There are only 21 THOUSAND bitcoins

[bitbitcoins]

This is great, really, it's like the red pill of perspective.

It is an argument of semantics to say there are 11 million (or 21 million) BTC's when each one is (currently) divisible by 8 decimal places.

Exactly. Cool to think of it in a different light really. The numbers really do have a psychological effect though, don't they?!

Yes excellent

[glitch003]

mbits

[giszmo]

mbits

is mBTC an official term? Or just kind of a slang that BTC users use?

Yeah actually the king of Bitcoin declared it official just yesterday.

[colinistheman]

mbits

is mBTC an official term? Or just kind of a slang that BTC users use?

Yeah actually the king of Bitcoin declared it official just yesterday.

Cool.

And who is the "king" of Bitcoin? MtGox?

[Wilikon]

We could say there are ONLY 21 THOUSAND bitcoins, and have them subdividable like 11 decimal points. Just to put a perspective on the arbitrariness of how we define the limit.

Actual BTC limit = 21000000.00000001

Could just as easily be: 21000.00000000001

Or even: 21.00000000000001  (only 21 bitcoins in existance! lol)

So, we could say "21 thousand bitcoins ONLY!" But does that mean there are only 21 thousand bitcoins? No.

They're all the SAME QUANTITY of UNITS allowable. Pretty arbitrary really.

Just food for thought.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkbQDEXJy2k

[colinistheman]

We could say there are ONLY 21 THOUSAND bitcoins, and have them subdividable like 11 decimal points. Just to put a perspective on the arbitrariness of how we define the limit.

Actual BTC limit = 21000000.00000001

Could just as easily be: 21000.00000000001

Or even: 21.00000000000001  (only 21 bitcoins in existance! lol)

So, we could say "21 thousand bitcoins ONLY!" But does that mean there are only 21 thousand bitcoins? No.

They're all the SAME QUANTITY of UNITS allowable. Pretty arbitrary really.

Just food for thought.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkbQDEXJy2k

hahaha

Very fitting

[Spekulatius]

there are ONLY 21 THOUSAND bitcoins

Nope

[colinistheman]

there are ONLY 21 THOUSAND bitcoins

Nope

It's just a interesting exercise and way to look at the arbitrariness of the quantification of Bitcoin.

[nameface]

there are ONLY 21 THOUSAND bitcoins

Nope

lol

[nameface]

The significance of the 21 is what I wonder about.

[elor70]

I dont get it......

[colinistheman]

The significance of the 21 is what I wonder about.

Yes! Why 21???

Why not 35? or 20 even?

Knowing Satoshi's genius, it must have been picked with some sort of formula or insight or REASON. But this reason is never revealed.

[Foxpup]

The significance of the 21 is what I wonder about.

Simple. Satoshi, like all humans before they ascend to demigodhood, liked round numbers. That's why he chose 10 minutes as the average block time (instead of, say, 9 and a half minutes). Starting from there, we get 6 blocks per hour, 144 blocks per day, 52,560 blocks per year, and 210,384 blocks every four years. Satoshi wanted the block reward to halve every four years, but being a stickler for round numbers, he chose to round it off to 210,000 blocks. And that's where the number 21 comes from.

[nameface]

The significance of the 21 is what I wonder about.

Simple. Satoshi, like all humans before they ascend to demigodhood, liked round numbers. That's why he chose 10 minutes as the average block time (instead of, say, 9 and a half minutes). Starting from there, we get 6 blocks per hour, 144 blocks per day, 52,560 blocks per year, and 210,384 blocks every four years. Satoshi wanted the block reward to halve every four years, but being a stickler for round numbers, he chose to round it off to 210,000 blocks. And that's where the number 21 comes from.

[Razick]

We could say there are ONLY 21 THOUSAND bitcoins, and have them subdividable like 11 decimal points. Just to put a perspective on the arbitrariness of how we define the limit.

Actual BTC limit = 21000000.00000001

Could just as easily be: 21000.00000000001

Or even: 21.00000000000001  (only 21 bitcoins in existance! lol)

So, we could say "21 thousand bitcoins ONLY!" But does that mean there are only 21 thousand bitcoins? No.

They're all the SAME QUANTITY of UNITS allowable. Pretty arbitrary really.

Just food for thought.

+1 The number is pointless. I use mBTC so for me there are 21,000,000,000 units (or 2,100,000,000,000 if you count mBTC-cents as I do).

[giszmo]

The significance of the 21 is what I wonder about.

Yes! Why 21???

Why not 35? or 20 even?

Knowing Satoshi's genius, it must have been picked with some sort of formula or insight or REASON. But this reason is never revealed.

isn't 1 for him, 20 for us pretty round?

[pisces1999]

its real great theory behind this so please think about this 21

[sergio]

it is nonsense to add inflation to Bitcoins even in a 100 years, Satoshi did not believe inflation was needed and most of us do not believe inflation will be needed.

It is Kanes vs Friderick H.

In a worst case situation in which a satoshi becomes very valuable, all that would be need without the need to inflate the Bitcoin is to add more decimal places, and have units such as milisatoshi, microsatoshi, etc, but we are very far away from that.

[giszmo]

In a worst case situation in which a satoshi becomes very valuable, all that would be need without the need to inflate the Bitcoin is to add more decimal places, and have units such as milisatoshi, microsatoshi, etc, but we are very far away from that.

Wouldn't adding more decimal places be effectively be printing money though? As it's creating more money potential out of thin air.

  omg

[DumbFruit]

Wouldn't adding more decimal places be effectively be printing money though? As it's creating more money potential out of thin air.

No.

I don't understand why people have so much difficulty with decimal points.

1 -> 10 is inflation.
1 -> .1 is deflation.
1.0 -> 1.00 is increased precision.
1.0 -> 1 is decreased precision.

21 million total bitcoins =/= 21 thousand total bitcoins. Strictly speaking it is deflation. (edit: Not that it matters, mind you.)

Finite number is finite.

Maybe the most accurate definition of Bitcoin would be a ledger that grows to 1 0, base 21 million , because strictly speaking you could multiply or divide the total number of bitcoins in existence by any number you like, not just "10". The observation the OP was really making, though I'm not sure he realized it, is that you can change the base of Bitcoin to whatever you like and it's the same.

Of course it causes psychological problems, and other business, but whatever.

Edit: Lots of stuff lots of the time. Bases are confusing.