Bitcoin Unit Colour Chart

[Jointops420]

Colourblind here as well, about 10% of males have some colour vision defect.

What about an interface with buttons of the various divisions, you can click on the appropriate one for whatever you are buying enter the amount of the transaction in a short form without worrying if you got enough zeros. This should be easier for people in general to use with less mistakes, its not necessary today but in the future for sure. Not to toss the colour coded one out but have a couple of differing ways. A second thought is whats been done for totally blind people in the bitcoin arena.

Decided last night to learn how to code there just so much that can be done with bitcoins.

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[julz]

The Satoshi is a stupid unit.  Make them all nano in that range. There's no need to break up the standard greek prefixes.

As bitcoins are currently divisible to 8DP - the smallest existing unit (satoshi) is actually 10nanocoins.
If it had been 9DP I might agree - but the satoshi seems somewhat entrenched in this regard.

Seriously? Nobody gonna flame the homophobe?

I gave the benefit of the doubt and assumed it was gen-Y speak for 'lame'.  Yeah, the origin of using 'gay' that way is homophobic too... but it's probably a losing battle to fight the way young-uns speak. The fact they know it grates a bit on some people, and that they often just perceive people who complain about it as overly 'PC'..  will probably just make them want to use it more.

I don't know why the association between rainbows and 'gay'..  but I can see that too much colour can have a 90's geocities era crappy web feel!

the Satoshi (100000000 Satoshi's to the BTC) is the smallest unit available, so not sure what you would do with the piccoins if you had any...  You wouldn't be able to create any transactions with them, or render them in the bitcoin client...

I had in mind they might be used in certain applications such as games, or other systems not directly running bitcoin wallets where small costs might need to be allocated.  I probably could've  left off pico and stopped at the pinkies though.

who, besides bitcoin enthusiasts, wants to remember seven different colors and names for amounts of bitcoins?

I think gold and silver are pretty much a given for BTC and bitcents - very intuitive.
After that - it's only 3 more. Blue,green red.  (forget pink and brown - it's just illustrative and/or future use or special applications)

Nobody needs to 'remember' a bunch of colours before getting going.
The whole point is that the user interfaces would automatically display these along with other visual cues such as the word (millicoin,microcoin etc) and a different icon. Memory of colour associations would come with time just as people get familiar with the colours of their local currencies notes/coins.
I gather USD notes aren't very colourful..  this isn't the case for some other world currencies.

What about an interface with buttons of the various divisions, you can click on the appropriate one for whatever you are buying enter the amount of the transaction in a short form without worrying if you got enough zeros. This should be easier for people in general to use with less mistakes, its not necessary today but in the future for sure. Not to toss the colour coded one out but have a couple of differing ways.

Yeah - my previous example of displaying 0.00159265 in blue was perhaps not the best -as that's really a fraction of the gold unit BTC.
A nicer user interface might be to flip it to millicoins and enter 1.59265
equivalent to flipping to microcoins and entering 1592.65
or even satoshis 159265
The colour should be just one cue along with the unit name and visually distinguishable icon.

[netrin]

It makes more sense to color the units or medium, not the number.

In China: 1 Yuan (元) = 10 Jiao (角) = 100 Fen (分)
In Britain (<1971): 1 pound (£) = 20 shillings = 240 pence
Spanish silver dollar (peso): 1 = 8 pieces of eight
Bitcoin: 1 btc = 1000000 µbtc

[julz]

It makes more sense to color the units or medium, not the number.

In China: 1 Yuan (元) = 10 Jiao (角) = 100 Fen (分)
In Britain (<1971): 1 pound (£) = 20 shillings = 240 pence
Spanish silver dollar (peso): 1 = 8 pieces of eight
Bitcoin: 1 btc = 1000000 µbtc

I essentially agree.  It doesn't come across well in my initial explanation - but that's the underlying idea.

Let's say your user interface is currently set to enter values in bitcents - it'd be silver..
But if you enter 242   - it might be nice for the interface to give a hint (perhaps in a confirmation dialog)
that the scale of the transaction is 'gold' because you've gone above the limits of silver.

If you enter 0.5 bitcents - the entry interface is silver - but the scale of the transaction displayed at confirmation is blue for 5 millicoins.

It's up to UI designers to make it all neat and intuitive (no trivial feat) - but at least if there was a general consensus on colours/names/recognisable icons..  this sort of thing could be a useful clarification aid and error checker.

[netrin]

It makes more sense to color the units or medium, not the number.

In China: 1 Yuan (元) = 10 Jiao (角) = 100 Fen (分)
In Britain (<1971): 1 pound (£) = 20 shillings = 240 pence
Spanish silver dollar (peso): 1 = 8 pieces of eight
Bitcoin: 1 btc = 1000000 µbtc

If you enter 0.5 bitcents - the entry interface is silver - but the scale of the transaction displayed at confirmation is blue for 5 millicoins.

