Need to switch to mBTC soon

[stamen123]

I also agree with the OP and most of the comments that a switch to mBTC is necessary for the broader adoption of BTC.

At the same time though, this high price of BTC gives chance to all the altcoins there for obvious reasons - they feel cheap

What I wanted to discuss is a bit different. It concerns the limited number of bitcoins in the protocol.

As I do not understand the protocol perfectly, I want to ask this: Is it possible for the Bitcoin Foundation to decide at some point that all balances in all addresses in the block chain should be multiplied by 100 and thereby implicitly increase the money supply?

I understand that "taking three zeros from the decimals" and starting to quote the price in mBTC partly solves the problem but imagine the time comes when we are out of zeros...

Thanks

[1715275397]

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[Georgio]

I also agree with the OP and most of the comments that a switch to mBTC is necessary for the broader adoption of BTC.

At the same time though, this high price of BTC gives chance to all the altcoins there for obvious reasons - they feel cheap

What I wanted to discuss is a bit different. It concerns the limited number of bitcoins in the protocol.

As I do not understand the protocol perfectly, I want to ask this: Is it possible for the Bitcoin Foundation to decide at some point that all balances in all addresses in the block chain should be multiplied by 100 and thereby implicitly increase the money supply?

I understand that "taking three zeros from the decimals" and starting to quote the price in mBTC partly solves the problem but imagine the time comes when we are out of zeros...

Thanks

They can not do such thing to multiply the balances. Also i think the zeros are enough. The smallest unit is one Satoshi which looks like this 0.0000001 Just imagine if we get there We are gonna be pretty well!

[illpoet]

i wouldn't be surprised if we saw all the exchanges move to bitmills in early 2014

[Georgio]

i wouldn't be surprised if we saw all the exchanges move to bitmills in early 2014

I hope they will move to millibits! Then more people will buy.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

Its still a need.

A solution is needed.

Anyone who claims this isn't an issue has no non-BTC friends or family.

Anyone who has non BTC friends or family that aren't loaded, has heard someone say "I cant buy in now.  Its too late.  Its too expensive".

This is exactly why gold collapsed from its all time high to ~$1,200+ USD--it was too expensive.  Somebody needs to head on over to them gold forums and learnt them folks that they can still get in via buying only half an ounce of gold, thus when gold doubles in value, they'll still be able to earn a 100% ROI.

I'm not sure if that's possible with Bitcoin since it's a new thingie, but imagine if--only if--some Bitcoin scientist was able to tweak the code just a tad so that anybody in the world will not be forced to purchase a full bitcoin as part of their investment portfolio.

Regardless of what the smaller denominations will be, or are called, a person would only buy what they can afford, say a 1/4 of a bitcoin, and when bitcoins double again within the next week or month (maybe a tad longer), those lucky investors will double their money just like them folks who bought only a half ounce of gold, full ounce, or exactly one bitcoin.

Boy, I remember the days when people were able to purchase an entire barn, but when the greedy farmers who own the barns realized the value in barn wood, the prices skyrocketed, and now people are only buying 1/4 or 1/2 a barn because it has gotten too expensive for them to enter the market. Luckily, for me, I'm still able to buy complete barns but, I'm afraid, those days are numbered, hence starting to invest in goat turds and acorns before people become the wiser and push me outta those markets as well.

~TMIBTCITW

[Goxpapa]

This is definitely necessary

[jayson3]

For Bitcoin to have any hope of becoming money for every day use by the common nontechnical person, it must use simple whole numbers for small transactions.  It will be very confusing for many people to pay 0.00365 btc for a coffee.  3.65 is much easier to grasp and less prone to error.

Otherwise, LTC or another altcoin will fill these very important need.

Traditionally gold was the money of the wealthy, while silver was the money of the common man.  This history will repeat if Bitcoin does not adjust.

This is about marketing.  At this stage, it is the marketing of Bitcoin that will make it succeed or fail.

Posted From bitcointalk.org Android App

[yona]

1 bitcoin = 1 million bits

it was never important to me that new terms would be used for bitcoin sub-units. i had believed the world would take care of it itself. and it might just do it, creating many names for different bitcoin sub-units.
i was, and am a milli supporter, it makes sense, it comes from the metric system and it is near a 1 dollar point at the present.

