needs to change.

That’s up to you, but please don’t assume everybody is an idiot.

[ElectricMucus]

Nice thread OP, judging from the responses it seems you've struck a nerve.

[sidhujag]

Once upon a time, there was a guy that didn't understand the difference between physical goods with mass, and abstract money.  He wrote a story comparing bread to bitcoin.  Sadly, everyone laughed at him, because each tiny little bit of bread can only be consumed once, so the whole loaf has only a fixed amount of sustaining power, no matter how divided, while money circulates to be used over and over again without ever being consumed.

+1

Is the OP saying the problem lies in the fact that one man has 10 bread while the rest of the village lives on 1 bread, so the inequality is killing them? Or is he saying that there are 10 breads, which clearly is not enough to feed the 1000's of people, so no matter how they cut it they are going to starve?

Are we complaining about how the early adopters have too many coins, or that the money supply of bitocins is only like a billion dollars, which is clearly too small for a global economy?

The obvious solution to the OP's story is to printbake more bread.

We don't have to print more bitcoins because they can just expand to fill the needs of the economy. That might mean the USD value of a single Bitcoin will go up a few orders of magnitude, but that is okay because we can divide bitcoins down eight decimal places. See, the divisibility is the solution after all, you just have to look at it the right direction.

You divide bitcoins down to 8 decimal points and you will see people starving, holding off for a cheaper loaf of bread

That makes no sense. Bitcoins are already divided down to 8 decimal places. Anybody starving because they are hoping their bitcoins will go up in value is an idiot. Food today is worth more than the possibility of food tomorrow.

In deflation the price of things get cheaper and cheaper as currency price rises... there is incentive there for wrong behaviour that will cause many bad things to happen. Although its not much better than what we are doing to our people now, it is not much better. You want a semi-inflationary deflation scheme which will allow you to control supply to a finite extent which will not burden the economy and create too much inflationary stress. You can easily see where just dividing the bitcoins will go wrong in many ways.

[Ichthyo]

If someone popped up asking if the software could safely hold up his aquarium without bending or cracking, there isn't much that can be said by way of direct reply.

Such was his analogy.  He is deeply confused.  It is neither defensive nor tangential to point that out.

Tangential in that it doesn't address his point, rather ones own. Defensive in responding with mutual and valueless memes...
We might not all agree, but we do all understand the point he was making.

There was no point to address.  Bitcoin is not bread.  The sustaining power of a loaf of bread is fixed, and dividing it up doesn't change the sum....

Value is not a thing that exists outside of our minds.  We aren't embedding some of it into our money.  We are measuring it, like we measure temperature or distance, ....

Folks, we shouldn't be so dismissive...

For thousands of years people where deeply believing that value is substantial.
Let's be honest: even today, a grand majority of all humans still share this belief. The modern age has barely scratched the surface. People might surrender "pro forma", they might just talk as they where tought in school, but if you look carefully, there is a very far spread deep belief regarding a substance of value, assuming a fixed coordinate system of good and bad (and especially evil is perceived as being substantial!) and that "somehow" (be it remote, mystical) there is a fixed benevolent master plan.

Only a small elite of educated people has really grasped relativity and attained a scientific thinking style.
We shouldn't forget that, since to all the others, analogies as brought forth by the OP sound "somehow plausible" and "seem to ring true". And all the arguments of the world won't help a shit against deep believes.

[Ichthyo]

To OP:

you made a serious mistake by using such an allusive and condescending writing style. This is not the place to tell stories to the children.

Thus, if you want a honest discussion, then please come out of your cranny, and instead of talking in metaphors, put some clear arguments on the table!

• what exactly are you criticising?
• what are your presuppositions?
• what are your conclusions?

your turn...

[kjj]

His point referred to distribution not division. The only value that Bitcoin has, beyond niches, is that ascribed to it in supplanting something else of value and this remaining so.

You are really reaching here.  Go back and read the first post.  Most of it is about division, not distribution.  And his summary at the end even makes it clear that he is talking about the "limited supply".

Perhaps you are reading what you want to read, rather than what was actually written?

