Could the need of Bitcoin being more divisible lead to a hard fork?

[fennic]

Imagine the following scenario (that could possibly occur in decades):

Bitcoin becomes widely adopted, its marketcap surpass the dollar's, and it become so valuable that even a single satoshi is worth more than, for example, a couple of pens, a bottle of water, etc.

In that case, payments for small amounts wouldn't be possible even with second layer solutions such as LN, because even a single satoshi would be more valuable than the price of the product. There would be a need for Bitcoin to be more divisible, for it to be broken down into even smaller parts.

Would such need to use smaller denomination units (smaller than satoshi) require a hard fork? Can someone shed some light into it?

Hi Brother I think that's not possible because after 100 years i think that BTC price might be some million Dollars but at that time there might be some Changes in Transaction fee and other such things like Btc Fee might be Zoro and other such things that People may not use Bitcoin as payment method than other coins cause they might offer something that could be more favourable. So let's see that What can happen.

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[Newlifebtc]

From my understanding I believe that bitcoin will be generally accepted if it stunned is beerus season or bearish market the world will adopt it as a method off payments all world currency because when looking at it right now many people is now adopting use of cryptocurrency so that is not country who is not making use of autocorrect now I have not heard of Bitcoin

[Abiky]

Imagine the following scenario (that could possibly occur in decades):

Bitcoin becomes widely adopted, its marketcap surpass the dollar's, and it become so valuable that even a single satoshi is worth more than, for example, a couple of pens, a bottle of water, etc.

In that case, payments for small amounts wouldn't be possible even with second layer solutions such as LN, because even a single satoshi would be more valuable than the price of the product. There would be a need for Bitcoin to be more divisible, for it to be broken down into even smaller parts.

Would such need to use smaller denomination units (smaller than satoshi) require a hard fork? Can someone shed some light into it?

Bitcoin is already divisible to 8 units, and that's more than enough for the world's population. 1 satoshi would cost around $1 when BTC hits the millions, anyways. That's still cheap when you compare it to a wire transfer or even credit/debit card fees. We don't need to worry about this, especially when it's going to take decades before BTC goes well above $1m per coin.

If there's ever a need to make BTC more divisible, it will come to a consensus among developers, miners, and node operators alike. A hard fork would likely happen by that time, but it won't be as controversial as the big blocks debate by Bitcoin Cash proponents. Everything will go smoothly without issues (at least that's what I hope for). Who knows what would be of Bitcoin in the future? Just my thoughts

[franky1]

If there's ever a need to make BTC more divisible, it will come to a consensus among developers, miners, and node operators alike. A hard fork would likely happen by that time, but it won't be as controversial .. Everything will go smoothly without issues (at least that's what I hope for). Who knows what would be of Bitcoin in the future? Just my thoughts

learn some code and data structures
there are no decimals in code/data. its all smallest unit of sats
btc and decimals exist as human visual aids. not as base code/data of bitcoin function

to break the smallest unit into 1000x sub units. breaks the whole accounting system of bitcoin.
it would break many rules of supply, require changing how many halvenings occur, changing how many shareable units will ever be created.. a huge mess and tragedy to the supposed claims of certain rules that should not be touched

[Leviathan.007]

One satoshi is a very small unit. If bitcoin is worth $100 million, 1 sat would be just $1. Bitcoin price is $16800 presently, but with all-time-high of $69000. That is not close to $100 million at all.

As to why the OP believes we have to hard fork the bitcoin project in order to have smaller units, I don't understand the reasoning behind it. When Bitcoin's price rises up when it crosses one million dollars, then it is still appropriate to use a satoshi as a unit of measurement when talking about bitcoin amounts, and it is important to note that doing a hard fork does not have anything to do with having other bitcoin measuring units because it is simply about placing decimal places rather than doing a hard fork.

[o_e_l_e_o]

bitcoin amounts, and it is important to note that doing a hard fork does not have anything to do with having other bitcoin measuring units because it is simply about placing decimal places rather than doing a hard fork.

This is simply not correct.

At the protocol level, everything is measured in satoshis. There are no decimal points; only satoshis. You cannot move a decimal point in the protocol because there is not one to move. Coins are defined as 100,000,000 sats. Amounts, outputs, block rewards, fees, everything, is denominated in sats.

