WHY 21 MILLION BITCOIN CANNOT SERVE THE WHOLE WORLD

[deisik]

[snip]

I'd go for mBTC. Satoshi is having very low value now and I don't want it to become the unit in which the prices are denominated. But we need to create a name for mBTC, just like we have Satoshi. And we need to create a unique, short name. There have been proposals to rename mBTC as BitCent and BitPenny, but I don't like those names. Let's have something unique.

Guys why some of you are eager to change how we call bitcoin? Is really a big deal and an important thing to discussed with? Actually, for me, "bitcoin (btc)" was already okay enough. For me it doesn't really matter since converting of units are not so hard to do so

This is not the first time this question is raised

If you look through topics created 4-5 years ago, you will find quite a few suggesting to divide Bitcoin further (as if it could help its price), as well as discussing different names for different subunits of a whole bitcoin. Does it make any sense? I guess not much as the lowest sensible denomination would still be defined and determined by the amount of fees required to confirm a Bitcoin payment within a reasonable timeframe. And that, as of now, is about a few thousand satoshi, which turns the whole idea into an exercise in stupidity and futility

[1715468865]

1715468865

[1715468865]

1715468865

[1715468865]

1715468865

[o_e_l_e_o]

People want adoption, I mean real adoption, but they don't want to do anything to that effect themselves, i.e. to actually promote such adoption. If things were different, we would have already been there by now. But since we are not, that instantly sends us back to square one (read, no adoption of crypto as a full-fledged and self-sufficient means of payment)

Not having a complete bitcoin ecosystem for everyone in the country from salary through to buying groceries is not the same as being back at square one and having no adoption. Adoption is gradual and takes time. I've gone from never spending bitcoin to spending it at 1, and then 2, and then 3, and then more merchants. I can earn bitcoin without touching fiat, pay in bitcoin without touching fiat, and I know at least 2 of the merchants I use pay some of their staff (at least partly) in bitcoin. That seems pretty self-sufficient to me, and certainly isn't "square one" in terms of adoption.

Unfortunately I agree that the majority of people don't actually want to put in any effort. I've lost count of the number of times on this forum people have asked "where can I spend bitcoin", but have never actually approached a single merchant or vendor and asked to pay them in bitcoin. Create a demand for it, and merchants will start accepting it!

If I didn't have a fiat option, I would be forced to spend coins, of course (as I sometimes still do in the way described above), but other than that, it is the last thing that I would willingly do.

I love spending bitcoin. I love knowing that there isn't some faceless bank tracking everything I buy, and using it to build a profile of me (and probably handing that information over to the government). I love knowing that I'm never going to have a payment declined because my bank don't like what I'm buying, or have for some reason decided I'm not allowed to spend my own money how I want. I'll spend bitcoin wherever possible.

[deisik]

People want adoption, I mean real adoption, but they don't want to do anything to that effect themselves, i.e. to actually promote such adoption. If things were different, we would have already been there by now. But since we are not, that instantly sends us back to square one (read, no adoption of crypto as a full-fledged and self-sufficient means of payment)

Not having a complete bitcoin ecosystem for everyone in the country from salary through to buying groceries is not the same as being back at square one and having no adoption. Adoption is gradual and takes time. I've gone from never spending bitcoin to spending it at 1, and then 2, and then 3, and then more merchants. I can earn bitcoin without touching fiat, pay in bitcoin without touching fiat, and I know at least 2 of the merchants I use pay some of their staff (at least partly) in bitcoin. That seems pretty self-sufficient to me, and certainly isn't "square one" in terms of adoption

Okay, let's call it square two

Yeah, I know it is still better than none (or just one), but we still have 62 more to pass. The point is, one swallow doesn't make a summer (two swallows don't make it either, just in case). It is mass adoption that counts (the grand scheme of things, in your terms), and I don't see us moving in that direction, slowly or otherwise. Personally, I can go as far as to say that Bitcoin has failed as a means of payment, even though it doesn't mean that it failed in general as you can't seriously consider something worth 10k per unit a failure. In essence, that means Bitcoin is not to be spent, it is to be hoarded or used as a hedge (dealer's choice). This is the direction we are moving in

Unfortunately I agree that the majority of people don't actually want to put in any effort. I've lost count of the number of times on this forum people have asked "where can I spend bitcoin", but have never actually approached a single merchant or vendor and asked to pay them in bitcoin. Create a demand for it, and merchants will start accepting it!

