Whats so important to moving a decimal?

[NetTecture]

If you went back to early Microsoft days and counted the number of splits you would see that original shares would now be trading for huge sums, even far higher than Berkshire Hathaway does today

No

if no splits MSFT would be trading at $7747/share instead of $26.9 today

BRK-A (Berkshire Series A) are around 115k USD per share now Yes, 115050 was the last quote. Earnings per share were 6580 and change USD per year

Psychologically this is insane, hard to trade etc.

[benjamindees]

A stock split actually has a practical effect.  Most people would not be able to purchase a share of Berkshire class-a.  But you can always purchase a fraction of a Bitcoin.

[BkkCoins]

If you went back to early Microsoft days and counted the number of splits you would see that original shares would now be trading for huge sums, even far higher than Berkshire Hathaway does today

No

My mistake. I hadn't checked on that for many years and didn't realize they had hit such a price.

[BkkCoins]

A stock split actually has a practical effect.  Most people would not be able to purchase a share of Berkshire class-a.  But you can always purchase a fraction of a Bitcoin.

I think I mentioned this. And in the usual case you'd buy a block of 100 shares.

[vrotaru]

If we are to accept the "split share" analogy then bitcoin "shares" are already split as far as satoshis (10^-8)BTC, bitcoin being just the name for rather great amount of minuscule shares.

Also looking at MgGox trades, buying/selling of fractional amounts of bitcoins is rather common. 10.321BTC, 1.237BTC, and so on.

[Piper67]

My question about the decimal move isn't whether it should happen (it should've been done months ago) but HOW will it happen. I've lived through currencies having to drop zeroes due to inflation, but there was always a central entity (the government) making that decision.

How would such a decision be made in the de-centralized world of Bitcoin? Would it be put to a vote? Would it be left up to the exchanges to start quoting prices and trades in milli-BTC instead of BTC? would it be the growing number of online stores? Who?

Whoever it is, this really needs to be done ASAP.

[Confucius]

Its entirely plausible to have a modified version of the client that shifts the decimal place to the right X amount of spaces for the GUI, but remains compatible with the current protocol.

Of course the protocol itself could be modified such that the decimal for BTC are shifted X amount of spaces to the right, in which case the GUI would follow with larger numbers..

However all of this appears moot, I think those susceptible to this also buy things because they are $X.99c

[Confucius]

My question about the decimal move isn't whether it should happen (it should've been done months ago) but HOW will it happen. I've lived through currencies having to drop zeroes due to inflation, but there was always a central entity (the government) making that decision.

How would such a decision be made in the de-centralized world of Bitcoin? Would it be put to a vote? Would it be left up to the exchanges to start quoting prices and trades in milli-BTC instead of BTC? would it be the growing number of online stores? Who?

Whoever it is, this really needs to be done ASAP.

Piper67, It is implemented into the protocol, essentially a vote would be done among the community and developers would implement the change(s). People would download the new client and a transition would take place. There is an solution in place to transition from an old protocol to new. I'm not specifically aware of all the details, but the blocks do know about which protocol version they are and how to relate.

Some clarification from a more insightful source into the specific details of protocol transitioning would be greatly appreciated

[amincd]

My question about the decimal move isn't whether it should happen (it should've been done months ago) but HOW will it happen. I've lived through currencies having to drop zeroes due to inflation, but there was always a central entity (the government) making that decision.

How would such a decision be made in the de-centralized world of Bitcoin? Would it be put to a vote? Would it be left up to the exchanges to start quoting prices and trades in milli-BTC instead of BTC? would it be the growing number of online stores? Who?

Whoever it is, this really needs to be done ASAP.

1++

[teknohog]

1 microBitCoin = mBTC = .0001 (to .0099)

1 mBTC = 0.001 (1/1000th)

Micro means one millionth, you need to use something else to avoid a huge confusion. What is wrong with milli anyway? For example, the Tunisian dinar is divided into 1000 millimes.

[wumpus]

You could easily make it an option in the client to shift the decimals by whatever amount the user wants, and change the denomination to uBTC, mBTC, etc, or even offer a combobox when sending coins.

It doesn't have much priority for me, and I'm afraid it will only confuse people in the same way calorie/kilocalorie do...