Terminology for Fractional Bitcoins

[teppy]

I've adopted the following in Dragon's Tale - is there some more accepted convention? Should we come up with some standard?

0.001 Bitcoin : "1 Bitmill" or "1 BTM"
0.000001 Bitcoin : "1 Bitmicron" or "1 BTU"

Mill seems ok, because mills are used to specify tax rates (1 mill == 1/1000th of the value of an asset.)

I don't really care for the Bitmicron abbreviation because I always read it as a British Thermal Unit, and the Greek mu symbol is hard to type. Furthermore, microns are a unit of length.

Thoughts?

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[kiba]

mBTC, nBTC, etc.

[just a man]

Bitcoins and points work for me.

That whole valuation thing complicates it. With money as it is now, it's not like 1 penny or 1 cent might in five years be enough to buy a house. How ever many points is needed to buy a sandwidth and a can of fizzy drink (by the time it's possible to do so simply and conveniently) that's got to be in my opinion a matter of points.

Value changes all the time so it's hard to pin down the price of a sandwidth and fizzy drink in terms of naming every decimal place a bitcoin might have, as said price travels through an ever expanding bitcoin market.

Coke + Ham Sandwich: BTC56*10^-5

[nanotube]

yea, just use scientific notation... 1e-3 btc, 1e-6 btc. easy enough.
or you can go for full SI prefixes milliBTC, microBTC...

[MoonShadow]

I like the idea I saw in another thread of calling a very small division (say .0001 bitcoin) a Satoshi.  This honors the founder in a similar way that US$ honors the founders & important presidents by putting their images upon currency; such as calling the $100 bill graced by Ben Franklin a "benjamin".  Also, those same founders are roughly ranked in the order of significance(to the founders of the federal reserve) by putting the most favored upon the lowest denomination.

[kiba]

Ok, we will have 0.00000001 BTC a satoshi?

[just a man]

Ok, we will have 0.00000001 BTC a satoshi?

Great, fevered dreams os Satoshi / dollar parity.

[MoonShadow]

Ok, we will have 0.00000001 BTC a satoshi?

No, that unit is too small to be used in any normal context within my lifetime.

[em3rgentOrdr]

LOL...I accidentally read this post's title as "Terminology for Fractional-Reserve Bitcoins" and thought why would anyone want that?  But I suppose implementing FR-bitcoins is entirely doable, and there may be reasons why private bitcoin lenders/banks would engage in such activity.

[ProPuke]

Use standard metric prefixes?

1.0 BTC
0.01 cBTC
0.001 mBTC
0.000001 μBTC - hard to type mu, again. Could just cheat sometimes & write uBTC? :]
0.00000001 sBTC - satoshi :D
...

What's considered the standard unit range?

I'm imagining common usage with values like: 29.99 BTC, 2.50 BTC, 50 cBTC

I imagine mBTC will be a very rarely used low fractional.
I can't see us going much lower than that in normal usage.
But if necessary I imagine we'd just use decimal rather than using μ or s. (Although for the sake of a standard I like having them, & I think the 'satoshi' is a wonderful idea)

[MoonShadow]

Use standard metric prefixes?

Hell, no.  Metric sucks.

[kiba]

Why does metric sucks?

[MoonShadow]

Why does metric sucks?

It's based upon how people write, not how they think.  Base 2 is a better in real life, and much of American Standard has evolved over the decades to reflect that.  If a printed Bitcoin note is ever printed, it should follow a pattern of notes as follows...

1 unit note
2 unit note
4 unit note
8
16
32
and so on.  Nothing is simplier and easier for the human mind to wrap itself around than doubling and halving of sums, so long as one doesn't have to convert from base 2 to base 10 on the fly, which is what we have to do since most every fiat currency in use is base 10 for mathmatical advantages.

[nanotube]

Why does metric sucks?

It's based upon how people write, not how they think.  Base 2 is a better in real life, and much of American Standard has evolved over the decades to reflect that.  If a printed Bitcoin note is ever printed, it should follow a pattern of notes as follows...

1 unit note
2 unit note
4 unit note
8
16
32
and so on.  Nothing is simplier and easier for the human mind to wrap itself around than doubling and halving of sums, so long as one doesn't have to convert from base 2 to base 10 on the fly, which is what we have to do since most every fiat currency in use is base 10 for mathmatical advantages.

i smell bs. the primary number system in common use is decimal, and multiplying/dividing by powers of 10 is the easiest thing to do. here's an experiment: divide 100000 by 32 in your head, quick! yea, thought so, not so easy is it? now divide it by 100? pretty instant, no?

if you think i'm cheating by using powers of 10 for the initial number... how about dividing 1048576 by 32 in your head? now how about by 100? unless you're a coder used to dealing in powers of 2, you're not going to produce the result 1048576/32 instantly in your head.

[genjix]

yeah please use metric SI prefixes.

[ProPuke]

Why does metric sucks?

It's based upon how people write, not how they think.  Base 2 is a better in real life, and much of American Standard has evolved over the decades to reflect that.  If a printed Bitcoin note is ever printed, it should follow a pattern of notes as follows...

1 unit note
2 unit note
4 unit note
8
16
32
and so on.  Nothing is simplier and easier for the human mind to wrap itself around than doubling and halving of sums, so long as one doesn't have to convert from base 2 to base 10 on the fly, which is what we have to do since most every fiat currency in use is base 10 for mathmatical advantages.

What you are referring to seems to be more of a coinage system, where as what teppy was asking about was a decimalisation system. These are slightly different concepts.

For instance if we wanted to represent
2500 bytes
we would say
2.5kB*
not present it in its binary form of
1x2048 1x256 1x128 1x64 1x4

Which is easier for your brain to process?

