A proposal: Forget about mBTC and switch directly to Satoshis

[arsenische]

It's the least understandable; 100 pennies making a dollar is understandable, a hundred million satoshis making one bitcoin is overkill when bitcoin isn't worth more than 200$ a pop. 

200$ is just an arbitrary number. BTC was 0.02$, 0.2$, 2$, 20$... there is no reason to think $200 is the limit.

I think mBTC, uBTC, nBTC are much less convenient than Ks, Ms, Gs, Ts.

[npl]

It seems to me the problem is entirely one of nomenclature. After all, as units of account all these values already exist, of course.

So why not name them? The OP has a strong point that:
 

- Psychologically, the average person doesn't want to own a fraction of something. They want to own a multiple of something.  They'd rather have 500 S instead of 0.005mBTC

So let's name them - and then these units will go in an out of use as they become useful (in terms of exchange rate, as the currency matures). At the moment Satoshis have little utility except for the few hardcore users, but in the future it will become more useful.


As mentioned above, subdivisions of 10 are a bad idea since people are not used to them, so subdivisions of a 100 would be employed.

Here are my suggestions:

1 Bitcoin = 100 Laszlos

1 Laszlo = 100 Cryptos

1 Crypto = 100 ?
.
.
.
1 Satoshi = 100 ?

[Mike Christ]

It's the least understandable; 100 pennies making a dollar is understandable, a hundred million satoshis making one bitcoin is overkill when bitcoin isn't worth more than 200$ a pop. 

200$ is just an arbitrary number. BTC was 0.02$, 0.2$, 2$, 20$... there is no reason to think $200 is the limit.

I think mBTC, uBTC, nBTC are much less convenient than Ks, Ms, Gs, Ts.

Sure; I didn't mean to put forth the idea that BTC wouldn't shift in price.  My point is that right now it is, so using denominations like 0.01 BTC still makes good sense.  It's a problem that isn't really looking for a solution; I don't know what I'm going to wear on this day five years in the future, though I'm certain I'll be able to solve this one once the moment arises.  If you like those denominations, you should use them; that's all I'm asserting.  I always see these threads saying "we should use X denomination" and we never shift from what works best at the moment

[Rluner]

For the majority of the users currently using these forums I guess the decimal places are not an issue. I certainly have no issue with it.

However and it's a big however, as I spread the word to my IRL friends I always get asked questions like how many BTC do I mine in a single daily, once I either give them [silly to them] numerous decimal places, or I need to talk about mining over much larger periods, I can see in their faces they have lost interest in bitcoin. First impressions count.

The hard drive increase in capacity illustration above is very true, my IRL friends are now comfortable with ever changing units for HD capacities, and therein I see no issues with changing units as and when required to keep the majority of the population interested.

It's been said earlier but I feel it needs repeating, most people don't like decimals,

One last thought :- Before you can dine with the classes you must first serve the masses.

We need to serve the masses to get bitcoin mainstream.

[laowai80]

I think the common unit of accounting shouldn't be lower than the transaction fee, which is currently 0.0001 BTC, correct? The reason is payments less than the transaction fee aren't practical and are currently mostly done for fun and testing purposes. So, the mBTC is the lowest accounting unit we can go to right now. I am not sure if the transaction fee is variable and can go lower, please feel free to enlighten me on this, I am still a newbie. If the transaction fee can go lower, then we can lower the common accounting unit.

[MargaretsDream]

I personally thinking in terms of mBTC unless I buy product worth more than 1 BTC

[Robin]

I also think in terms of milli/micro/nano...
Satoshis are nice (everybody likes to own multiples instead of fractions) but break the fundamental standard of "three orders of magnitude" between major units.

[Bitcoinpro]

[teknohog]

Satoshis are nice (everybody likes to own multiples instead of fractions) but break the fundamental standard of "three orders of magnitude" between major units.

It's not exactly universal. In Chinese numerals, there is a standard of 4 orders of magnitude. For example, 1 million translates to Chinese as "bai wan", meaning 100 * 10000. I don't know what they use in Japan, but it's not hard to imagine that something similar is used in neighboring countries.

[MoonShadow]

It seems to me the problem is entirely one of nomenclature. After all, as units of account all these values already exist, of course.

So why not name them? The OP has a strong point that:
 

- Psychologically, the average person doesn't want to own a fraction of something. They want to own a multiple of something.  They'd rather have 500 S instead of 0.005mBTC

So let's name them -

They are named.  I, personally, was the person who suggested naming the units after important figures in bitcoin's history, and I suggested that the most important figures would have the lowest denominations.  I did this after how the US FRN has the pictures of the early presidents in order of those who are considered the "greatest" presidents, starting with Washington on the $1 bill and Jefferson on the $2 bill.  I suggested that the smallest current unit be called a satoshi, and (IIRC) someone else suggested that 1000 satoshis be called a gavin.  That pattern continued up the list of core programmers at the time, but no consensus about the names of other units (other than a satoshi) ever developed.  I'm pretty sure that thread died without resolution.  If you really want to reopen this debate, return to that thread and awaken it, please.