If you want to introduce a unit smaller than the satoshi, then it requires a hard fork. A hard fork is a fork which makes things which are currently invalid, valid. If I tried to broadcast a transaction right now spending some fraction of a satoshi, it would be invalid and would be rejected. To makes this invalid transaction valid, we would need a hard fork to introduce smaller units and re-denominate everything in to these smaller units.

[franky1]

its not just needing a hard fork to add a new tx format that measures in microsats.
you would also need ALOT more code and rules that treat two states of transactions different.

pre-fork dated utxo treated as sats and post fork tx treated microsats.. separating the classes..  and a whole lot of code to ensure the spending of old utxo's dont ever generate more units when being spent or the opposite

Eg a legacy utxo from 2020. of 10units(sats) where by the new tx format doesnt accidentality end up getting 10 units(10 microsats) and instead would need to be a future utxo of 10,000 units(microsats)

where by if the new tx format then wanted to spend its 10,000microsats units to a legacy(8dec) address ensuring that the legacy address validation code does not treat it as 10,000sats when it should be 10 sats

after all we cant really go back and change all blockdata to be 1000x units compared to norm. so there would need to be alot of CLUDGY code. that comes with alot of risks of generating new units outside of the normal coin reward mechanism

in short. we should not even attempt it. as it is not needed anyway

[PrivacyG]

Bitcoin is already divisible to 8 units, and that's more than enough for the world's population. 1 satoshi would cost around $1 when BTC hits the millions, anyways. That's still cheap when you compare it to a wire transfer or even credit/debit card fees.

I think the point was that even if $1 is cheaper than a wire transfer, paying in Bitcoin means paying with no decimals.  You go to El Salvador and buy your groceries.  You can not pay 29p for a water bottle because you can only pay 1 Satoshi minimum ($1).  Practically, it becomes a burden.

-----

You can already do this with Lightning. You can open a channel and make transactions involving millisats for as long as your channel remains open. If you close a channel which is holding some fraction of a satoshi, then the balance you receive will be floored to the nearest satoshi.

Then Layer 2 (Lightning Network) is practically the solution to this fear of Bitcoin's supply or decimals having to be modified.  Right?  There are so many threads talking about the issue but never have I seen this solution suggested or talked about.

-
Regards,
PrivacyG

[franky1]

LN is not the solution.. its too buggy even after 5 years

far easier to start from scratch with a different subnetwork designed differently to LN without the bugs or payment model of LN.. but offers a more secure method of pegging to a 1:1000 unit level to use on the sub network

whilst also reminding people to be risk aware of any sub networks and not pretend a subnetwork of any form is the same as the mainnet

[o_e_l_e_o]

Then Layer 2 (Lightning Network) is practically the solution to this fear of Bitcoin's supply or decimals having to be modified.  Right?  There are so many threads talking about the issue but never have I seen this solution suggested or talked about.

In its current form it would only be part of the solution. There are still other stumbling blocks which would need addressed first.

For example, let's say that a satoshi is worth $1 or more. Are people going to be happy spending hundreds of dollars worth of bitcoin just to open a channel? Or do we need something like channel factories to make it possible to open a channel for a fraction of that cost? More importantly, what about if you have an amount on your channel which is currently considered on-chain dust, but which could be worth hundreds of dollars? Most people won't be happy chalking that up as a loss.

Although it is worth repeating that for a satoshi to be worth $1, then the marketcap of bitcoin would be $2.1 quadrillion, which is more than an order of magnitude more than the global monetary supply. It is a crazy hypothetical.

[BitDane]

If LN is the solution for this kind of issue, I am curious if LN indeed accept a fraction of satoshi while the original network rejects such kind of transaction, how can that transaction be presented on Bitcoin network since I believe LN transactions need to be reflected on the original network?  Please kindly enlighten me since I am really confused about this kind of situation. 

[GreatArkansas]

Satoshi Nakamoto really created Bitcoin to handle such a thing as this, so for me, no need for any hard forks.
Since satoshi is the smallest unit of Bitcoin, I can say that is already enough. We just familiarize the conversion of 1 satoshi = BTC, like how many decimals.

[o_e_l_e_o]

If LN is the solution for this kind of issue, I am curious if LN indeed accept a fraction of satoshi while the original network rejects such kind of transaction, how can that transaction be presented on Bitcoin network since I believe LN transactions need to be reflected on the original network?  Please kindly enlighten me since I am really confused about this kind of situation.