BUT then i was running the word bit in my head for the past two days, and for me, milli, as straight forward and sensible as it is does not paint a coherent picture as the bitcoin = million bits.
it took me these couple of days to realize, it just makes perfect intuitive sense to me…
finally i realize why a bitcoin is called a bitcoin, it's a coin made of a million bits, it's also the name of the currency… (i know this is not the case right now, but it make such perfect sense that I would of believed it if i was told so). so a 100 satoshi make 1 bit, again, perfect sense here too… all we have done is move the decimal point as far as mainstream wants to move it.
i don't care what devisions are used in the meantime, and i don't care if a division will come much later then needed… but i do believe a bitcoin should be viewed as 1 million bits. it takes the whole system to a 2 decimal point system that is intuitive to people to use. satoshis are like cents and bits are like dollars.
in the future people might say '...why do we call it bitcoin? because that's how it works under the hood, bits are grouped into 1 million  and this is how they are denominated in the blockchain, it's more efficient to calculate them this way.'

[Georgio]

Yeah It is all marketing now. The people which created and developed the currency are maybe geniuses, they did a great job, but now it is all marketing, so they should take note of this forum thread.

[DeathAndTaxes]

Yeah It is all marketing now. The people which created and developed the currency are maybe geniuses, they did a great job, but now it is all marketing, so they should take note of this forum thread.

There is no "they".  Nobody controls Bitcoin.  It is a decentralized network.  It would be like saying you want to start calling the internet the intertubes.  Ok go ahead.  Nobody can stop you and likewise nobody can force anyone else to adopt that name.  Some naming system will develop organically, some people will start using it, it will catch on, more people will use it, more people will ask other people to use it, and eventually it will be universal.  As a case in point at the genesis block there was no name for the smallest Bitcoin unit.  Using satoshi as an honorific didn't start happening until much later.  Even today it isn't "official" in the sense that the Central Planning Committe for Bitcoin Units and Masures adopted resolution 2873 with a unanimous vote formally defining 1E-8 BTC as "one Satoshi" in the year of our lord two thousand and eleven.  People just starting using it and it caught on.  Nothing more, nothing less.

[DeathAndTaxes]

in the future people might say '...why do we call it bitcoin? because that's how it works under the hood, bits are grouped into 1 million  and this is how they are denominated in the blockchain, it's more efficient to calculate them this way.'

Well that would be a lie tough.   Under the hoot everything is in satoshis.  1 BTC is sent as a value of 100,000,000.

[enquirer]

"Millibitcoin" is awful. No chance a normal person could say it, or understand it. "Satoshi" sounds much better, and it will serve for longer. In the ideal case that BTC replaces all the money in the world, one satoshi will be conveniently priced around 1 penny, I think that's how Satoshi choose total number of bitcoins - 21M.

[theecoinomist]

"Millibitcoin" is awful. No chance a normal person could say it, or understand it. "Satoshi" sounds much better, and it will serve for longer. In the ideal case that BTC replaces all the money in the world, one satoshi will be conveniently priced around 1 penny, I think that's how Satoshi choose total number of bitcoins - 21M.

It would never be Millibitcoin, but Millies or Millibits.

[Georgio]

Yeah It is all marketing now. The people which created and developed the currency are maybe geniuses, they did a great job, but now it is all marketing, so they should take note of this forum thread.

There is no "they".  Nobody controls Bitcoin.  It is a decentralized network.  It would be like saying you want to start calling the internet the intertubes.  Ok go ahead.  Nobody can stop you and likewise nobody can force anyone else to adopt that name.  Some naming system will develop organically, some people will start using it, it will catch on, more people will use it, more people will ask other people to use it, and eventually it will be universal.  As a case in point at the genesis block there was no name for the smallest Bitcoin unit.  Using satoshi as an honorific didn't start happening until much later.  Even today it isn't "official" in the sense that the Central Planning Committe for Bitcoin Units and Masures adopted resolution 2873 with a unanimous vote formally defining 1E-8 BTC as "one Satoshi" in the year of our lord two thousand and eleven.  People just starting using it and it caught on.  Nothing more, nothing less.

I understand what are you saying, but for example i don't have any control over what is happening with Bitcoin, apart of trying to populise little bit. You want to tell me that the Bitcoin developers does not have power over it? Or Bitcoin foundation? Or the administrators of bitcoin.org and this forum? Please come on. You are trying too fool us or you are fooling yourself. Which one?

[DeathAndTaxes]

Yeah It is all marketing now. The people which created and developed the currency are maybe geniuses, they did a great job, but now it is all marketing, so they should take note of this forum thread.