[devthedev]

I think the use of satoshi is misleading, it's like instead of saying 10 dollars you say 1000 pennies. mBTC is a lot easier to keep track of than Satoshi, in my opinion.

[Ecurb123]

I like this idea of using the satoshi. In fact I think I will incorporate it into my little raspberry pi bank project.

[worldtreasurefinders]

I do think the 1 BTC denomination is now too high for people to relate it to everyday purchases.  Now that 1 BTC is worth hundreds of dollars, the closest BTC denomination to $1 will have the most success in attracting new users.  So if that's 0.01 or 0.001 BTC, either one would be a better choice than a single satoshi, at this point in time.

[Abdussamad]

I made this proposal a few months back:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=222442.0

[Inedible]

Perhaps the OP could be reframed as:

We need to change where the decimal place is used.

1) Whole Bitcoins are cumbersome to denominate everyday goods in
2) Psychological phenomenon dictates that people prefer whole units of something rather than fractions
3) Improve uptake of Bitcoin

Additionally:

a) This change in denomination should be reasonably future-proof
b) This future-proofing has an upper limit due to the transaction fee becoming a significant proportion of the actual transaction (this fact is due to the limited flexibility of changing the transaction fee size)

These things being true, it would suggest that a unit should be easy to come to.

Milli is out as it's not future-proof. Nano is out because the transaction fee size. That simply leaves us with Satoshi and micro.

Personally, I think it would be travesty to use Satoshi only because it's an odd unit. It'll be a nightmare integrating it into payment systems. It would need a special exception everywhere and I think this would slow it's adoption or certainly make it a nuisance for everyone to use.

As someone already mentioned, China likes to denominate in units of 10,000 and it's a collosal pain. Having personally dealt with it, I can tell you that the Satoshi would be the same thing.

That being said, it would be very much appreciated in China so I guess it's East vs West on that front.

Someone mentioned that it would be ridiculous to want 50000 slices of pizza instead of 5. I don't think that's the case as people used to sell Bitcoin in lots of 10,000 for a few Dollars. It's not unreasonable to buy 50000micro Bitcoins for a Dollar. Should they eventually appreciate, people will wonder why they didn't buy more, just as has happened for the rest of us.

I think Bitcoin should be re-denominated to a smaller unit, just not the Satoshi.

My vote - go with the Micro then once the transaction fee gets lowered, go for the pico.



================

Slightly off-topic but for those that are interested:

Milli
Micro
Nano
Pico
Femto

[integrity42]

I also think in terms of milli/micro/nano...
Satoshis are nice (everybody likes to own multiples instead of fractions) but break the fundamental standard of "three orders of magnitude" between major units.

This is wrong. Satoshi's do not break orders of magnitude because they are the base unit in the code.  

A Bitcoin was arbitrarily decided to be 100M satoshi's by satoshi.  He also stated that he would consider changing the value of a 'Bitcoin'.

So, to summarize.  1BTC = 100Ms  is breaking the standard of 'three orders of magnitude' since Satohsis are the fundamental 'base unit'.

Hope this clears things up.

[integrity42]

I personally thinking in terms of mBTC unless I buy product worth more than 1 BTC

Same here. I'll just stick to the metric system. Satoshi's are only useful for faucets imo.

Using Satoshis means you're sticking to the metric system since Satoshi's are the base unit in the code. 

1BTC = 100Ms was arbitrarily chosen by satoshi.

[integrity42]

I think the use of satoshi is misleading, it's like instead of saying 10 dollars you say 1000 pennies. mBTC is a lot easier to keep track of than Satoshi, in my opinion.

They do this in Japan, 1 Yen is 1 penny. Everything is priced in Yen.  It works fine over there. 

mBTC is already too big of a unit.  We want to avoid decimals.  No countries in the world price things in 0.0000X of a unit.  They all tend to go the other way, i.e. some countries have currencies that take 10,000 units to buy a bottle of water. 

It's like that because of human psychology.  Using mBTC is un-natural to 90% of the world that are not mathematically inclined.  By using mBTC or other units that cause lots of decimals, you're fighting a losing battle, and making things more complicated for a majority of the worlds population.

[roflmao129]

Actually I dont see the points in that. Its a pretty easy system already.

[ilpirata79]

Instead of calling it mBTC, give it a fancy name as someone suggested:

ringo
and things like that

Best regards,
ilpirata79