Good question.

So the transactions involving millisats aren't broadcast to the main chain. They remain entirely within the Lightning network. Whenever a Lightning channel which has a balance involving millisats is closed, then the transaction which is broadcast to the main chain is rounded down to the nearest whole satoshi.

Think of it like this. You and I each put ten $1 bills in a jar. There are now twenty $1 bills in that jar. You sell me some goods for $5, and so we agree that when we open the jar again, you'll get fifteen of those bills, and I'll get five. All good so far. Then I sell you some goods for $2.50. So now the balance is $12.50 for you, and $7.50 for me. If we open the jar now, then we can't get the exact amounts we are owed, because there are only $1 bills in the jar and no quarters, dimes, etc., so we can't receive 50 cents each. But no matter, we aren't opening the jar yet, so it doesn't matter for now. We can agree that this is what we are each owed, without actually opening the jar. So we do another trade for $2.80, and now the split is $15.30 and $4.70. And another trade, and another, and another. All the time we agree to split the original $20 in different ways, some of which won't actually be possible because we don't have the coins needed to split up a dollar in to smaller parts. When we finally come to open the jar, let's say (for example) the split is $15.30 and $4.70, as above. You would get $15, and I would get $4, with $1 left over in the jar.

The same thing happens with Lightning channels. You open the channel using a whole number of sats, but then can trade in millisats. As long as your channel stays open (i.e. we don't open the jar), you can trade back and forth in millisats as long as you like. When you want to close the channel (i.e. open the jar), then the transaction broadcast to the main chain will only use sats, and so the balance of both parties will be rounded down to the nearest whole satoshi, with the extra satoshi (the $1 left over in the example above) added to the fee of the closing transaction.

[franky1]

If LN is the solution for this kind of issue, I am curious if LN indeed accept a fraction of satoshi while the original network rejects such kind of transaction, how can that transaction be presented on Bitcoin network since I believe LN transactions need to be reflected on the original network?  Please kindly enlighten me since I am really confused about this kind of situation.

Good question.

So the transactions involving millisats aren't broadcast to the main chain. They remain entirely within the Lightning network. Whenever a Lightning channel which has a balance involving millisats is closed, then the transaction which is broadcast to the main chain is rounded down to the nearest whole satoshi.

wrong

its not though
READ SOME CODE about the peg

its not a "trim; 5,000,000 msat to 5,000sat"
its a 5,000,000 / 1000 to CONVERT to msat to sat
its a 5,000,000 * 1000 to CONVERT to sat to msat
https://github.com/lightningnetwork/lnd/blob/master/lnwire/msat.go

mSatScale uint64 = 1000

func NewMSatFromSatoshis(sat btcutil.Amount) MilliSatoshi {
   return MilliSatoshi(uint64(sat) * mSatScale)
}

func (m MilliSatoshi) ToSatoshis() btcutil.Amount {
   return btcutil.Amount(uint64(m) / mSatScale)

mathematically there is a big difference. between trimming end units vs multiplication/division
 especially when it comes to the lack of a network protocol.where by people can change the /1000 easily


even the blockstream elements version of lightning highlight this is changable
https://github.com/ElementsProject/lightning-charge#post-invoice

You can specify the amount as msatoshi (1 satoshi = 1000 msatoshis), or provide a currency and amount to be converted according to the current exchange rates

[digaran]

That will never happen, there is LN. One solution for many problems, though it's not decentralized, it's more like visa and paypal but with less fees.

[franky1]

lets make it simple

A<>B<>C<>D<>E<>F<>G
A wants to pay G 200sat (200,000msat)
onion payment(b:200,005(c:200,004(d:200,003(e:200,002(f:200,001(g:200,000))))))
here people see in the GUI their msat balance destined for their output appears as +200,000
meaning they presume they will get 300sat by computing the input plus payment

               before                                  after                   conversion
       fund            output                 fund         output          rate              broadcast
a-b  a250,000->a250,000           a250,000->a50,000      1000            a250->a50                
       b100,000->b100,000          b100,000->b300,000     1000            b100->b300

b-c  b250,000->b250,000          b250,000->b50,000       1000             b250->b50                
       c100,000->c100,000          c100,000->c300,000      1000             c100->c300

