[Ann] The Price in Sats

[thepriceinsats]

Hello, World!

With the price increasing and Bitcoin in the mainstream media, I dug out an old app idea and launched 'The Price In Sats (thepriceinsats.com)' - certainly not a new concept but I hope the website and the use of pricing everyday items in Sats will give people a usable gauge for how much something costs like a bottle of coke, steak or even a pizza.

It's a quick app and needs tonnes of more items, but I hope you'll check it out.

[thepriceinsats]

Hi, welcome to bitcointalk

While i've seen similar website like this, it's neat idea to obtain actual grocery price (since most website usually hard-coded average price).

Thanks, yeah it only has 50 items so far and it's all from Tesco, so I do need to add a few hundred more items, look at some other sites and currency conversions for localisations but I did want people to start trying to price in items in Sats and get comfortable with the amounts.

[dkbit98]

Good idea but I think it would be much better if there was some browser extension or script doing this instead of website, so for example if I go to Amazon or Ebay or any other website with prices I could see price in satoshi and/or BTC below or instead dollar price.
This could include all products found on internet and not just limited with Tesco products, and we can do this until everyone adds sats/btc values on their own
 

[~DefaultTrust]

Good idea but you need to include in the price the actual cost of the bitcoin transaction fee.
For example:
If I want to buy Coca Cola 1 Litre then I will pay £ 1.45 OR, as a minimum, 3872 SATs (the Coca Cola price) + 441496 SATs (the small fee for bitcoin miners)

The cost of mediation increases transaction costs, limiting the minimum practical transaction size and cutting off the possibility for small casual transactions

(Hi, satoshi!)

[TimtheYoutuber]

When I switched to USD and entered an amount it wouldn't convert.

[Evilish]

Oh man, you've done such a neat design job. Great work.

A couple observations.

I am not sure how reliable CoinGecko API is. Perhaps use an exchange like Coinbase/Gemini/Kraken to get the prices?

And would be wonderful if you could add some functionality to show shopping list prices in the currency selected on the Sats calculator. Perhaps not that trivial to do if both the components are isolated? But thought I'd throw the suggestion in.

[thepriceinsats]

Good idea but I think it would be much better if there was some browser extension or script doing this instead of website, so for example if I go to Amazon or Ebay or any other website with prices I could see price in satoshi and/or BTC below or instead dollar price.
This could include all products found on internet and not just limited with Tesco products, and we can do this until everyone adds sats/btc values on their own
 

Thanks, yes I had a similar comment to have an app that could scan a bar code and give the price in Sats. Who knows Bezos might announce his hand in the coming weeks and Amazon will be priced in Sats by default - global currency!

[thepriceinsats]

When I switched to USD and entered an amount it wouldn't convert.

Noted, I'll take a look into that - but could I ask when you entered an amount did you get this response "NaN" - this occurs when the site doesn't get pricing from CoinGecko. As mentioned be Evilish, might need to look at a different source such as an exchange.

I am not sure how reliable CoinGecko API is. Perhaps use an exchange like Coinbase/Gemini/Kraken to get the prices?

[TimtheYoutuber]

When I switched to USD and entered an amount it wouldn't convert.

Noted, I'll take a look into that - but could I ask when you entered an amount did you get this response "NaN" - this occurs when the site doesn't get pricing from CoinGecko. As mentioned be Evilish, might need to look at a different source such as an exchange.

I am not sure how reliable CoinGecko API is. Perhaps use an exchange like Coinbase/Gemini/Kraken to get the prices?

Ahh okay that's the problem then. I would use an average of some exchanges then.

[Jawhead999]

Great job!
I've seen a bunch sites about convert satoshi to fiat or any currency, but you've include the price on grocery store which is new initiative.

I'd agree with @~DefaultTrust but I don't know how possible it is, because fees is pretty vary on many kind of address format or custodial wallet with the current network.

When I switched to USD and entered an amount it wouldn't convert.

It works on me.

Or you referring to the "Sats shopping list"? then yes it's not convert, only in GBP price.

[thepriceinsats]

Or you referring to the "Sats shopping list"? then yes it's not convert, only in GBP price.

Thanks for the kind words, for now, the shopping list is just quoted in GBP, but it shouldn't be too difficult to get it working with all 5 currencies however it might need another price oracle.


By the way, if anyone wants to see a specific item appear and it can be found on https://www.tesco.com/groceries/ please send me the page URL and i'll get it added. Right now, its just a mixed shopping basket with some of the key influences Steak, Pizza & Sushi. I guess I'll need to add Cake!

[Porfirii]

Or you referring to the "Sats shopping list"? then yes it's not convert, only in GBP price.

Thanks for the kind words, for now, the shopping list is just quoted in GBP, but it shouldn't be too difficult to get it working with all 5 currencies however it might need another price oracle.


By the way, if anyone wants to see a specific item appear and it can be found on https://www.tesco.com/groceries/ please send me the page URL and i'll get it added. Right now, its just a mixed shopping basket with some of the key influences Steak, Pizza & Sushi. I guess I'll need to add Cake!

Hey! Welcome to the forum!

You are doing a great job and, most importantly, you are sharing it with the community.

Thank you very much, I am looking forward to see your progress.