There is no "they".  Nobody controls Bitcoin.  It is a decentralized network.  It would be like saying you want to start calling the internet the intertubes.  Ok go ahead.  Nobody can stop you and likewise nobody can force anyone else to adopt that name.  Some naming system will develop organically, some people will start using it, it will catch on, more people will use it, more people will ask other people to use it, and eventually it will be universal.  As a case in point at the genesis block there was no name for the smallest Bitcoin unit.  Using satoshi as an honorific didn't start happening until much later.  Even today it isn't "official" in the sense that the Central Planning Committe for Bitcoin Units and Masures adopted resolution 2873 with a unanimous vote formally defining 1E-8 BTC as "one Satoshi" in the year of our lord two thousand and eleven.  People just starting using it and it caught on.  Nothing more, nothing less.

I understand what are you saying, but for example i don't have any control over what is happening with Bitcoin, apart of trying to populise little bit. You want to tell me that the Bitcoin developers does not have power over it? Or Bitcoin foundation? Or the administrators of bitcoin.org and this forum? Please come on. You are trying too fool us or you are fooling yourself. Which one?

They have control over what you call things?  Really?  If MtGox decided to NEVER switch their quotes from BTC to mBTC what exactly would the Bitcoin developers do?  What exactly would the foundation do?  Please give me a concrete example.   If I keep writing balances in BTC (or uBTC, or satoshis) are they going to have me arrested?  are they going to sue me? are they going to have someone kill me?  How exactly would they prevent a user from using a different valid denomination?

The protocol/blockchain/codebase doesn't even care about Bitcoins.  Everthing is recorded in integers as satoshis.  Everything else is just human concepts because humans don't work well with very large numbers.

[Georgio]

Yeah It is all marketing now. The people which created and developed the currency are maybe geniuses, they did a great job, but now it is all marketing, so they should take note of this forum thread.

There is no "they".  Nobody controls Bitcoin.  It is a decentralized network.  It would be like saying you want to start calling the internet the intertubes.  Ok go ahead.  Nobody can stop you and likewise nobody can force anyone else to adopt that name.  Some naming system will develop organically, some people will start using it, it will catch on, more people will use it, more people will ask other people to use it, and eventually it will be universal.  As a case in point at the genesis block there was no name for the smallest Bitcoin unit.  Using satoshi as an honorific didn't start happening until much later.  Even today it isn't "official" in the sense that the Central Planning Committe for Bitcoin Units and Masures adopted resolution 2873 with a unanimous vote formally defining 1E-8 BTC as "one Satoshi" in the year of our lord two thousand and eleven.  People just starting using it and it caught on.  Nothing more, nothing less.

I understand what are you saying, but for example i don't have any control over what is happening with Bitcoin, apart of trying to populise little bit. You want to tell me that the Bitcoin developers does not have power over it? Or Bitcoin foundation? Or the administrators of bitcoin.org and this forum? Please come on. You are trying too fool us or you are fooling yourself. Which one?

They have control over what you call things?  Really?  If MtGox decided to NEVER switch their quotes from BTC to mBTC what exactly would the Bitcoin developers do?  What exactly would the foundation do?  Please give me a concrete example.   If I keep writing balances in BTC (or uBTC, or satoshis) are they going to have me arrested?  are they going to sue me? are they going to have someone kill me?  How exactly would they prevent a user from using a different valid denomination?

The protocol/blockchain/codebase doesn't even care about Bitcoins.  Everthing is recorded in integers as satoshis.  Everything else is just human concepts because humans don't work well with very large numbers.

Yes, nobody can force anybody to do anything. I know. But there is some kind of influence I think from certain entities. As you said humans can not work well with large numbers, also they can not work well with numbers like this 0.032434. That's why probably some solution should be proposed.
Here we are talking about the average users. We are OK with such numbers because we understand the nature of Bitcoin well enough, but the average user does not understand it quite good.
You see how many Crypto currencies appearing every single day like mushrooms after rain. This is big distraction. If we really want to see Bitcoin mainstream, we should concentrate the attention on one Crypto currency and make it easier to purchase. If somebody is thinking. "Hmm what to buy with my $100, 4 Litecoins, 20  PPC, 14 NMC or 100 mBTC" I think he will choose to buy the BTC. Just because it looks like all the others are just worthless copies and the real thing is BTC. But if it is 0.1 BTC then is different.