You have two choices, as do I. The first is to maintain the myths for as long as possible, make what you will of good fortune (and perhaps work, I don’t know you and don't dispute efforts expended), continue facilitating zero-sum intellectual and capital investment and waste an incredible opportunity for crytocurrencies to revolutionise finance and personal empowerment that would far surpass short-term personal gains. The second is to recognise that if bitcoins are not scarce because they may be replicated (for all intents and purposes, with just a name change) then what is their value, or if they are scarce then people will find something else to use instead; and thus something needs to change.

I can make no sense of this, which is strange because all of the words are familiar to me.  If you'd like to try to restate it more clearly, feel free.  Oh, and your dilemma in the second part is false: scarceness is necessary for money.

That’s up to you, but please don’t assume everybody is an idiot.

I never assume that anyone is an idiot until they've given me a reason.  In fact, if you read my posting history, you can see for yourself that I have a tendency to chastise people for underestimating the public (this comes up often in the many many threads about naming the fractions).

P.S.  Confusion does not imply idiocy.  Money is hard to understand, very few people really "get" it, but I suspect that most people can if they put in the effort.

[tkbx]

Once upon a time there was a village where one rich man who had ten breads while the rest of the village was poor and starved. The rich man said to the poor people: "listen, I will share one bread with the rest of you, that should keep you satisfied" the villagers responded: "one bread wont feed us all" The rich man said "Oh, that is no problem, the bread can be cut into 20 slices". But The villagers responded "that is not enough, we are thousands of starving people" The rich man then said "that is still not a problem, because each slice of bread can be divided into hundreds of crumbles - and if that is not enough for you, each crumble can actually be divided into billions of molecules"

Stupid story? Well it is exactly the same logic that a disturbingly lot of people here believe can solve the problem of the limited supply of bitcoins.

You obviously know nothing of economics. The bread analogy is worthless, because the amount of food a person needs to survive is fairly constant, and bread derives it's value from necessity, not rarity. Imagine for a second there are 1,000,000,000,000,000 bitcoins, all in curculation. 1BTC becomes worth much less, so people start giving them out because they are readily available, trading multiple BTC for small items and services, faucets might give out 1 or 2 BTC, and you're not a "hoarder" until you have 1,000,000,000. Now, imagine there is one BTC. People know they will never have 1BTC, hell, they'll never have 0.00001, so 0.0000001 because worth dollars, maybe dozens of dollars, because so many people are trying to get BTC.

[weisoq]

You are really reaching here.  Go back and read the first post.  Most of it is about division, not distribution.  And his summary at the end even makes it clear that he is talking about the "limited supply".
Perhaps you are reading what you want to read, rather than what was actually written?

No I’m not the only person who was able to discern what he was referring to. We could keep playing the game of analogy vs literal, but we don’t need to as his first post was clarified by his second which stated:

There once was a man called Nakamoto. He printed a million coins. He was later joined by a few other guys who together printed yet a few million coins. Thereafter many people joined, but printing then became very difficult. Actually the printing press will slow down to zero. However, those guys who printed the first coins are willing to sell their coins to rest of the world. And if those other people of the world only can grab a fraction of a coin, don't worry - it can be divided by 10e8. Economy!”

I can make no sense of this, which is strange because all of the words are familiar to me.  If you'd like to try to restate it more clearly, feel free.  Oh, and your dilemma in the second part is false: scarceness is necessary for money.

I don’t see the confusion. Perhaps you don’t like what it says. I can rewrite if it helps:

You have two choices.

The first choice is to maintain the myths of Bitcoin for as long as possible, make what you will of good fortune to date, continue wasting good intellectual and capital investment in zero-sum endeavours where one group of techies screws over another, and therfore also waste an incredible opportunity for crytocurrencies to revolutionise finance and personal empowerment that would far surpass short-term personal gains (or at minimum waste a heck of a lot of time in getting to that point).

The second choice is to recognise that something has to change with Bitcoin because either:

1) Bitcoins are scarce in which case at some point those who do not already have any will rationally find something else to use instead of Bitcoin (see the rise of altcoins and alternatives as evidence of this). This phenomenon was predicted on these boards from at least 2010 when I started reading it, probably earlier, and will not end because it’s an inevitability, or

2) Bitcoins are not scarce because they may be replicated (for all intents and purposes with just a name change), in which case what is the value of a replicable and replicated digital asset offering no advantage over others?

