There is 20 times as much mBTC as there is currency in EU circulation

[sverre]

Just some interesting math: the possible range of BTC values is between 0.00000001 to 21,000,000 (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/PHP_developer_intro#Precision).

In theory if BTC becomes popular enough (and thus increasingly valuable, thanks to a fixed maximum) it will be traded in uBTC (0.000001), so people would treat uBTC as "dollars", and that still leaves two decimal places for cents, i.e. you'd be buying things for 123.45 uBTC. In uBTC, with the maximum value of 21,000,000BTC, there's an in-built currency limit of

21,000,000,000,000.00 uBTC.

By comparison, there is currently 1035.2 billion USD in circulation in the EU (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circulation_(currency) ), which is:

1,035,200,000,000.00 USD

So if necessary there is 20 times more uBTC than there is money currently in circulation in the EU.

EDIT - changed mBTC to uBTC

[Nefario]

I think the only issue for a deflationary currency with regards this topic is how divisible it is, currently as far as I understand we're using 64bit integers, if that level of divisibility is not enough in the future we could always move to 128bit integers 

[sverre]

Even with 64-bit integers you have 20 decimal digits to play with, and the current implementation only uses 16 (8 digits before the decimal, 8 digits after), so the .01 uBTC precision limit must be a design decision not a datatype limitation.

[Nefario]

Even with 64-bit integers you have 20 decimal digits to play with, and the current implementation only uses 16 (8 digits before the decimal, 8 digits after), so the .01 uBTC precision limit must be a design decision not a datatype limitation.

Well then, I guess we will have to wait until everyone on the entire planet is using bitcoins before we really have to worry much about anything like this.

[Jered Kenna (TradeHill)]

Even with 64-bit integers you have 20 decimal digits to play with, and the current implementation only uses 16 (8 digits before the decimal, 8 digits after), so the .01 uBTC precision limit must be a design decision not a datatype limitation.

Well then, I guess we will have to wait until everyone on the entire planet is using bitcoins before we really have to worry much about anything like this.

If it gets to that point I'd be sad and surprised if everyone on this board doesn't have more $$$ than they know what to do with.
It would be nice though. Look back at the .05btc you got from the faucet and think about it as $10,000USD

[PLATO]

Also don't forget that when multiple banks each have fifty trillion dollars of derivatives on their balance sheets, it's basically monopoly money