See? I can definitely feel your pain

If I didn't have a fiat option, I would be forced to spend coins, of course (as I sometimes still do in the way described above), but other than that, it is the last thing that I would willingly do.

I love spending bitcoin. I love knowing that there isn't some faceless bank tracking everything I buy, and using it to build a profile of me (and probably handing that information over to the government). I love knowing that I'm never going to have a payment declined because my bank don't like what I'm buying, or have for some reason decided I'm not allowed to spend my own money how I want. I'll spend bitcoin wherever possible

I'm totally cool with that but for most of us it is just a welcome bonus of sorts. In other words, it is not something extremely important that our entire life depends on or turns around. Being able to cash out is, though

[davinchi]

Adoption of lightning network and how it works are totally different stuff.

The adoption might be low but at the same time it works the way it was suppose to work and I fully support the work put into it. Right now, we are talking about a system where you can send bitcoin for cents and considering its a billion dollar transaction community that is a big upgrade to what we have right now which is a lot of money sent.

You can still order your cup of coffee with couple cents on transaction fee but we can't never know how long it will take, maybe it will be 10 minutes, maybe it will be 6 hours, it all depends on how clogged the blockchain is at that moment. Hence lightning network is really a must in the future, it may take time but there are places that doesn't use segwit yet, so it will take a long time.

[o_e_l_e_o]

It is mass adoption that counts (the grand scheme of things, in your terms), and I don't see us moving in that direction, slowly or otherwise.

We are going to have to agree to disagree again. It's difficult to measure "adoption", but we can look at surrogate markers like number of unique addresses, number of transactions per day, hashrate, and so forth, all of which are on a relatively steady upward trend. There are sites which attempt to create lists of merchants which accept crypto, such as coinmap.org. Obviously, they will miss huge numbers of merchants, but even then, the number on that site is growing by around 50 a week.

I'm totally cool with that but for most of us it is just a welcome bonus of sorts.

At the moment, maybe it's just a bonus. But governments around the world are moving ever more strongly towards blanket surveillance and monitoring of the population. They already freeze accounts and seize the money of people who speak out against them or cause them too many headaches. Perhaps you might find that being in control of your own money becomes more attractive in the future.

[STT]

you can still divide satoshi in to smaller units called millisatoshi.

I think off chain we wont be using Bitcoin, we wont ever have purely one type of currency.    This system now is the peak of one currency type dominating the world, the only other system that has been as dominant as Dollar is gold and that was only indirectly by reference or exchange of each local currency unit being either fixed or varied rates in ratio to gold.
    People see this trend of one currency dominance since ww2 not peaking but increasing and continuing even while we transition to Bitcoin.  I'm going to say I'm quite certain nobody is going to dominate quite as much as Dollar did ever again, computers allow us to vary the world and with lower costs and better efficiency.  Diversification is the most likely turning point here not more of the same of the last 60 years.

1 bitcoin is equals to 100,000,000 satoshis, which means that the total satoshi that we have is 2100 thrillion satoshis.

So its alot, its a simple point but a good one even if you come to the wrong conclusion.   Again for the same point I said above, Bitcoin doesnt need to describe every value in every country of the world.   BTC is transactional, it only really needs to serve its purpose as conveying value online securely and for that moment in time and its done a stellar job of maintaining that standard even if the value has varied considerably.

We dont need Bitcoin to replace the store of value in a banks vaults not even virtually do we need it to do that job.   There is always going to be dozens of asset types with various characteristics.   It wont always be decentralised just like we are still using websites now, there will be places that contain and describe value locally.



I'll post this up because its ancient and its been a fair reflection of varied asset value for a while, I think its going to keep being true in future.     The price might be $ on this chart but the asset itself is the value really, there is no notes attached.  The $ in this case just helps to clarify value for comparison, in great many cases it never goes near to being a cash transaction.
     I think we have a common misunderstanding of accounting perhaps, not really a Bitcoin problem as gold is also accused of not being sufficient to describe cash transactions.  The value of gold will rise surely in greater usage and also people will never be hauling round gold bars, Bitcoin being easier to transact doesnt I think make it any more likely in that way.

[bryant.coleman]

This is not the first time this question is raised

If you look through topics created 4-5 years ago, you will find quite a few suggesting to divide Bitcoin further (as if it could help its price), as well as discussing different names for different subunits of a whole bitcoin. Does it make any sense? I guess not much as the lowest sensible denomination would still be defined and determined by the amount of fees required to confirm a Bitcoin payment within a reasonable timeframe. And that, as of now, is about a few thousand satoshi, which turns the whole idea into an exercise in stupidity and futility

The question is being raised again and again, because Bitcoin is having a disadvantage with both its name and its sub-units. First let's take the name. The "coin" part gives an impression that it can't be further subdivided, when in reality nothing can be farther from the truth. Especially the newer users are getting confused by this name.