Falling on either side of 1 or 2 without the existence of advantages or damn good reasons to prefer Bitcoin over alternatives (beyond marketing) therefore necessitates changes or precludes its demise beyond a blinkered niche. As to what changes are required, I will leave that to application of rationality and economics.

I never assume that anyone is an idiot until they've given me a reason.  In fact, if you read my posting history, you can see for yourself that I have a tendency to chastise people for underestimating the public (this comes up often in the many many threads about naming the fractions).
P.S.  Confusion does not imply idiocy.  Money is hard to understand, very few people really "get" it, but I suspect that most people can if they put in the effort.

Everybody “gets” it. Whether they are able and willing to admit it is another matter. Perhaps unlike the bulk of people on this forum I’d actually like cryptos to (be able to) replace state fiat not remain a token playthings between small groups. That’s not possible with Bitcoin unless it is changed. Rather than the continual trumpeting of any innate libertarian, free-market ethos to Bitcoin why isn’t there more appreciation that the natural evolution of private free money and autonomy is that the next person or group will come along, compete with and improve it, likely resigning the previous form to the dustbin.

Either Bitcoin adherents accept there are flaws and moves with the times, or any objective observer has to conclude it’s just a pyramid because it doesn’t work economically for the majority of economic participants who will rationally not adopt it when they work it out. And to be clear my perspective there is as simple as not discerning any great difference between one group of powerful cronies controlling the fortunes of everybody else and another - be that a government, us Bitcoiners or whoever. There is no special ‘Bitcoin State’ that rewrites the rules of monetary theory or libertarian ideology and to think otherwise is naive or corrupt.

[sidhujag]

You are really reaching here.  Go back and read the first post.  Most of it is about division, not distribution.  And his summary at the end even makes it clear that he is talking about the "limited supply".
Perhaps you are reading what you want to read, rather than what was actually written?

No I’m not the only person who was able to discern what he was referring to. We could keep playing the game of analogy vs literal, but we don’t need to as his first post was clarified by his second which stated:

There once was a man called Nakamoto. He printed a million coins. He was later joined by a few other guys who together printed yet a few million coins. Thereafter many people joined, but printing then became very difficult. Actually the printing press will slow down to zero. However, those guys who printed the first coins are willing to sell their coins to rest of the world. And if those other people of the world only can grab a fraction of a coin, don't worry - it can be divided by 10e8. Economy!”

I can make no sense of this, which is strange because all of the words are familiar to me.  If you'd like to try to restate it more clearly, feel free.  Oh, and your dilemma in the second part is false: scarceness is necessary for money.

I don’t see the confusion. Perhaps you don’t like what it says. I can rewrite if it helps:

You have two choices.

The first choice is to maintain the myths of Bitcoin for as long as possible, make what you will of good fortune to date, continue wasting good intellectual and capital investment in zero-sum endeavours where one group of techies screws over another, and therfore also waste an incredible opportunity for crytocurrencies to revolutionise finance and personal empowerment that would far surpass short-term personal gains (or at minimum waste a heck of a lot of time in getting to that point).

The second choice is to recognise that something has to change with Bitcoin because either:

1) Bitcoins are scarce in which case at some point those who do not already have any will rationally find something else to use instead of Bitcoin (see the rise of altcoins and alternatives as evidence of this). This phenomenon was predicted on these boards from at least 2010 when I started reading it, probably earlier, and will not end because it’s an inevitability, or

2) Bitcoins are not scarce because they may be replicated (for all intents and purposes with just a name change), in which case what is the value of a replicable and replicated digital asset offering no advantage over others?

Falling on either side of 1 or 2 without the existence of advantages or damn good reasons to prefer Bitcoin over alternatives (beyond marketing) therefore necessitates changes or precludes its demise beyond a blinkered niche. As to what changes are required, I will leave that to application of rationality and economics.

I never assume that anyone is an idiot until they've given me a reason.  In fact, if you read my posting history, you can see for yourself that I have a tendency to chastise people for underestimating the public (this comes up often in the many many threads about naming the fractions).
P.S.  Confusion does not imply idiocy.  Money is hard to understand, very few people really "get" it, but I suspect that most people can if they put in the effort.

