The world of fractions

[blogospheroid]

The world where bitcoin dominates will be one where fractions and shares will become much more common in usage than today.

First of all, most of us would be earning in fractions of bitcoins.

Only those who have the greatest bargaining power will have a fixed wage in bitcoins (or more reasonably, fractions of bitcoins).

Those with less bargaining power will be paid in fractional shares of the firm's revenues or net profits (depending on the deal struck). This is because due to the deflationary nature of things, it will not be possible to maintain fixed wages for everyone.

Consumer prices will be fixed, but these will also change.

Most business to business deals will tend to go towards fractions of revenue or spend or some other factor. But here again, I visualise those with high bargaining power demanding fixed payments.

Houses might be bought in fractions, like in the ideas of chris cook.

You and the housing society essentially own your home in fractions. The deal begins with the housing society owning 100% and deciding a rent for the house. You pay the housing society as much as you can. Any money above the rent goes into building your fractional ownership of the house. This fraction is looked into every quarter (or year or any predecided time period) and allocated to you. from then on, the rent to be paid is only on the fractional share of the society.
Any money above the rent goes into building your fractional ownership. You continue till you own 100% or whatever percentage strikes your fancy.

This is a stable way of purchasing houses compared to taking a mega loan from a bank and having only one undiversified asset to show for it. In the bitcoin world, there will be very very few mega loans.

[billyjoeallen]

howz this for fractions?:

number of bitcoins owned by each American if distributed evenly: 21,000,000/350,000,000 or 0.06
number of bitcoins owned by each person in the world: 21,000,000/6,500,000,000 or 0.00323

Get 'em while they're hot!

[hello_good_sir]

*sigh*.  Do you really think that normal people will EVER understand fractions?  The answer is no.  It will never happen.  NEVER.  This is why we need to move the decimal place.  The wider public will never accept a bitcoin that is even worth $15, much less 15 million.  Bitcoin cannot succeed unless the decimal point shifts.  The decimal point will move, the question is whether we will do it soon enough.  The price of bitcoins will drop to a nickle.  Are we going to be the ones to do it, or will the market do it?

[ribuck]

Are we going to be the ones to do it, or will the market do it?

The standard client is open source software. Just add a setting to display amounts in Bitcoins, Millies, Mikes or Satoshis.

If you're not a programmer, start up a bounty for a programmer to do this.

There's no possibility to change the definition of what "one Bitcoin" means. You can't have one name meaning different measurements. But using sub-units instead of the largest unit is unproblematic. Go for it!

[hello_good_sir]

The standard client is open source software. Just add a setting to display amounts in Bitcoins, Millies, Mikes or Satoshis.

If you're not a programmer, start up a bounty for a programmer to do this.

There's no possibility to change the definition of what "one Bitcoin" means. You can't have one name meaning different measurements. But using sub-units instead of the largest unit is unproblematic. Go for it!

I am a programmer and I could change it.  However this is not a coding issue in the slightest.  It is a community issue.  We need a consensus.  We all need to switch at once.  MtGox and TradeHill need to switch.  Bitcoin.org will need to switch.  The vendors would need to switch.  In order for that to happen we all need to agree.  That is what I am trying to do.  I am trying to convince you.

It is entirely possible to change the definition of "one Bitcoin".  Mexico did it with the peso.  The chopped three decimal points off in a country of millions of people, many of whom live in remote areas and/or are poorly educated.  The bitcoin community is small and well-connected.  If we all agree to do it there would be no problem.

Perhaps the best that I can hope for is to get everything listed in bitcents and drop the notion of bitcoins.

[myrkul]

Perhaps the best that I can hope for is to get everything listed in bitcents and drop the notion of bitcoins.

Welcome to the free market. you cannot force your opinion on people here. You can, however, attempt your solution, and if it works and is well accepted, perhaps more will use it.