Now coming to the units, one Bitcoin is being subdivided in to 100 million Satoshis. There is nothing in between. mBTC is an informal unit, and it doesn't have a name of its own. A few names were suggested for mBTC, but there was no consensus. And we need smaller units badly now, as the exchange rates have surged past the $10,000 per coin level. Even mBTC may be too big for practical purposes now.

[deisik]

It is mass adoption that counts (the grand scheme of things, in your terms), and I don't see us moving in that direction, slowly or otherwise.

We are going to have to agree to disagree again. It's difficult to measure "adoption", but we can look at surrogate markers like number of unique addresses, number of transactions per day, hashrate, and so forth, all of which are on a relatively steady upward trend

They may well be

So I have to take your word for it as I don't know if they really do. Regardless, do these markers really show the expansion in adoption? All of them can as well point in the opposite direction unless we agree adoption equals speculation. If not, all these numbers rising can be easily attributed to speculation expanding, which you should in fact expect given the half-year Bitcoin rally as of recent. You can't seriously ascribe the explosive growth from low 3k to high 13k within just a few months to adoption spreading like weed. Most certainly, what we see is the same old-school speculation at work here

There are sites which attempt to create lists of merchants which accept crypto, such as coinmap.org. Obviously, they will miss huge numbers of merchants, but even then, the number on that site is growing by around 50 a week

And here we go again (one more time)

How many of these merchants are in fact accepting crypto? If next to none, then this is not adoption. Well, we could indeed consider it half-adoption (for the lack of a better term) if people were actually paying with crypto there (as this is still a good start anyway). But we don't know that. Just adding the payment option is quasi-adoption at best. You can call it a required condition or prerequisite for future adoption but that in itself doesn't guarantee it just like Lighting Network doesn't guarantee it either

I'm totally cool with that but for most of us it is just a welcome bonus of sorts.

At the moment, maybe it's just a bonus. But governments around the world are moving ever more strongly towards blanket surveillance and monitoring of the population. They already freeze accounts and seize the money of people who speak out against them or cause them too many headaches. Perhaps you might find that being in control of your own money becomes more attractive in the future

Personally, I'm already in that future but it doesn't magically turn Bitcoin into a means of payment. There is a huge distance (and difference) between that and using Bitcoin as a store of value or a hedge (but I repeat myself)

[o_e_l_e_o]

You can't seriously ascribe the explosive growth from low 3k to high 13k within just a few months to adoption spreading like weed.

I agree with you there. The recent bull run was purely speculative, much like the big 2017 bull run. I would actually much prefer these bull runs not to happen, and just see a much slower but steadier and sustained price rise over several years, which would be based on growing adoption as opposed to pure speculation. These huge runs and crashes usually end in a bunch of a newbies losing a ton of money and rage-quitting bitcoin altogether.

How many of these merchants are in fact accepting crypto?

Impossible to say. As I mentioned above, 2 merchants I use are accepting crypto directly without a payment processor, and are using some of that bitcoin to pay some of their staff's wages. I accept merchants are like this are in the minority, but they do exist, and both of these merchants only started doing this in the last year.

Yes, we have a long way to go, but I do think we are heading in the right direction.

[deisik]

You can't seriously ascribe the explosive growth from low 3k to high 13k within just a few months to adoption spreading like weed.

I agree with you there. The recent bull run was purely speculative, much like the big 2017 bull run. I would actually much prefer these bull runs not to happen, and just see a much slower but steadier and sustained price rise over several years, which would be based on growing adoption as opposed to pure speculation. These huge runs and crashes usually end in a bunch of a newbies losing a ton of money and rage-quitting bitcoin altogether

So there is no reason to disagree?