Everybody “gets” it. Whether they are able and willing to admit it is another matter. Perhaps unlike the bulk of people on this forum I’d actually like cryptos to (be able to) replace state fiat not remain a token playthings between small groups. That’s not possible with Bitcoin unless it is changed. Rather than the continual trumpeting of any innate libertarian, free-market ethos to Bitcoin why isn’t there more appreciation that the natural evolution of private free money and autonomy is that the next person or group will come along, compete with and improve it, likely resigning the previous form to the dustbin.

Either Bitcoin adherents accept there are flaws and moves with the times, or any objective observer has to conclude it’s just a pyramid because it doesn’t work economically for the majority of economic participants who will rationally not adopt it when they work it out. And to be clear my perspective there is as simple as not discerning any great difference between one group of powerful cronies controlling the fortunes of everybody else and another - be that a government, us Bitcoiners or whoever. There is no special ‘Bitcoin State’ that rewrites the rules of monetary theory or libertarian ideology and to think otherwise is naive or corrupt.

This is what I've been saying all along and it would be good to have you over at my thread. The economy would be lopsidedly deflationary and alt's like devcoin already combat this issue by providing scarcity by controlling supply in a public manor. 200 billion coins in 100 years from now is not inflationary by any means judging by how many people there will be to use the coins, infact it is highly deflationary still, but the best crypto example we have. Proponents of btc will say you can just divide up the currency units once it gets more scarce, but to me there is no proof from a supply/demand perspective to justify that this will stop a fully deflationary event where banks will stop lending and ppl defaulting on their loans.

[wingding]

To OP:

you made a serious mistake by using such an allusive and condescending writing style. This is not the place to tell stories to the children.

Thus, if you want a honest discussion, then please come out of your cranny, and instead of talking in metaphors, put some clear arguments on the table!

• what exactly are you criticising?
• what are your presuppositions?
• what are your conclusions?

A fair claim Ichthyo, but I think weisoq express my views perfectly well:

The first choice is to maintain the myths of Bitcoin for as long as possible, make what you will of good fortune to date, continue wasting good intellectual and capital investment in zero-sum endeavours where one group of techies screws over another, and therfore also waste an incredible opportunity for crytocurrencies to revolutionise finance and personal empowerment that would far surpass short-term personal gains (or at minimum waste a heck of a lot of time in getting to that point).

The second choice is to recognise that something has to change with Bitcoin because either:

1) Bitcoins are scarce in which case at some point those who do not already have any will rationally find something else to use instead of Bitcoin (see the rise of altcoins and alternatives as evidence of this). This phenomenon was predicted on these boards from at least 2010 when I started reading it, probably earlier, and will not end because it’s an inevitability, or

2) Bitcoins are not scarce because they may be replicated (for all intents and purposes with just a name change), in which case what is the value of a replicable and replicated digital asset offering no advantage over others?

Falling on either side of 1 or 2 without the existence of advantages or damn good reasons to prefer Bitcoin over alternatives (beyond marketing) therefore necessitates changes or precludes its demise beyond a blinkered niche. As to what changes are required, I will leave that to application of rationality and economics.

I never assume that anyone is an idiot until they've given me a reason.  In fact, if you read my posting history, you can see for yourself that I have a tendency to chastise people for underestimating the public (this comes up often in the many many threads about naming the fractions).
P.S.  Confusion does not imply idiocy.  Money is hard to understand, very few people really "get" it, but I suspect that most people can if they put in the effort.

Everybody “gets” it. Whether they are able and willing to admit it is another matter. Perhaps unlike the bulk of people on this forum I’d actually like cryptos to (be able to) replace state fiat not remain a token playthings between small groups. That’s not possible with Bitcoin unless it is changed. Rather than the continual trumpeting of any innate libertarian, free-market ethos to Bitcoin why isn’t there more appreciation that the natural evolution of private free money and autonomy is that the next person or group will come along, compete with and improve it, likely resigning the previous form to the dustbin.

Either Bitcoin adherents accept there are flaws and moves with the times, or any objective observer has to conclude it’s just a pyramid because it doesn’t work economically for the majority of economic participants who will rationally not adopt it when they work it out. And to be clear my perspective there is as simple as not discerning any great difference between one group of powerful cronies controlling the fortunes of everybody else and another - be that a government, us Bitcoiners or whoever. There is no special ‘Bitcoin State’ that rewrites the rules of monetary theory or libertarian ideology and to think otherwise is naive or corrupt.