I just dont like the other crypto currencies because they are copies and their creators are just trying to get rich fast from them. I also don't mind to make some money from Bitcoin, but I like also the idea behind it and I want Bitcoin to be successful and to take full attention from the public in order to go really mainstream.
Now is the time for some good PR and marketing. Maybe some official campaign created by the community like YouTube videos, e-books, webinars to educate the people about Bitcoin, how to buy it. What to do with it. Because now we have some media attention but it is too random and there is some ridiculous statements from influential people all over the world and people are listening to those so called "experts" and following their opinions. Somebody can say "See, Bitcoin is a good but.... blah blah blah" and distract the people's attention from what Bitcoin really is. You know what I mean? There should be official materials about Bitcoin written in understandable language and those materials will be shared all over the internet and quoted by the media, if the materials are made in the right way. Set of Videos, an e-book written in understandable language (not the Satoshi paper, which is great, but give to 100 people to read it. How many of them will understand it?) also some tutorials how to purchase them and how to send them. Those things will then go viral.

Georgio

[BitcoinBarrel]

I personally don't like mBTC or uBTC and prefer to see exactly how much it costs like .001 BTC. When you use 1 mBTC people have no idea what that means or have to add it up in their head. People that are new definitely aren't going to understand.

[p2pbucks]

Yes , at least people should know they can buy fractions .
i am pushing mBTC in Chinese BTC community now .

http://p2pbucks.com/?p=9519 and http://weibo.com/p2pbucks

Hope exchanges like BTCC and okcoin will accept this idea !

[altoz]

The people on this thread arguing that we shouldn't change over have the same delusion as mainstream economists. They think people are perfectly rational. That is, people act as perfectly rational economic actors that realize 1 BTC = 1000 mBTC and hence a change like that won't matter.

If you study behavioral economics at all, however, you know that people are not perfectly rational. In fact, they're very often irrational. This is why people complain about how expensive bitcoin is. This is why altcoins have been going up relative to bitcoins as more investors come in. .03 BTC sounds like a miniscule amount. 30 mBTC does not and a lot of people make economic decisions based on how something "sounds" than how something IS.

That is why we need this change to mBTC. The whole argument that there is no need for a silver to bitcoin's gold comes from divisibility. It's a largely useless divisibility with BTC because people don't transact in numbers that small. Rationally, .003 BTC is the same as 3 mBTC and both buy about a cup of coffee. The former is simply too difficult to relate to while the latter is easy. It's not easy to grasp the difference between .0003 BTC (30 cents) and .003 (3 dollars). That sort of distinction is obviously huge for commerce as that sort of denomination is much easier to scale relatively.

Yes, eventually, we'll have to get to uBTC and possibly even Satoshis. But changing over the pricing structure isn't a bad thing. It's meant to HELP people to relate prices better. This is why it's important and this is why every exchange and store needs to rethink how they label bitcoin prices.

[maximian]

The people on this thread arguing that we shouldn't change over have the same delusion as mainstream economists. They think people are perfectly rational. That is, people act as perfectly rational economic actors that realize 1 BTC = 1000 mBTC and hence a change like that won't matter.

If you study behavioral economics at all, however, you know that people are not perfectly rational. In fact, they're very often irrational. This is why people complain about how expensive bitcoin is. This is why altcoins have been going up relative to bitcoins as more investors come in. .03 BTC sounds like a miniscule amount. 30 mBTC does not and a lot of people make economic decisions based on how something "sounds" than how something IS.

That is why we need this change to mBTC. The whole argument that there is no need for a silver to bitcoin's gold comes from divisibility. It's a largely useless divisibility with BTC because people don't transact in numbers that small. Rationally, .003 BTC is the same as 3 mBTC and both buy about a cup of coffee. The former is simply too difficult to relate to while the latter is easy. It's not easy to grasp the difference between .0003 BTC (30 cents) and .003 (3 dollars). That sort of distinction is obviously huge for commerce as that sort of denomination is much easier to scale relatively.

Yes, eventually, we'll have to get to uBTC and possibly even Satoshis. But changing over the pricing structure isn't a bad thing. It's meant to HELP people to relate prices better. This is why it's important and this is why every exchange and store needs to rethink how they label bitcoin prices.

+1

Perception is everything, and right now the average newcomer thinks Bitcoin is "too expensive". It's stupid, it doesn't make any sense, but there it is.

Bitcoinity is working on making mBTC the default display unit, but what about other large services like Mt. Gox or Bitstamp? Does anyone know if they have a stance on the issue?