c-d  c250,000->c250,000         c250,000->c50,000         10,000          c250->c5                
       d100,000->d100,000        d100,000->d300,000      10.000          d100->d30
                                                                                                        tx fee:315

d-e  d250,000->d250,000        d250,000->d50,000        1000             d250->d50                
       e100,000->e100,000        e100,000->e300,000      1000             e100->e300

e-f  e250,000->e250,000        e250,000->e50,000         1000             e250->e50                
      f100,000->f100,000         f100,000->f300,000         1000             f100->f300

f-g  f250,000->f250,000        f250,000->f50,000            200              f250->f250              
      g100,000->g100,000      g100,000->g300,000         10,000         g100->g30
                                                                                                         tx fee:70

as you can see at the "onion payment" of GUI display of IOU balance.. everyone feels they are getting fair 200,000msat channel allocation changes in a routed payment.. meaning 200sat payment belief

but end result at broadcast. due to changing the msat conversion rate
is a couple people are not getting paid the end total belief of their input 100sat + payment 200sat
some are getting just 30sat instead of 300sat

which can be even more finely refined to ensure the missing amount doesnt end up as fee. but instead more income for one side than the other

if it was a trim 3significant figures .. the end broadcast results would be different
..

[o_e_l_e_o]

wrong

Here's a quote from the comments in the very code that you just linked to:

As milli-satoshis aren't deliverable on the native blockchain, before settling to broadcasting, the values are rounded down to the nearest satoshi.

Which is exactly what I said. If you close a channel which is holding some number of millisats, then the transaction broadcast to the main chain will be rounded down to the nearest whole sat. Or here is another quote from BOLT #3:

The amounts for each output MUST be rounded down to whole satoshis.

So no, what I said is very much not wrong.

[franky1]

comments in code. is not the code.
read the code

the division and multiplication is a whole different area of math compared to removing significant figures off the end

its funny how you avoided understand the code and just quoted a comment..

some pseudo code for you
remove(right,3)
is different than
/1000

you can do alot more harm with changing /1000 compared to a "round"

[Cookdata]

Imagine the following scenario (that could possibly occur in decades):

Bitcoin becomes widely adopted, its marketcap surpass the dollar's, and it become so valuable that even a single satoshi is worth more than, for example, a couple of pens, a bottle of water, etc.

In that case, payments for small amounts wouldn't be possible even with second layer solutions such as LN, because even a single satoshi would be more valuable than the price of the product. There would be a need for Bitcoin to be more divisible, for it to be broken down into even smaller parts.

Would such need to use smaller denomination units (smaller than satoshi) require a hard fork? Can someone shed some light into it?

There has never been in the history of bitcoin that a hard fork bitcoin has ever become successful, the ones they did in the early days of bitcoin and the ones they did in the all-time high price of bitcoin to date have not reached the half potential of bitcoin talk more of doing what they are been created for. A hard fork of bitcoin is not necessary nor indispensable, it will make some bitcoin holders if they airdrop it for them but it will mostly enrich some Cartels who will create such fork coins, we have seen it in the past and they didn't it age well. Look at BitcoinCash creator, Craig Wright, he ended up scamming people with his fake Bitcoin only to come back again to say that he is the real Satoshi, a very dishonest person. 

[DooMAD]

comments in code. is not the code.
read the code

the division and multiplication is a whole different area of math compared to trimming significant figures off the end

its funny how you avoided understand the code and just quoted a comment..

some pseudo code for you
trim(right,3)
is different than
/1000

you can do alot more harm with changing /1000 compared to a trim

If someone malicious changed that code, they'd only screw up their own client.  The person receiving funds, assuming they downloaded their client from a legitimate source, would see the real amount being sent or received.  All of your "bugs" seem to involve people downloading malicious code.  That's not the definition of a bug.  That's just malware.  And malware is equally applicable to on-chain clients, so once again, you have failed to present a valid argument against LN.

Every post you make only proves you have no credibility.  You'll say literally anything, no matter how dishonest, to avoid conceding that you have lost.


//EDIT:
And now that franky1's lame and pathetic lies have been decimated, look at how they suddenly change the subject to one of their other equally moronic and flawed interpretations of reality in their next post.  There is no fractional reserve in LN and Thor Turbo channels are funded by BitRefill's own funds.  People can purchase pre-funded channels and this is apparently too complicated a notion for franky1 to comprehend.  See this topic for further details:  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5226421.0