[SFR10]

it only has 50 items so far and it's all from Tesco, so I do need to add a few hundred more items, look at some other sites

Not sure if Tesco offers BTCitcoin payments but if you could only add items from online groceries that offer such payment, then it'll surely improve its overall usage.
^{- I do know that there are various places that we could buy Tesco gift cards with BTCitcoin, but a direct approach is something else.}
You might want to add "categories" when you decide to include more items and maybe even a "dark mode" as well.
Any update with the API? It's still "NaN".
^{- Is that issue really from CoinGecko's side?}

[thepriceinsats]

it only has 50 items so far and it's all from Tesco, so I do need to add a few hundred more items, look at some other sites

Not sure if Tesco offers BTCitcoin payments but if you could only add items from online groceries that offer such payment, then it'll surely improve its overall usage.
^{- I do know that there are various places that we could buy Tesco gift cards with BTCitcoin, but a direct approach is something else.}
You might want to add "categories" when you decide to include more items and maybe even a "dark mode" as well.
Any update with the API? It's still "NaN".
^{- Is that issue really from CoinGecko's side?}

Thanks for all of the suggestions - I did take a look at the API, I wasn't happy with the documentation for Binance. Coinbase seem to be better but we all know of the outages they have. So I might take a look at Kraken as well.

If you do get a NaN, just refresh the page and you should get the pricing. It might be better for me to store the pricing in the DB and on serving if a live price isn't available I could serve the last copy.


Love the Dark mode idea!

[thepriceinsats]

Just an update:

Added/Fixed:

• Added a lot of new items to give greater searchability
• When an item returns a zero price from Tesco, it is removed from the list so there are no gaps
• Fixed SAT currency issue that went into decimal places when whole BTC entered
• Fixed decimal issue with GBP (was dropping the zero)
• Some general optimisations and seo work

Working On

• Change of API - Reading Binance, Kraken, CoinBase - might store price in DB to revert to 'old' if failure
• Randomizing of items on list to give unique view each visit
• Currency of items to match the currency on the Calculator

Ideas

• Dark Mode for the site
• A widget with the ability to scan an item and see the price in sats (or to autoload on shopping sites)
• Integration of shopping sites & items that accept BTC as payment
• Consider the fee it costs to do the transactions - Maybe a show with fees feature

I've also added a Twitter channel, feel free to follow https://twitter.com/in_sats

Thanks to the community for all of the assistance so far 

[Theb]

If you do get a NaN, just refresh the page and you should get the pricing. It might be better for me to store the pricing in the DB and on serving if a live price isn't available I could serve the last copy.

Good thing I saw your post before I reported that the pricing is not shown properly in the website however it did took me around 7 refreshes for the prices in your website to fully update.

Things that I like about your website
-It still shows the Bitcoin (in decimal) value together with the fiat and sat value which I truly appreciate since I am more used to this kind of valuation for Bitcoin
-If ever Satoshis will be more popular way of counting Bitcoin then your website will be the pioneer tool for it
-Another plus is you explained what Satoshis are which will make it easier for newbies to learn it

Room for improvement
I don't have the capabilities to do this one but I think your website/tool is more useful to become a browser extension where users will just turn it on and use the cursor to hover at the prices and let your tool calculate the value in sats/Bitcoin. For people who are into e-commerce websites and maybe resellers they might find this as a useful and more efficient tool compared to a website.

[menoiazei]

Hello, World!

With the price increasing and Bitcoin in the mainstream media, I dug out an old app idea and launched 'The Price In Sats (thepriceinsats.com)' - certainly not a new concept but I hope the website and the use of pricing everyday items in Sats will give people a usable gauge for how much something costs like a bottle of coke, steak or even a pizza.

It's a quick app and needs tonnes of more items, but I hope you'll check it out.

I try to think prices in sats all the time lol
find it Awesome project!!!
 maybe in the future be able to scan and convert product prices realtime with smartphone camera too!!!

[thepriceinsats]

Room for improvement
I don't have the capabilities to do this one but I think your website/tool is more useful to become a browser extension where users will just turn it on and use the cursor to hover at the prices and let your tool calculate the value in sats/Bitcoin. For people who are into e-commerce websites and maybe resellers they might find this as a useful and more efficient tool compared to a website.

Thanks for your comments and what you liked, I am trying to aim the website at new or early users of bitcoin, so it is good that you find it suitable for Newbies. Hopefully, by tomorrow or Thursday, I will have resolved my issue regarding NaN pricing. I have opted to store the last refreshed price in the database, this should ensure that regardless if a price is fetched from CoinGecko or not, the user will be served a price. As well, they allow 100 requests a minute which is generous for free. I noted a couple of others limited it to 10,000 a month and then charges.


Noted your 'Room for Improvement' - It seems a useful tool to have a browser extension, i'll need to look into it.

[thepriceinsats]

I try to think prices in sats all the time lol
find it Awesome project!!!
 maybe in the future be able to scan and convert product prices realtime with smartphone camera too!!!

Thanks for your kind words!! Well, I hope you keep an eye on the project as I make updates and my Pricing Mole!

[thepriceinsats]

Update - Fixes

Thanks for the comments so far, just a quick update with a few fixes and suggestions embedded

• Done some changes to the API for the SATs pricing. It seems to be better and I am no longer getting NaN
• Added the randomizing of items on the list to give a unique view each visit, stops you from seeing Coke and Bread each time.
• Added a dropdown menu above the Sats Shopping List to allow users to select a Fiat currency of the items to make it localised

Thats it for now, I've also begun promoting the prices on Twitter, example below: