Time for the Exchanges to change the default trade unit to mBTC?

[LarryLiu]

Given the current price range of a single Bitcoin, wouldn't it make sense to lower the default trade unit to milibtc (.001btc) on exchanges? I believe it will be a simple change that potentially could make a huge difference. Not sure what the impact on the network this could have though. Any thoughts?

[DannyHamilton]

Given the current price range of a single Bitcoin, wouldn't it make sense to lower the default trade unit to milibtc (.001btc) on exchanges?

Sure, but why are you bothering to say so here?  Wouldn't make more sense to tell the actual exchanges what you'd like them to do?

Any thoughts?

Create an account at an exchange.

Get verified.

Contact support and explain that you'd prefer the option to see exchange rates in mBTC.

If enough people do those three things, the exchanges will succumb to consumer pressure.

[LarryLiu]

Do you seriously believe customer support at exchanges get to decide on this? I raised the question here since I felt the common trade unit should be an industry practice and this site is where the great minds of the industry meet. I'm also not advocating the change until all potential implications to Bitcoin, both the positive ones and the negative ones are thoroughly debated. For instances, we don't know what the impact on the block size and network bandwidth will be, and how the exchanges themselves will value the cost/benefits from changes like this. Of course, there others probably will argue "ounce" has been the basic trading unit for gold for ages despite its price increase throughout the years.

[DannyHamilton]

Do you seriously believe customer support at exchanges get to decide on this?

No, but they have the ability to express the concerns of the users to those who do make the decisions.

I raised the question here since I felt the common trade unit should be an industry practice and this site is where the great minds of the industry meet.

Bitcoin is voluntary.  Nobody is going to force anyone to call the unit anything.  Merchants and service providers will change if the consumers demand it.

I'm also not advocating the change until all potential implications to Bitcoin, both the positive ones and the negative ones are thoroughly debated. For instances, we don't know what the impact on the block size and network bandwidth will be

How is changing the name that users use to describe their units going to affect blocksize and network bandwidth? You do understand that there is no such thing as a "bitcoin" in the protocol, right?  Everything is handled as integers with satoshi values.  No decimals at all.

and how the exchanges themselves will value the cost/benefits from changes like this.

Free market competition.  If consumers prefer it, then they will tend to prefer the exchanges that offer it.  Other exchanges will have to add the feature to remain competitive.

[Squeaker]

There already is a common trade unit that is an industry practice.

1 BTC. (or 1 Satoshi, if you prefer to look at it that way)

Exchanges (and retailers) that wish to denominate their prices in mBTC are free to do so whenever they want to (tho I would hope they make it optional on a per-user basis, as I would rather stay with BTC as the base unit instead of mBTC for simplicity)

As for the impact on the block size and network bandwidth? Zero impact. All you're doing is shifting a decimal place for your own preference, which has no impact whatsoever on the blockchain/protocol itself.

Nothing is happening with the prices that haven't been forseen a long time ago, no need to change anything on that level.

Your issue is best handled by the exchanges and retailers directly, for how to present prices to their customers.

[LarryLiu]

I was concerned about the potential increase of the trade volume in small and tiny transactions on the network. While such change may help to promote broader customer sign-ups at exchanges I anticipate this will cause a makeup shift in the blockchain composition going forward, if more transactions are carried out at the mBTC level. I could be wrong, but someone with a better understanding of how the blockchained transactions work can shed some light on it.

[Squeaker]

I was concerned about the potential increase of the trade volume in small and tiny transactions on the network. While such change may help to promote broader customer sign-ups at exchanges I anticipate this will cause a makeup shift in the blockchain composition going forward, if more transactions are carried out at the mBTC level. I could be wrong, but someone with a better understanding of how the blockchained transactions work can shed some light on it.

It won't have any impact on the blockchain at all. Regardless of if you see BTC or mBTC or uBTC or Satoshi, as your base unit of measurement, all of those concepts are solely for the benefit of the user. The blockchain doesn't distinguish between them, and if the amount is 1.0, or 662813.88271, it still takes up the same number of bits/bytes to represent the number in binary form.

The volume of transactions increasing would have an impact on the blockchain, but that is a known issue we've already been experiencing for several years now. There is already a mechanism in place for prioritizing those.

No offense intended, but you clearly have no understanding of how the blockchain actually works, so please, if you wish to put forth ideas of how to make it better, do yourself a favor and learn about what it actually is, and how it works, first.

[Morryn]

some people are using btm now = 0.001

[twizzla]

many exchanges have been doing this. i even saw it on blockchain.info today. bitcoin-qt has always had the option. i cant wait until it is displayed in ubtc

[LarryLiu]

I was concerned about the potential increase of the trade volume in small and tiny transactions on the network. While such change may help to promote broader customer sign-ups at exchanges I anticipate this will cause a makeup shift in the blockchain composition going forward, if more transactions are carried out at the mBTC level. I could be wrong, but someone with a better understanding of how the blockchained transactions work can shed some light on it.

It won't have any impact on the blockchain at all. Regardless of if you see BTC or mBTC or uBTC or Satoshi, as your base unit of measurement, all of those concepts are solely for the benefit of the user. The blockchain doesn't distinguish between them, and if the amount is 1.0, or 662813.88271, it still takes up the same number of bits/bytes to represent the number in binary form.

The volume of transactions increasing would have an impact on the blockchain, but that is a known issue we've already been experiencing for several years now. There is already a mechanism in place for prioritizing those.

No offense intended, but you clearly have no understanding of how the blockchain actually works, so please, if you wish to put forth ideas of how to make it better, do yourself a favor and learn about what it actually is, and how it works, first.

No, I'm not offended at all. This is how a healthy constructive dialog should be. I had attempted to decipher the inner workings of the blocks and transactions before but I must admit these things are little over the top of my head. So thank you for summing that up here.

[Squeaker]

No, I'm not offended at all. This is how a healthy constructive dialog should be. I had attempted to decipher the inner workings of the blocks and transactions before but I must admit these things are little over the top of my head. So thank you for summing that up here.

Good deal...

I know how easy it is to read in a bad attitude in the text we type. Was a little worried I'd come off as insulting even tho I didn't intend to be.

I believe that someone else (who has a better understanding of the specifics of the blockchain than I do) posted earlier that the blockchain just counts Satoshis (so the chain and client doesn't even have to deal with a floating point number, and just keeps integers, I assume...), so our clients, for our benefit convert it into a bigger number when it is displayed. So 1 Satoshi = 0.00000001 BTC.

Anyways, have a good one.

[beetcoin]

if BTC crashes to sub $500 any time soon, it'll be 50 cents per mBTC. it might be a bit premature to switch to mBTC at this point, since we don't know exactly what the bottom is.

[mvidetto]

if BTC crashes to sub $500 any time soon, it'll be 50 cents per mBTC. it might be a bit premature to switch to mBTC at this point, since we don't know exactly what the bottom is.

Exactly we need to hold 1-5k per BTC for atleast a month before we make the transition.

[LarryLiu]

if BTC crashes to sub $500 any time soon, it'll be 50 cents per mBTC.

I still think that's a better banner than $500/BTC to the business of the exchanges.