Satoshi created a great thing as technology alone is considered. But he did not solve the problem of distribution, which is a a difficult one. On the contrary, his extremely deflationary rules for supply was the worst choice. Now, the greed of the early adopters that strives to preserve bitcoin unchanged, is what probably will prohibit mass adoption of bitcoin - and worse, delay the appearance of a free cryptocurrency for years.

[Ichthyo]

Hey, can you please stop the gibberish and meta-discussion in this thread.

My claim still stands: give us a clear, crisp and unambiguous statement of your critique.

As long as you continue to tell stories ("once there was a man called...") in poetical language, littered with allusions and implied meaning, we must assume that you're hiding something. Whenever you've a clear grasp of a topic, you're able to put it in simple words

Please put your axioms and assumptions on the table, in clear daylight. Then there can be a fair discussion.


It is really an insult to expect from your readers to infer what you were intending, instead of just stating yourself what you want to say.


Thus, please write an answer in one sentence: what is The Bitcoin decimal issue?

[Killdozer]

Thus, if you want a honest discussion, then please come out of your cranny, and instead of talking in metaphors, put some clear arguments on the table!

    what exactly are you criticising?
    what are your presuppositions?
    what are your conclusions?

Boy, this just get's more and more hilarious, I love this shit! There is just no way for this topic to be serious now.
Conclusions, presuppositions? The OT lacks basic comprehension of how reality works, economics, mathematics or even logic and here we are, trying to get some clear arguments.
- "Bitcoin sucks because bread can't be divided to molecules"
- "What are your conclusions? Presuppositions?"

[sidhujag]

he probably meant it to mean what i wrote about in my thread about capped vs uncapped coin. Plz advise on there its a more comprehensive summary of what this guy was too lazy to say.

[weisoq]

This is what I've been saying all along and it would be good to have you over at my thread. The economy would be lopsidedly deflationary and alt's like devcoin already combat this issue by providing scarcity by controlling supply in a public manor. 200 billion coins in 100 years from now is not inflationary by any means judging by how many people there will be to use the coins, infact it is highly deflationary still, but the best crypto example we have. Proponents of btc will say you can just divide up the currency units once it gets more scarce, but to me there is no proof from a supply/demand perspective to justify that this will stop a fully deflationary event where banks will stop lending and ppl defaulting on their loans.

Cheers, but it's a complete waste of time. Opinion will tend to fall on the side of personal asset/liability profiles, and as this is bitcointalk the skew or ignorance or bullshit is self-evident, regardless of realities and economics. A shame for those interested in making more of cryptos and Bitcoin infrastructure and efforts, as that means it fails or was never intended to work, so it just comes down to timing in a game, but so be it.

[Ichthyo]

the skew or ignorance or bullshit is self-evident, regardless of realities and economics. A shame for those interested in making more of cryptos and Bitcoin infrastructure and efforts, as that means it fails or was never intended to work

Can you please be more explicit?

What are those miraculous "realities" and "rules of economics" you are alluding all the time?

WHY ARE YOU ALLUDING TO THINGS instead of just stating what you think are the facts.

Thus again: say in one sentence what are those "facts" everyone seems to be ignoring?


It might well be that you are incapable of stating your "facts" in a single, clear sentence, and thus need to resort to telling fairy tales and slander other people.

Thus: proof to the contrary that you are able to give a coherent reasoning about what is broken with Bitcoin.

[weisoq]

the skew or ignorance or bullshit is self-evident, regardless of realities and economics. A shame for those interested in making more of cryptos and Bitcoin infrastructure and efforts, as that means it fails or was never intended to work

Can you please be more explicit?

What are those miraculous "realities" and "rules of economics" you are alluding all the time?

WHY ARE YOU ALLUDING TO THINGS instead of just stating what you think are the facts.

Thus again: say in one sentence what are those "facts" everyone seems to be ignoring?

It might well be that you are incapable of stating your "facts" in a single, clear sentence, and thus need to resort to telling fairy tales and slander other people.

Thus: proof to the contrary that you are able to give a coherent reasoning about what is broken with Bitcoin.