[benjamindees]

Here is an idea that wouldn't require changing everything at once.  For a while, just display two values, "Bitcoins" and "New Bitcoins".  "New Bitcoins" should be at least 100 times larger to avoid confusion.  You could even add Satoshis to be precise.  After a while, just drop "New Bitcoins".

[FreeMoney]

We don't all need to switch at once. Sites just need to be clear. I already play poker for bitcents and it's no problem. It any place where it could cause confusion, like the withdraw section it lists the amount in BTC too. A dragon's tale has been displaying bit mills for over 6 months.

Saying normal people will never understand and use fractions is .98 BS. A cent is a fraction of a dollar and people use those just fine. People follow recipes that need 1/8 cup of sugar just fine. Some people (not even that many) break down at the word "fraction", but they use them nonetheless.

[Leon]

*sigh*.  Do you really think that normal people will EVER understand fractions?  The answer is no.  It will never happen.  NEVER.  This is why we need to move the decimal place.  The wider public will never accept a bitcoin that is even worth $15, much less 15 million.  Bitcoin cannot succeed unless the decimal point shifts.  The decimal point will move, the question is whether we will do it soon enough.  The price of bitcoins will drop to a nickle.  Are we going to be the ones to do it, or will the market do it?

FAIL.

People understand money today because thats what they grew up with.

Same thing with what he is talking about. he is 100% correct.

[Confucius]

The standard client is open source software. Just add a setting to display amounts in Bitcoins, Millies, Mikes or Satoshis.

If you're not a programmer, start up a bounty for a programmer to do this.

There's no possibility to change the definition of what "one Bitcoin" means. You can't have one name meaning different measurements. But using sub-units instead of the largest unit is unproblematic. Go for it!

I am a programmer and I could change it.  However this is not a coding issue in the slightest.  It is a community issue.  We need a consensus.  We all need to switch at once.  MtGox and TradeHill need to switch.  Bitcoin.org will need to switch.  The vendors would need to switch.  In order for that to happen we all need to agree.  That is what I am trying to do.  I am trying to convince you.

It is entirely possible to change the definition of "one Bitcoin".  Mexico did it with the peso.  The chopped three decimal points off in a country of millions of people, many of whom live in remote areas and/or are poorly educated.  The bitcoin community is small and well-connected.  If we all agree to do it there would be no problem.

Perhaps the best that I can hope for is to get everything listed in bitcents and drop the notion of bitcoins.

It's as simple as changing the front-end GUI. This could of course confuse people if they use different versions of the client and see different amounts of BTCS. But if it bothers you that much make the change and distribute it either in the GUI or by changing the protocol (if your mad).

For example -
                    Previous balance:         5.24813 BTC
                    New balance:               524 Satoshi's 813 MSA

[hello_good_sir]

It's as simple as changing the front-end GUI.

Not only did I refute this, but you actually quoted me doing so.  This is not a coding issue, but a community issue.  I personally don't need a client that moves the decimal point.  No one on this forum does.  Everyone else in the world does.  We need to do some outreach to the mathematically challenged.

[evoorhees]

I'm sympathetic to the view that the decimal should be moved... but not yet. It should be much later. Changing it now will add confusion and "weirdness" to what is already confusing and weird. Bitcoin needs to be perceived as stable and solid... shifting decimals, while only a notational issue, will make people perceive it as less stable and solid.

Fractions are hard to deal with, admittedly. But now is not the time to be messing with the notation.

[cbeast]

We don't need to change the decimal places, just create apps that *name* the fractional amounts i.e. Satoshis. Other fractions can be named after other developers like Gavins, Pieters, Nils, etc. IOW, let the clients and apps keep track of quantities and stop worrying about innumeracy.
(edit) did not see ribuck's post. but still it is worth repeating.

[Alex Beckenham]

There are no 'coins', only transactions.

Sorry good sir, I vote leave it as it is, forever.

Let client software do the 'workarounds' like send/receive µBTC.