Bitcoin needs something equivalent to a stock split

[jonald_fyookball]

4. millieBTC is too short sighted (will work for a year or two?) and does not solve the banking problem, so it is not a long term solution.

We should be so lucky

[1715102853]

1715102853

[amspir]

i think that it is worth thinking about this from the accounting perspective.
as jeff garzik pointed on github, banks have software (that they are not going to change, possibly EVER) that allows ONLY for two decimals.

I'm just not seeing that a bank-like institution continuing to use ancient Cobol software that was last updated in 1999 to prepare for Y2K for bitcoins.

[Dr.Zaius]

Such a thing could be implemented, but I can't see it being accepted by a majority of peer nodes. My opinion is that we should not monkey with the code to accommodate human nature. If someone can't get their head around the fact that price is irrelevant then they should trade beenie babies instead.

But isn't worldwide acceptance the ultimate goal? Don't we want total saturation? If this is to be accomplished, then the protocol has to be presented in a way that is easier to digest for the average non-tech person.

Trying to explain to my wife that there are 100million satoshis in a Bitcoin. And that you can buy and send .001 bitcoin, which we are now calling a millibit is a disaster.

No. Why would worldwide acceptance be the ultimate goal? Adoption does not drive the price, contrary to the belief of tards on this forum. People who need the utility that bitcoin offers will use it. It is an example of Hayek's spontaneous emergence. Bitcoin does not need you hawking it to your wife. She has no use for it regardless.

The average person has no need for bitcoin , nor do they care about it, nor should they be told about it. Average people ruin things. When average people joined the internet what happened? It turned into a huge cesspool. When average people obtained automobiles traffic jams occured. When average people were given the right to vote, nation's collapsed. You get the picture.

[amspir]

The average person has no need for bitcoin , nor do they care about it, nor should they be told about it. Average people ruin things. When average people joined the internet what happened? It turned into a huge cesspool. When average people obtained automobiles traffic jams occured. When average people were given the right to vote, nation's collapsed. You get the picture.

That's a rather dim view of your fellow humans.   For bitcoin to have value and to work like a currency rather than a volatile commodity, it needs to have a larger user base to provide inertia.   

When I can walk to my corner store and buy a pack of smokes and a can of Monster with bitcoin, I'm going to be really happy.

If you want a secret cryptocoin, use one of the other bitcoin imitators with a silly name that no average person has heard about or will ever hear about.  You and your friends can trade them for Magic the Gathering cards, or whatever you're into.

[jabo38]

Everyone could just agree that after a certain block in the future, like 6 months away, some decimal points were changed and some zeros added to the back end. Codes could be written into clients and the penalty for people not updating is only that they have higher transactions fees by the same order of magnitude of the switch in decimal points. It's important to add some zeros on the back end though.

[gojomo]

A benefit of contriving a new term (like zibcoin/zib/ZBC/Ƶ) is that it can be used in parallel with other terms, giving time for the new term to gradually be understood and prove its worth, and always leaving the old terms understandable (in current work and archived content).

Big agreement up front isn't required, and there's no risky 'big bang' switchover date splitting software or historical records into two disjoint eras.

Instead, people just choose to use new terms incrementally more-and-more as they see the need – perhaps in reaction to either Bitcoin value-appreciation, or problems when spelling/saying other terms. Others gradually become familiar over repeated viewings, learning from context (or looking it up when first confronted).

[Crindon]

I don't see how this is entirely feasible unless we are talking like changing the units to mBTC.

Now, we have just <21,000,000,000 mBTC that will potentially be available.

[gojomo]

I don't see how this is entirely feasible unless we are talking like changing the units to mBTC.

Now, we have just <21,000,000,000 mBTC that will potentially be available.

Not sure which prior post you're referring to, but all of these proposed changes are technically feasible (if critical mass of term-usage is achieved). No matter what units are chosen for human use, interfaces, and integration with other systems – the core protocol/system always works on integral satoshis. All of the following tallies are identical, and represented the same in the binary protocol and canonical data structures:

  21 million BTC
= 21 billion mBTC/"millibitcoin"
= 21 trillion µBTC/"microbitcoin"
= 210 trillion satoshis

Working up from a zib=µBTC unit instead, again all these can be used interchangably without really changing the atomic units of the system:

  210 trillion satoshis/cZBC/"centizib"/"cents"
= 21 trillion ZBC/"zib" (aka µBTC)
= 21 billion kZBC/kƵ/"kilozib" (aka mBTC)
= 21 million MZBC/MƵ/"megazib" (aka BTC)

For completeness, you can also think about units that exist but are so large they'd rarely be useful...

  210 trillion satoshis
= 21 thousand GZBC/GƵ/"gigazib" (aka kBTC/"kilobitcoin")
= 21 TZBC/TƵ/"terazib" (aka MBTC/"megabitcoin")

...as in, "Some estimate that Satoshi himself may own around 1 megabitcoin (1 MBTC)", or "Mt. Gox misplaced 850 kilobitcoin (850 kBTC)".

Since people easily understand large numbers, especially when rarely used, it's far more likely to emphasize the unique size of these numbers by using the smaller units:

"Some estimate that Satoshi himself may own around 1 million bitcoin" or "...1 trillion zib".

"MtGox misplaced 850 thousand bitcoin" or "... 850 billion zib".