Okay then. Anyway, it is a vicious circle of sorts, in fact, it is even a double vicious circle. It is kinda self-explanatory that merchants are not inclined to accept a highly volatile currency as a means of payment but prices won't become stable unless and until speculation is massively subdued and overshadowed by adoption, i.e. when most coins are used for buying and selling goods. But there is another circle of vice which is less apparent but that doesn't make it less ugly. In fact, it makes the first circle far worse as it just adds more injury to injury

The second circle is, volatile prices discourage people from spending their coins as it makes no sense from an economic perspective. What makes sense, though, is relentless speculation by riding volatility waves. Obviously, most coins end up on exchanges, not in the wallets of merchants. This, in turn, means merchants are disincentivized further from accepting crypto as payment since there is no demand for such payments from the buyers. So the coins end up being speculated, not circulated, which adds more fuel to the furnace of volatility. This closes the vicious circle

Yes, we have a long way to go, but I do think we are heading in the right direction

Just like you can't force love, you can't force people to spend their bitcoins in a "productive" way. Economically, you would be better off exchanging bitcoins to fiat, then spending some part of the money and buying back if prices drop or exchange more if prices soar (and then buy back when the prices finally drop). You simply can't beat that, and no amount of proselytizing is going to change this simple reality

Now coming to the units, one Bitcoin is being subdivided in to 100 million Satoshis. There is nothing in between. mBTC is an informal unit, and it doesn't have a name of its own. A few names were suggested for mBTC, but there was no consensus. And we need smaller units badly now, as the exchange rates have surged past the $10,000 per coin level. Even mBTC may be too big for practical purposes now

Personally, I don't feel like we need these subunits as anything less than a few thousand satoshi (otherwise known as dust) is not collectible anyway

[Alert31]

How can you say that 21 Million bitcoin is not enough? It will circulate in blochchain system through buy and sell. And because of limited supply with higher demand,the value of bitcoin will keep on increasing as the time goes by. So, we don,t need to worry that the 21 Million bitcoin cannot serve the whole world because it is more than enough. The value is very important and I think Satoshi who made it know it already that's why he created bitcoin in a limited supply.

[bryant.coleman]

Now coming to the units, one Bitcoin is being subdivided in to 100 million Satoshis. There is nothing in between. mBTC is an informal unit, and it doesn't have a name of its own. A few names were suggested for mBTC, but there was no consensus. And we need smaller units badly now, as the exchange rates have surged past the $10,000 per coin level. Even mBTC may be too big for practical purposes now

Personally, I don't feel like we need these subunits as anything less than a few thousand satoshi (otherwise known as dust) is not collectible anyway

Well.. I was saying that we don't need finer subunits, but we need coarser ones. Right now the transaction fee is in the vicinity of BTC0.0001, so I agree that amounts lower than that are not practical to collect. What I was saying was, suppose if we want to pay for coffee at Barista, then the bill may come to BTC0.0005 or something like that. It is not very convenient to use so many decimal places. If we use mBTC instead of BTC, then it will come to 0.5 mBTC, which is more easier to calculate.

But as I pointed out, mBTC is not a formal sub-unit for Bitcoin and it doesn't have an official name. And suggestions such as mBits and Bitfraction doesn't sound good. We need some unique name for mBTC. Since Satoshi is already taken, I would suggest "Theymos".

1 Bitcoin = 1,000 Theymos = 100,000,000 Satoshi

[rose9696]

But how can bitcoin make one smaller coin while it is unregulated?
The satoshi unit is only a unit of calculation but it is completely impossible to convert to money. This is a big obstacle.

[Janation]

Let's hope Bitcoin will make them process these transactions faster

Yes, and mass adoption of crypto everywhere will help to do it faster then now.

Why mass adoption?

The reason why the transaction is getting slower is that a lot of cryptocurrencies are being transacted all over the internet. With the mass adoption and the blockchain not ready for millions and millions of transactions will not help, it will just increase the problem though I don't think that is the problem today since it is already improved in the past year.

[deisik]

Now coming to the units, one Bitcoin is being subdivided in to 100 million Satoshis. There is nothing in between. mBTC is an informal unit, and it doesn't have a name of its own. A few names were suggested for mBTC, but there was no consensus. And we need smaller units badly now, as the exchange rates have surged past the $10,000 per coin level. Even mBTC may be too big for practical purposes now

Personally, I don't feel like we need these subunits as anything less than a few thousand satoshi (otherwise known as dust) is not collectible anyway

Well.. I was saying that we don't need finer subunits, but we need coarser ones. Right now the transaction fee is in the vicinity of BTC0.0001, so I agree that amounts lower than that are not practical to collect. What I was saying was, suppose if we want to pay for coffee at Barista, then the bill may come to BTC0.0005 or something like that. It is not very convenient to use so many decimal places. If we use mBTC instead of BTC, then it will come to 0.5 mBTC, which is more easier to calculate

This will only add to confusion

Right now paying for a cup of coffee with Bitcoin is not worth it as you will have to pay insane fees which would be quite comparable to the price of that coffee (if not exceed it). But if Lightning Network gets widespread adoption in this field (and Bitcoin price multiplies), then a few dozen satoshi should be a common price for such things. Thus there is no need for these subunits. They will only confuse people