(Yes, computer units are metric. You see them every day. This is not some scary new system)

The american standard has not evolved. It begun with imperial measurements & while most of the rest of the world converted over to the metric standard america did not.
Saying something should be some way because that's how it is in america is not a persuasive argument. It comes across as more a case of patriotism.
Also I'm pretty sure you guys still count in base 10, not base 2, so that doesn't really make sense anyway.

Random fact: The only three countries that have not officially adopted the metric system are america, burma, liberia (with america being the only industrialised)
(Where "officially" means declared adoption by the government as the standard, not sole use within the country)

*I'm going by the standard that there are 1000 bytes to a kilobyte & not 1024 for the sake of clarity (There are actually 2 separate measuring systems for file sizes)

[MoonShadow]

Why does metric sucks?

It's based upon how people write, not how they think.  Base 2 is a better in real life, and much of American Standard has evolved over the decades to reflect that.  If a printed Bitcoin note is ever printed, it should follow a pattern of notes as follows...

1 unit note
2 unit note
4 unit note
8
16
32
and so on.  Nothing is simplier and easier for the human mind to wrap itself around than doubling and halving of sums, so long as one doesn't have to convert from base 2 to base 10 on the fly, which is what we have to do since most every fiat currency in use is base 10 for mathmatical advantages.

What you are referring to seems to be more of a coinage system, where as what teppy was asking about was a decimalisation system. These are slightly different concepts.

True.  So consider it a recommendation over a named decimalisation system.  There is no reason that we must name by decimals, but we must have some kind of naming system or one will develop anyway.

For instance if we wanted to represent
2500 bytes
we would say
2.5kB*
not present it in its binary form of
1x2048 1x256 1x128 1x64 1x4

This isn't what I was suggesting, and I think you know that.

Which is easier for your brain to process?

(Yes, computer units are metric. You see them every day. This is not some scary new system)

The american standard has not evolved. It begun with imperial measurements & while most of the rest of the world converted over to the metric standard america did not.
Saying something should be some way because that's how it is in america is not a persuasive argument. It comes across as more a case of patriotism.
Also I'm pretty sure you guys still count in base 10, not base 2, so that doesn't really make sense anyway.

The AS is two centuries of evolution from the English Imperial Standard, and I wasn't claiming that it was ideal.  There are aspects of the AS system that are more intuitive than Metric, however.  A kilometer is as fine a travel distance measurement as a mile, and it is easier to convert to personal distances (i.e. feet & meters), but smaller measurements are more difficult to rationally manipulate on-the-fly.  Fractions of an inch are base 2 divisions, (half an inch, quarter of an inch, eighth, so on) that allow the mind to focus on relative sizes (more natural) as opposed to addition in multiple base ten units. (2.475 kilometers plus 45.5 meters plus 45287 millimeters, quick how far is that?  No cheating, do it in your head)  Yes, I know that most people would be able to do it, but halving and quartering (and doubling) is just more natural to the human mind.

Random fact: The only three countries that have not officially adopted the metric system are america, burma, liberia (with america being the only industrialised)
(Where "officially" means declared adoption by the government as the standard, not sole use within the country)

Not so random fact, Metric is taught to schoolchildren in this country, and has been since I was a child.  But the children must also learn what everyone else uses within their society.  The highway signs have both miles and kilometers where I live, and the only place that I have used the km was in the US military. 

*I'm going by the standard that there are 1000 bytes to a kilobyte & not 1024 for the sake of clarity (There are actually 2 separate measuring systems for file sizes)

Yes, one is base ten and the other is base two.  Considering the context is 'bits' & 'bytes'; base two is the correct one both technically and historicly (search "two bits" or "pieces of eight"), but I was not trying to make my point for either, as I was just talking about modern simplicity.  Thanks for making my point so well, btw.

[MoonShadow]

Why does metric sucks?

It's based upon how people write, not how they think.  Base 2 is a better in real life, and much of American Standard has evolved over the decades to reflect that.  If a printed Bitcoin note is ever printed, it should follow a pattern of notes as follows...

1 unit note
2 unit note
4 unit note
8
16
32
and so on.  Nothing is simplier and easier for the human mind to wrap itself around than doubling and halving of sums, so long as one doesn't have to convert from base 2 to base 10 on the fly, which is what we have to do since most every fiat currency in use is base 10 for mathmatical advantages.

i smell bs. the primary number system in common use is decimal, and multiplying/dividing by powers of 10 is the easiest thing to do. here's an experiment: divide 100000 by 32 in your head, quick! yea, thought so, not so easy is it? now divide it by 100? pretty instant, no?

if you think i'm cheating by using powers of 10 for the initial number... how about dividing 1048576 by 32 in your head? now how about by 100? unless you're a coder used to dealing in powers of 2, you're not going to produce the result 1048576/32 instantly in your head.

Your still asking me to process base ten math, not base two.  Regardless, this is not what I was talking about.  I know of no monetary system that developed naturally as base ten.  (Almost, let's say) all of them developed as base two.  As pointed out by another, this is what a 'coinage' system usually looks like; a primary unit of metal, by weight.  It's half coin and quarter coin, and usually it's eighth coin, develop for change.  Notably, the artificial monetary unit known as the Euro, does not use halves or quarters.  Yet most modern currency units are derived from units that developed naturally, and in societies that were predominately illiterate in base ten mathmatics.  Many modern currencies still have coins with halves and quarter unit values for historical reasons, because those are still evenly dividable by 100 without introducing fractional "cents" or "pence" into the mix.

[hook]

Just use the SI prefixes for both fractional and huge amounts! Pretty please!

It's bad enough that you can't be sure when someone says 3 billion nowadays. SI takes care of that.

Also I like the 0.00000001 BTC = Satoshi idea very much :]

P.S. Yes, I lingered around for quite a while now, but just had to create an account and comment on this!