an economic thought experiment

[franky1]

we should all know by now there is not 'btc' at code level.. the mining reward, transaction, data units were always in satoshi value.
yep thats right you will not find a single btc in the blockchain.nor any transaction. just an enormous amount of satoshis allocated to each utxo
btc is just a GUI / UX basket calculation made for human graphic visualisation . not a code/data fact

so imaging if 12 years ago it was not deemed as 50btc mined block reward.. but on the GUI/UX it was 5,000,000,000sat
and later they developed a basket term of bits 100sat. but never went to the basket of 50btc
so
in 2009: 50,000,000.00 per block
in 2012: 25,000,000.00 per block
in 2016: 12,500,000.00 per block
in 2020: 6,250,000.00 per block

with a 140 year cap of 21 trillion bits(21,000,000,000,000.00)

would people view the network as equally as 'scarce' or would they see the issuance of 50mill 'coins' every 10 minutes as not scarce. and thus not of as equal value

i just want to know other peoples feelings of how much less they would value the network if it wasnt for the user graphic interface calculations

would people in 2009 have deemed
50btc=$0.10c as good value with fee's as low as 0.00000300
or
50,000,000bits=$0.10c as good value with fees as low as 3bits

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[jackg]

I made a thread similar to this (it was on money being just an arbitrary number) and I'll link to extasies reply which I found interesting (they mentioned buying based on their salary): https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5244297.msg54320691#msg54320691

A trillion and a billion are really hard for most to conceptualise and I think this is a problem. Go back to 1950-1980 and tell them you can do 32 billion adds a second on the phone in your pocket and se how they react...

I think if we were measuring things in mbtcs, Satoshi's or bits on exchanges, people would be buying more - $50 feels cheap for a full unit of a currency (traditional uk/Roman pounds are worth around £320/it's just a pound of silver). Bits are 6 cents too so that'd feel even smaller..

Kröna in Sweden and Denmark are also worth about 1/5-1/10 of eur/gbp so the differences in spending habits based on psychology of values likely could've been studied somewhere.

[karmic_konquest]

Interesting observation. As the price of btc goes up and lightning network adoption increases, more and more people and services will actually start pricing in sats instead of btc or usd value.

Would be interesting to see how pricing in sats vs whole/decimal btc terms plays out on people buying and selling.

[Ucy]

I think I would simply judge this based on the total supply (whether in bits or sats,) and how much of the bits are rewarded to people compare to their total supply, if alot of numbers are rewarded to people compared to the numbers of supply, I would still view it scarce. So the reward has to be quite low (may 1 thousand 'coins' every 10 minutes Plus lots available supply)for me to consider it not scarce.

[wiss19]

I think if we were measuring things in mbtcs, Satoshi's or bits on exchanges, people would be buying more - $50 feels cheap for a full unit of a currency (traditional uk/Roman pounds are worth around £320/it's just a pound of silver). Bits are 6 cents too so that'd feel even smaller..

That I have been thinking for years.

It may be the time to switch to new smaller units to keep attracting investors through psychological way. Stocks are doing in the name of "splitting" (if a stock is valuing $2k then all holders will have 2x shares through the process of splitting but value will be reduced to $1k so new investors will show more interest).

There were lots of initiative to make smaller units to be made popular but I guess unless otherwise bitcoin foundation is not showing interest, nothing will go across all exchanges and to all bitcoiners across the globe.

[SirLancelot]

I think I would simply judge this based on the total supply (whether in bits or sats,) and how much of the bits are rewarded to people compare to their total supply, if alot of numbers are rewarded to people compared to the numbers of supply, I would still view it scarce.

But, when you are about to buy something for investment purposes then definitely you will feel the differences.
I believe due to this kind of psychological thing, most altcoins are finding their success more easier.

Low value altcoins are having some edge over higher priced coins, because people are still believing in larger volume they could easily make good profits. They may be right or wrong but when they are spending money they just want to pick many rather than just one. If we start trade in bits or sathosi then we can easily hit one million dollar levels for sure in coming years.

[Ucy]

I think I would simply judge this based on the total supply (whether in bits or sats,) and how much of the bits are rewarded to people compare to their total supply, if alot of numbers are rewarded to people compared to the numbers of supply, I would still view it scarce.