1 Bitcoin = 1,000 Theymos = 100,000,000 Satoshi

Theymos may not be happy at all. If anything, 1000 bitcoins should be equal to 1 theymos

[barbara44]

Theymos should definitely not be involved in this, he is the owner of the biggest bitcoin related forum in the world I will give him that but people already gave too much money to him to make this website better which I am afraid not gonna happen anytime soon so maybe we should name it something more technical instead of emotional. Mbit is not that because it is easy to say and it may not be formal like satoshi but we can just make it formal by collectively call it that and we actually do that right now.

So, putting up another name for something we have all already named in the past and have been using for years doesn't make any sense, we already figured that out years ago. However I would suggest making satoshi more known, like saying a thousand satoshi or 100 thousand satoshi should be more common.

[Daffadile]

The more diluted and the more people that buy and use and keep bitcoin the more it will be worth so therefore divisions of bitcoin will be worth more and you can now break bitcoin into smaller pieces and still keep the same value as if it were a whole bitcoin. If there are 10 people with bitcoin that is 0.10 btc each if there is only 1 person with bitcoin it is 1 btc. This is not realistic though since it is not taking into account supply and demand and movement or dilution or attraction of the currency but it is more the theory that counts I think.

[bryant.coleman]

This will only add to confusion

Right now paying for a cup of coffee with Bitcoin is not worth it as you will have to pay insane fees which would be quite comparable to the price of that coffee (if not exceed it). But if Lightning Network gets widespread adoption in this field (and Bitcoin price multiplies), then a few dozen satoshi should be a common price for such things. Thus there is no need for these subunits. They will only confuse people

1 Bitcoin = 1,000 Theymos = 100,000,000 Satoshi

Theymos may not be happy at all. If anything, 1000 bitcoins should be equal to 1 theymos

Yes... fee is a big concern. I still remember the transactions from December 2017, when I was forced to pay almost $50 as the transaction fee. I had the misfortune of doing quite a few transactions when the tx fee was at its peak. Imagine paying for a cup of coffee with Bitcoin at that time. If the coffee costs $3, you need to pay a total of $53 (including the transaction fee) and then wait for 1-2 hours to get the transaction confirmed.

If you keep the prices in Satoshi, then a cup of coffee having a price of $3 (BTC0.0003) would be priced as 30,000 Satoshis. A pizza can cost a few hundred thousand Satoshis. It is still convenient to use Satoshis than Bitcoin (with 4 decimal places). Perhaps you are right. We should stick to Satoshi instead of mBTC.

BTW, Theymos should be happy. Under the current plan, 1 Theymos = 100,000 Satoshi.  

[deisik]

If you keep the prices in Satoshi, then a cup of coffee having a price of $3 (BTC0.0003) would be priced as 30,000 Satoshis. A pizza can cost a few hundred thousand Satoshis. It is still convenient to use Satoshis than Bitcoin (with 4 decimal places). Perhaps you are right. We should stick to Satoshi instead of mBTC

Yeah, satoshi seem to be perfectly fine with me

If Satoshi comes to town, I mean Bitcoin becomes so widespread that you can actually go out and buy a cup of coffee with it just like you do with your dollar (euro or whatever) in every place and at every corner, the Bitcoin price should already be in the many millions (dollars or whatever). So you would in fact be able to drop by and buy a cup of coffee literally for a few satoshi (and then we may start to discuss satoshi subunits)

BTW, Theymos should be happy. Under the current plan, 1 Theymos = 100,000 Satoshi

You'd better ask him first

[guoyu78]

But how can bitcoin make one smaller coin while it is unregulated?
The satoshi unit is only a unit of calculation but it is completely impossible to convert to money. This is a big obstacle.

You are seeing it as difficulty because you are still tying it to fiat and you are thinking the equivalent of what it would be in fiat, bitcoin is a currency on its own and it is meant to be spent as currency, I mean if you are buy a milk for 10 satoshi, you pay 10 satoshi without having to think of converting it to fiat, but when you want to start converting fiat to it or vice versa is where it becomes problem.

You have not seen the real currency usefulness of it because we still don’t have many merchants that are accepting it, if they were accepting, you would have seen many people actually spending bitcoin as though they are spending fiat to purchase things on line and in grocery store. When you see people hoping for regulation, it is because bitcoin needs to be accepting and satoshi being a small unit will be spent.