I posted on that above, trying to engage in a substantive discussion, but I'll post it again if you'd like to explain where I'm wrong. Otherwise do you have any actual opinion or basis for your faith beyond prayer and evangelism, or are you instead just going to keep repeating the same defensive nonsense such as the requirement to outine any view 'in a sentence'?

You have two choices.

The first choice is to maintain the myths of Bitcoin for as long as possible, make what you will of good fortune to date, continue wasting good intellectual and capital investment in zero-sum endeavours where one group of techies screws over another, and therfore also waste an incredible opportunity for crytocurrencies to revolutionise finance and personal empowerment that would far surpass short-term personal gains (or at minimum waste a heck of a lot of time in getting to that point).

The second choice is to recognise that something has to change with Bitcoin because either:

1) Bitcoins are scarce in which case at some point those who do not already have any will rationally find something else to use instead of Bitcoin (see the rise of altcoins and alternatives as evidence of this). This phenomenon was predicted on these boards from at least 2010 when I started reading it, probably earlier, and will not end because it’s an inevitability, or

2) Bitcoins are not scarce because they may be replicated (for all intents and purposes with just a name change), in which case what is the value of a replicable and replicated digital asset offering no advantage over others?

Falling on either side of 1 or 2 without the existence of advantages or damn good reasons to prefer Bitcoin over alternatives (beyond marketing) therefore necessitates changes or precludes its demise beyond a blinkered niche. As to what changes are required, I will leave that to application of rationality and economics.

Quote
I never assume that anyone is an idiot until they've given me a reason.  In fact, if you read my posting history, you can see for yourself that I have a tendency to chastise people for underestimating the public (this comes up often in the many many threads about naming the fractions).
P.S.  Confusion does not imply idiocy.  Money is hard to understand, very few people really "get" it, but I suspect that most people can if they put in the effort.
Quote

Everybody “gets” it. Whether they are able and willing to admit it is another matter. Perhaps unlike the bulk of people on this forum I’d actually like cryptos to (be able to) replace state fiat not remain a token playthings between small groups. That’s not possible with Bitcoin unless it is changed. Rather than the continual trumpeting of any innate libertarian, free-market ethos to Bitcoin why isn’t there more appreciation that the natural evolution of private free money and autonomy is that the next person or group will come along, compete with and improve it, likely resigning the previous form to the dustbin.

Either Bitcoin adherents accept there are flaws and moves with the times, or any objective observer has to conclude it’s just a pyramid because it doesn’t work economically for the majority of economic participants who will rationally not adopt it when they work it out. And to be clear my perspective there is as simple as not discerning any great difference between one group of powerful cronies controlling the fortunes of everybody else and another - be that a government, us Bitcoiners or whoever. There is no special ‘Bitcoin State’ that rewrites the rules of monetary theory or libertarian ideology and to think otherwise is naive or corrupt.

[btcusr]

I strongly believe that somewhere in near future mBTC / XBT should go mainstream.

May be I am completely wrong, but I couldn't differentiate between Bitcoin starting to use subunits and a country printing more fiat money.

Let's say Bitcoin starts to use mBTC, now there are suddenly 1000x units. When a country prints more money then why not think it as a way of making units more fungible.

You bought a candy for a cent then you pay a dollar now. That means, your country has printed 100 times more money or something interesting happened to candy production or your country has gained much reputation or your country is manipulating global exchange rates, etc.

Everything somehow looks the same for me. I'm an average Bitcoin user, explain to me.

[AliceWonder]

I strongly believe that somewhere in near future mBTC / XBT should go mainstream.

May be I am completely wrong, but I couldn't differentiate between Bitcoin starting to use subunits and a country printing more fiat money.

Let's say Bitcoin starts to use mBTC, now there are suddenly 1000x units. When a country prints more money then why not think it as a way of making units more fungible.

You bought a candy for a cent then you pay a dollar now. That means, your country has printed 100 times more money or something interesting happened to candy production or your country has gained much reputation or your country is manipulating global exchange rates, etc.

Everything somehow looks the same for me. I'm an average Bitcoin user, explain to me.

My client is already set to display mBTC and I expect that to be the norm if the cost of a full BTC stabalizes higher than it is right now.

[btcusr]

May be my point irrelevant to this thread. I'll start a new thread..