But, when you are about to buy something for investment purposes then definitely you will feel the differences.
I believe due to this kind of psychological thing, most altcoins are finding their success more easier.

Low value altcoins are having some edge over higher priced coins, because people are still believing in larger volume they could easily make good profits. They may be right or wrong but when they are spending money they just want to pick many rather than just one. If we start trade in bits or sathosi then we can easily hit one million dollar levels for sure in coming years.

Well, I have probably considered the use of small units in the past, I think I observed few potential problems I don't want to mention yet. Just wish it was started early as suggested, but yet we have fiat currencies like USD existing in both dollar and cents... why not Bitcoin?

[hugeblack]

I think it will be the first time that zeros are added/neglected due to the increase in the value of the currency.
Many countries are doing this as a result of inflation, and I think that what is happening in Venezuela is a witness to that.

Adding or removing some zeros has proven to be a good solution when governments want to conduct economic reforms and it has led to gaining more confidence in the currency, so I think that evaluating things with Satoshi will be good.
The problem of people remains that numbers below zero are ignored, so it might be an attractive option if $ 1 equals 1 sat.

At this stage, I prefer to deal with mBTC.

[LeGaulois]

Isn't there something just psychological with it, in the same way as the Zimbabwe dollar? Such a system would give the illusion of being "rich" and can have a psychological impact on purchasing power.

I prefer something like 50btc=$0.10c with fees as low as 0.00000300 to view it as something "scarce"
I haven't even use the term "satoshi" for years and perhaps never used "mBTC"

Using a bits system as you describe it, one would think that there is an abundance of it while there is not, as the quantity is limited. It can also make it seem that the real value (compared to the dollar for example) is not worth much in the economy.
The same way in Venezuela, citizens use banknotes to play or to make bags or others things.

It says a lot about the value given.

[DoverDoane]

Bitcoin is bitcoin, with all its uniqueness.
Bitcoin is a masterpiece with a wide range of subjects and disciplines. Its presence is able to revolutionize the entire conceptual order of global transactions, transcending the boundaries of time and space. In the next 10 or 20 years, Bitcoin has a very big opportunity to become an alternative solution to the number one transaction tool in the world.

[doomloop]

At this stage, I prefer to deal with mBTC.

You sound like how segwit was adopted; a short-term solution. If you decide to go for smaller unit then I guess it will be good to go for the possible smaller unit so that we will have long-term solution which might be having good impact on the valuation of bitcoin as well.

Such a system would give the illusion of being "rich" and can have a psychological impact on purchasing power.

Everything is psychological related; I read people are spending more with credit cards compared to when spending with fiats. You will not realize the true value of money when you're spending with cards. Just an example how illusions are playing in our day-to-day life.

[Hydrogen]

When I think of emphasis on GUI and user experience. I think of AOL and hollywood movies with great CGI that are lacking in story.

Bitcoin's GUI and user experience is a public key and private key hand written or printed on a piece of paper. I can't say I've seen many fantastic multimedia VR GUIs or layouts to give bitcoin a dazzling visual and auditory experience.

AOL was notorious for fancy animated GUI graphics and "you got mail" audio cues to make the experience more humanized and personalized. But what most end users really wanted was greater investment in telecom infrastructure which would translate to better broadband speeds, lower prices and reliability.

I think bitcoin is all about its backend infrastructure development. Its strengths lie in its nodes, mining sector and development. It has the business model AOL users always wanted but could never enjoy.

[jaysabi]

Interesting observation. As the price of btc goes up and lightning network adoption increases, more and more people and services will actually start pricing in sats instead of btc or usd value.

Would be interesting to see how pricing in sats vs whole/decimal btc terms plays out on people buying and selling.

Don't think you'll see things priced in btc (sats or otherwise) for the simple reason that you don't know what the value of something when it's denominated in btc. Nobody in the world is equipped to think in btc-denominated transactions. If I try to sell you a car for .5 btc, you really have no idea if it's a good deal or a rip off unless you know how much btc is worth in USD and do the conversions. Denominating in purely btc is impossible because bitcoin doesn't hold a stable value. You would always need to know the conversion rate to USD to evaluate the price.