It's up to UI designers to make it all neat and intuitive (no trivial feat) - but at least if there was a general consensus on colours/names/recognisable icons..  this sort of thing could be a useful clarification aid and error checker.

I'm not sold on the colors. What problem are you trying to solve? Are you asserting that people can't handle decimals but they can handle large integers? If that is the case, then just deal in µbtc or satoshis exclusively. We as a society seem capable of discussing $100 trillion USD without the need for colors.

[enmaku]

For the record, the most common kind of color blindness is red/green, so I think the complaint wasn't so much that you used colors to differentiate, but that you placed red and green RIGHT next to each other. Swap either one for another color so there's buffer between them and the chart should serve a much larger audience. You can't account for every kind of color blindness, but you can at least account for the single most common.

[julz]

I'm not sold on the colors. What problem are you trying to solve? Are you asserting that people can't handle decimals but they can handle large integers?

Yes.
That matches my experience with many people.
The fact that it's not just milli,micro,nano - but also 'bitcents' and 'satoshi' add significantly to the confusion when it comes to decimals.
I doubt we can avoid 'bitcents' because so many people are used to their primary unit of currency having a secondary unit being 100th of the main one.
Even if we meticulously avoided mentioning it - the public would end up thinking of the 14 in 3.14 BTC as some sort of 'cent'.
We can't really avoid the satoshi because the bitcoin divides down to 8DP instead of the 9DP we'd expect for the nano boundary.

If that is the case, then just deal in µbtc or satoshis exclusively.

Exclusively?  You mean pick just one and get the entire Bitcoin community to switch to it?
If everyone exclusively dealt with satoshi - then the numbers would be a little unwieldy for even a few thousand BTC.
Perhaps uBTC would be ok.

We as a society seem capable of discussing $100 trillion USD without the need for colors.

Sure - but are we as a society (including kids and grandparents) so adept at throwing around zeros and decimal points that when everyone is trying to pay with BTC on a mobile phone it'll be easy to do it without making a mistake?   
Throw in coloured/iconized units and my proposition is that the user interface will make it manageable.

It may be that sticking to the colours gold,silver and just one more colour/icon for micro would be a better scheme,
but I created colour boundaries at the SI milli,micro,nano points because it's hard to know where the value is headed - and what units might be practical.
Given the possibility of microtransactional systems based on bitcoin - such 'sub-coins' might make a lot of sense in various applications.
 
For me - the colours are a good cue - but they're only 1 third of the distinguishing aspect of any particular unit.
The name and the distinct icon are just as important.

[julz]

For the record, the most common kind of color blindness is red/green, so I think the complaint wasn't so much that you used colors to differentiate, but that you placed red and green RIGHT next to each other. Swap either one for another color so there's buffer between them and the chart should serve a much larger audience. You can't account for every kind of color blindness, but you can at least account for the single most common.

Fair enough.. 
Perhaps replacing the red satoshi with black would be better. 

[Jaime Frontero]

nah, sorry.  it's a loser.

learn to read a decimal point.  it's less ambiguous, has no medical (i.e., color-blindness) issues, doesn't depend on your monitor (there are still an awful lot of B&W displays in the world), and can be communicated easily and effectively:

"how much is it?"

"uhhh, 23 green, 14 yellow, 92 blue.  plus postage."  yeah.  that's gonna work...

[dustintrammell]

I think this is a great idea.  I also agree with keeping the Satoshi unit, it's important to honor your roots.

For those complaining about the color issues, I think you missed the fact that there are differentiating icons as well.  If you can't see the colors, look for the difference in the icon.

[julz]

nah, sorry.  it's a loser.

learn to read a decimal point.  it's less ambiguous, has no medical (i.e., color-blindness) issues, doesn't depend on your monitor (there are still an awful lot of B&W displays in the world), and can be communicated easily and effectively:

"how much is it?"

"uhhh, 23 green, 14 yellow, 92 blue.  plus postage."  yeah.  that's gonna work...

That's not how I envisage it being used.
Pick a unit - and that's the colour/name/icon you're dealing with.
23.15 uBTC (green)    vs  0.00002315 BTC

It's not about avoiding decimal points altogether. It's picking a convenient unit for day to day transactions and having as many strong visual cues as possible as to the unit you're dealing with.

Tell the average person their wallet has 0.00417597 BTC  and it's going to cost them 0.00002315 BTC to click some link - and their eyes will glaze over trying to do the maths.
Tell them they have 4175.97 uBTC and the cost is 23.15 uBTC - and they'll have a better feel for what the relative cost is.

Accuse me of underestimating the intelligence of the public if you want..  (though I hear there's a famous quote about nobody going broke doing that)

[Jaime Frontero]

nah, sorry.  it's a loser.

learn to read a decimal point.  it's less ambiguous, has no medical (i.e., color-blindness) issues, doesn't depend on your monitor (there are still an awful lot of B&W displays in the world), and can be communicated easily and effectively:

"how much is it?"

