If Bitcoins catch on, will people get used to having so few?

[kiba]

Hmm. Informal names.

Bitcents, and Satoshis.

[Dorphern]

We could just use SI - mBTC, uBTC and nBTC, where the minimum is 10nBTC.

Yup, nice and simple idea :-)

[matonis]

The Japanese ¥en currently trades at $0.012190 to the dollar and people still use ¥ quite a bit.

In fact, when the ¥en was trading at 130 to the dollar in the good ol' days, it was 1¥ = $0.007692  (traders would just drop the first two zeros and trade it as 7692/7694).

[curator]

I propose "bitties" over "bitcents".  This way I can say "Fitty bitties to join my committees".

[MoonShadow]

Can 'we' really do this, just start yanking about with the numbers like maniac Bernanke's that have lost all sense of decorum?

If 'we' can suddenly decide to just shift the decimal point around, then I will sell what small amount of bitcoins I have and use the money to purchase a bottle of Żubrówka, then to lament long into the night for what might have been.

Shifting the decimal point does not create new coins, it only alters the representation of the coins in the client.  Every bitcoin is already divisible to 8 decimal places, shifting the decimal point over two places simply resulting is a trade unit that is accurate to 6 decimal places.  Everyone still has exactly the same measurement of value as they possessed before the shift.  The only effect is that it might be easier for people to understand.

[barbarousrelic]

The Japanese ¥en currently trades at $0.012190 to the dollar and people still use ¥ quite a bit.

In fact, when the ¥en was trading at 130 to the dollar in the good ol' days, it was 1¥ = $0.007692  (traders would just drop the first two zeros and trade it as 7692/7694).

That's the opposite situation. People have to deal in tens or hundreds of thousands of yen, not figures like .00006831


I suspect one of the reasons it's easier to deal with really large numbers than really small numbers is that we use commas (or periods for you Europeans) to make it easier to visually recognize the units.

$1,800,000 is easier to read than .0000018


edit: To further illustrate, it's far easier to tell the difference between $1,800,000 and $18,000,000  than it is to tell the difference between .0000018 and .000018

[matonis]

The Japanese ¥en currently trades at $0.012190 to the dollar and people still use ¥ quite a bit.

In fact, when the ¥en was trading at 130 to the dollar in the good ol' days, it was 1¥ = $0.007692  (traders would just drop the first two zeros and trade it as 7692/7694).

That's the opposite situation. People have to deal in tens or hundreds of thousands of yen, not figures like .00006831

Not true.  It's only the opposite situation if looking at it from the ¥en-to-Dollar perspective.  When you look at it from Dollar-to-¥en (or future BTC-to-Dollar) perspective, then one Dollar would equal .0070 BTC in future.  Exchange rates are always different sides of the same 'coin'. Just inverted.

[jon_smark]

I propose "bitties" over "bitcents".  This way I can say "Fitty bitties to join my committees".

"Bitties" is a nice name, though I would rather that 1 bitty = 1 milliBitcoin, and that the whole concept of "bitcent" be put to rest.

[curator]

"Bitties" is a nice name, though I would rather that 1 bitty = 1 milliBitcoin, and that the whole concept of "bitcent" be put to rest.

Nice!  I totally dig that.

[barbarousrelic]

The Japanese ¥en currently trades at $0.012190 to the dollar and people still use ¥ quite a bit.

In fact, when the ¥en was trading at 130 to the dollar in the good ol' days, it was 1¥ = $0.007692  (traders would just drop the first two zeros and trade it as 7692/7694).

That's the opposite situation. People have to deal in tens or hundreds of thousands of yen, not figures like .00006831

Not true.  It's only the opposite situation if looking at it from the ¥en-to-Dollar perspective.  When you look at it from Dollar-to-¥en (or future BTC-to-Dollar) perspective, then one Dollar would equal .0070 BTC in future.  Exchange rates are always different sides of the same 'coin'. Just inverted.

I don't think the awkwardness of the exchange rate to the USD is an issue. The issue is the awkwardness of prices people will be using when buying and selling goods and services.

[grondilu]

Ask Zimbabwean people if there are happy with huge numbers on their bills.

[barbarousrelic]

Ask Zimbabwean people if there are happy with huge numbers on their bills.

Their problem is that the number of zeroes keeps increasing, not that there are many to begin with.

And there's surely a happy medium between having $100,000,000,000,000 notes, and dealing with units of .00000001

[error]

As I've said before, the decimal place is too far to the left and should be moved.

As far as future proofing goes... Any change in the decimal representation would need to place it even farther left.

Your OTHER left!

[foo]

Hmm. Informal names.

Bitcents, and Satoshis.

Heh, I like that naming idea. Let's name the millibitcoin the Satoshi, and there's no need to move the decimal point. 1 Bitcoin would just be equal to 1000 Satoshis.

[Neereus]

I'm so use to Engineering Notation, when I first started and got my .05 BTC from the faucet, I thought, "Woohoo, 50 mBits!"

[spenvo]

I like "bitchange," it's got a nice ring to it.  |  If bitchange becomes the world's currency in 100 years, each coin will represent 1/22,500,000 of the world's entire circulation.  Not likely, but still a crazy thought.

[Dobry Den]

What happens in this sort of thing (in science, for example) is that the colloquial reference to the currency will be normalized so that trivial amounts can be expressed as though there were numbers to the left of the decimal.

For instance, .000001 BTC = 1 uBTC (microBTC). And often, the most common-use case can even replace the generic meaning of BTC. Lowercase "btc" could mean uBTC while "BTC" means formal .000001 BTC. Or alternative names are used altogether (as already discussed).

Convenient values usually displace formal values. Another example: "Calorie" vs "calorie" vs "kcal". Nutritional data chops off three orders of magnitude and still arbitrarily calls it a "calorie".

[db]

Convenient values usually displace formal values. Another example: "Calorie" vs "calorie" vs "kcal". Nutritional data chops off three orders of magnitude and still arbitrarily calls it a "calorie".

Now we have a golden opportunity to avoid such horrors (say "kcal" if you mean kcal but even if you do, always use kJ and MJ) by doing it right from the start. Calling a megagram a "tonne" is fine but calling it a "gram" is confusing. So is calling a millibitcoin or microbitcoin a "bitcoin".

[grondilu]

Calling a megagram a "tonne" is fine but calling it a "gram" is confusing. So is calling a millibitcoin or microbitcoin a "bitcoin".

Who on Earth has been silly enough to suggest that?

A bitcoin is a bitcoin, it's 21 000 times less than the total amount of the quantity that the sofware called bitcoin deals with.

I confess however that we miss a name for the "thing" that bitcoin measures.  "second" is a unit of time, "meter" is a unit of length, Octet is a unit of information data.   So, what "bitcoin" is the unit of?


I guess it's the unit of "Satoshi Nakamoto's crytocurrency".

[db]

I confess however that we miss a name for the "thing" that bitcoin measures.  "second" is a unit of time, "meter" is a unit of length, Octet is a unit of information data.   So, what "bitcoin" is the unit of?

A "bitcoin" is the unit of Bitcoin (Satoshi Nakamoto's cryptocurrency). Often we can just say "money".