"uhhh, 23 green, 14 yellow, 92 blue.  plus postage."  yeah.  that's gonna work...

That's not how I envisage it being used.
Pick a unit - and that's the colour/name/icon you're dealing with.
23.15 uBTC (green)    vs  0.00002315 BTC

It's not about avoiding decimal points altogether. It's picking a convenient unit for day to day transactions and having as many strong visual cues as possible as to the unit you're dealing with.

Tell the average person their wallet has 0.00417597 BTC  and it's going to cost them 0.00002315 BTC to click some link - and their eyes will glaze over trying to do the maths.
Tell them they have 4175.97 uBTC and the cost is 23.15 uBTC - and they'll have a better feel for what the relative cost is.

Accuse me of underestimating the intelligence of the public if you want..  (though I hear there's a famous quote about nobody going broke doing that)

what time is it?

http://home.earthlink.net/~drbarrall/RCCClock-sm.jpg

[julz]

what time is it?

http://home.earthlink.net/~drbarrall/RCCClock-sm.jpg

So you can use colours cryptically in a way only engineers might understand..
Can it really be a surprise to you that colour can also enhance and act as a mnemonic?

Which exchanges are on the up and which down?
http://www.bitcoincharts.com/markets/

( oh look.. red and green side by side too..)

[Vod]

If we want the fastest bitcoin adoption, we should stick to standardized (global) prefixes for divisions of coins.  Why make up new units of measurement?

A decicoin is 0.1 btc
A centicoin is 0.01 (aka bitcent)
A millicoin is 0.001

I'm not aware of the metric prefixes for 4,5,7 or 8 places.   

A nanocoin is actually the ninth position, not the eight.

[Superform]

another reason this would be a bad idea would be the fact that naughty people could switch the colours around when they are selling something.

[julz]

If we want the fastest bitcoin adoption, we should stick to standardized (global) prefixes for divisions of coins.  Why make up new units of measurement?

Like what.. the satoshi?  Because it's part of Bitcoin history and because there are only 8DP in the current implementation.
I didn't make up any new units.

A decicoin is 0.1 btc
A centicoin is 0.01 (aka bitcent)
A millicoin is 0.001
I'm not aware of the metric prefixes for 4,5,7 or 8 places.   

yes - the image shows bitcents and millicoins..  So you want to add 'decicoin'?
It's just 10 bitcents. 
I've already explained the reasoning for leaving cents and satoshis in along with the existing SI units. I really don't know why you'd want to add another. Does anyone talk of decicoins when dealing with US or AU currencies for example?

A nanocoin is actually the ninth position, not the eight.

I don't see anyone claiming otherwise.

[julz]

another reason this would be a bad idea would be the fact that naughty people could switch the colours around when they are selling something.

What..  like they couldn't just move the decimal point or add a zero?
Please explain your argument further - it currently makes no sense to me.

[Vod]

A nanocoin is actually the ninth position, not the eight.

I don't see anyone claiming otherwise.

I've seen it mentioned several times on this forum.   In fact, in the first post of this thread, nano is used to describe the 7th and 8th position.  We can't go changing established meanings.

[Serith]

If we want the fastest bitcoin adoption, we should stick to standardized (global) prefixes for divisions of coins.  Why make up new units of measurement?

A decicoin is 0.1 btc
A centicoin is 0.01 (aka bitcent)
A millicoin is 0.001

I'm not aware of the metric prefixes for 4,5,7 or 8 places.   

A nanocoin is actually the ninth position, not the eight.

deci  0.1
centi 0.01
milli   0.001
micro 0.000001
nano  0.000000001
pico  0.000000000001

no names exits for 4,5,7 or 8 places

I think Satoshis is great. Using nano would create confusion if used in every day transaction, because minimal BTC unit allowed by protocol is 10 nano BTC. We assume that people would use it properly
20 nBTC
230 nBTC
650 nBTC
but in fact, after a while it would be common to drop the last digit because it would be always the same. And it would look like this
2 nBTC
23 nBTC
65 nBTC
Values like 60 would be source of confusion, is it 600 nBTC or 60 nBTC. It's not hard to believe that it would happen considering somewhat recent example of how 1GB became equal to 1000MB. Sadly, i anticipate that half of people on this forum don't know the right answer.

[Vod]

 It's not hard to believe that it would happen considering somewhat recent example of how 1GB became equal to 1000MB. Sadly, i anticipate that half of people on this forum don't know the right answer.

1 gigabit is equal to 1000 megabits.   The word you are looking for (I think) is Gibibit, which is exactly 1,073,741,824 bits.   Rather than forcing a new term on the public, the industry decided to use the term gigabit, since giga is widely known and accepted.

Satoshis is another example.  It is a unique word that can describe something exactly, rather than saying 10 nanocoins.  I'm not saying we shouldn't use it.  But the public already knows nano is very small - one less thing for them to learn to understand bitcoins.