An interesting perspective on Bitcoin's "unit of scale"

[InstabilityAi]

I've been thinking about something that doesn't seem to get discussed very often. many newcomers look at Bitcoin and think .. "1 BTC is too expensive. I missed the opportunity." Even though Bitcoin is divisible, seeing amounts like 0.001 BTC or 0.0002 BTC still creates a psychological barrier for many people. It made me wonder whether the issue is less about Bitcoin's price and more about how we present its units.
We naturally use dollars and cents instead of long decimals. Bitcoin has BTC, sats, bits, etc., but most people still anchor themselves to 1 BTC. I recently came across an article discussing this idea from a different perspective. It argues that Bitcoin may have a "missing unit of scale" .. not as a protocol issue, but as a communication and user experience issue. I found it an interesting read, so I thought I'd share it here for discussion.

https://paragraph.com/@thinkdecentral/bitillion-bitcoins-missing-unit-of-scale

What do you think of this scale?

[retaur]

I think it's hard to clock what units actually mean and how to handle them. I think it's pretty common to get confused when trying to send funds regardless of your seniority.

Psychologically, 0.1btc and 0.01btc to me feel like they can look like a lot of money too, you don't have to try to get a whole bitcoin to make an investment in it and actually it's probably best you don't invest more than you can afford to lose. It's less risky in a bear market as historically we've typically always set a new ath within 4 years.

[Thawson]

It's an interesting point, but I believe that Bitcoin already has a smaller denomination, which is the Satoshi, and if you're looking to overcome the psychological aspect then just saying 100,000sats is the same thing as 0.001 btc, moreover calling it something else doesn’t make btc any cheaper, it only changes perception.
If the goal is to overcome perception maybe the bigger question is why wallets and exchanges still display btc instead of sats. I think it’s less about lacking another unit and more about which unit people are used to seeing.

[aoluain]

Its true though that still a lot of people have a target of owning 1 full Bitcoin, hence the term
which has been used a lot - to be a "whole coiner".

For a lot of people though I'll bet a whole Bitcoin has already gone out of reach.

I would advise people to focus on the denomination of Satoshis, just keep it simple and
more people could relate to this better.

Bitcoin and Satoshi's
Dollars and cents
Euro and cents
Pounds and pennies

Its what people know.

[hugeblack]

mBTC is a good unit of measurement, and since the price is still below $100,000, I think it will be ideal for the current situation, especially as daily transactions are usually between $100 and $10,000.

These units may change in the future.

[Dunamisx]

Everyone should invest in Bitcoin according to their capacity and try to hold for profitable investment in it, bitcoin has come down to everyone's ability and affordability to invest and this is why we can see it being a decentralized digital currency whereby everyone interested can on his own choose to invest at any rate, which can still present us with the maximum productivity along with the maturity time it takes to be profitable

[MusaMohamed]

mBTC is a good unit of measurement, and since the price is still below $100,000, I think it will be ideal for the current situation, especially as daily transactions are usually between $100 and $10,000.

These units may change in the future.

Actually there are many units for Bitcoin, and the fact is not all units existed when Satoshi Nakamoto mined the Bitcoin Genesis Block. I agree with you that likely there will be more units for Bitcoin in the future. The community can propose new units that might be (or not be) used in the future. The famous example is finney, it is a unit proposed and used like honor for Hal Finney.

[Did you know?] Bitcoin Table of Units

[goldkingcoiner]

I've been thinking about something that doesn't seem to get discussed very often. many newcomers look at Bitcoin and think .. "1 BTC is too expensive. I missed the opportunity." Even though Bitcoin is divisible, seeing amounts like 0.001 BTC or 0.0002 BTC still creates a psychological barrier for many people. It made me wonder whether the issue is less about Bitcoin's price and more about how we present its units.
We naturally use dollars and cents instead of long decimals. Bitcoin has BTC, sats, bits, etc., but most people still anchor themselves to 1 BTC. I recently came across an article discussing this idea from a different perspective. It argues that Bitcoin may have a "missing unit of scale" .. not as a protocol issue, but as a communication and user experience issue. I found it an interesting read, so I thought I'd share it here for discussion.

https://paragraph.com/@thinkdecentral/bitillion-bitcoins-missing-unit-of-scale

What do you think of this scale?

We could start saying Satoshi instead of Bitcoin and everyone, even the poorest amongst us would become a Satoshi millionaire overnight. But I think most people would rather say they have x Bitcoin and not they have xxxxxxxxx Satoshi. So really the problem is in the name. When we think of int, we think of a smaller number than if we think of double. From a programmer's perspective, of course. But we both know it means a number. The only difference is the potential scale of that number. Satoshi means tiny amounts of Bitcoin and it sounds more impressive to say Bitcoin instead, even if we have to use decimals.

But how can we keep saying we have x Bitcoin without changing the name, without using decimals and without adding on any other words to make it seem alien or an altcoin?

Using exponentials? I have half a Bitcoin squared squared? That's equally confusing but sounds more impressive than saying I have 0.0625 BTC...

mBTC is a good unit of measurement, and since the price is still below $100,000, I think it will be ideal for the current situation, especially as daily transactions are usually between $100 and $10,000.

These units may change in the future.

mBTC is indeed a good unit of measure but the "m" added on does make it kind of sound like an altcoin from a psychological perspective, maybe?

[SeriouslyGiveaway]

mBTC is indeed a good unit of measure but the "m" added on does make it kind of sound like an altcoin from a psychological perspective, maybe?

People only need a very quick search with Internet, and Google or AI to know what does mBTC mean?

If they can have access to Internet, it's not like a challenge to know what is mBTC or what is tBTC. In wallet softwares, people can customize their wallet settings from default unit BTC to another unit like mBTC, and if they see different units, it can give them reasons of doing quick search and learning about that.

With tBTC, it can give a result of a tokenized BTC, not testnet Bitcoin while it should be Testnet Bitcoin.

tBTC is a tokenized, decentralized version of Bitcoin that allows you to use your BTC holdings on smart-contract blockchains like Ethereum. It maintains a 1-to-1 peg with real Bitcoin, giving you access to decentralized finance (DeFi) without losing custody to central authorities.

How amazing scam altcoins have grown recent years.

[Chinesebaby]

I've been thinking about something that doesn't seem to get discussed very often. many newcomers look at Bitcoin and think .. "1 BTC is too expensive. I missed the opportunity." Even though Bitcoin is divisible, seeing amounts like 0.001 BTC or 0.0002 BTC still creates a psychological barrier for many people. It made me wonder whether the issue is less about Bitcoin's price and more about how we present its units.
We naturally use dollars and cents instead of long decimals. Bitcoin has BTC, sats, bits, etc., but most people still anchor themselves to 1 BTC. I recently came across an article discussing this idea from a different perspective. It argues that Bitcoin may have a "missing unit of scale" .. not as a protocol issue, but as a communication and user experience issue. I found it an interesting read, so I thought I'd share it here for discussion.

https://paragraph.com/@thinkdecentral/bitillion-bitcoins-missing-unit-of-scale

What do you think of this scale?

The basic unit of Bitcoin has always been Satoshi or the full whole Bitcoin itself, which people use in measuring the amount an individual has in possession. And for the fact that some people uses BTC to anchor their means of measurement, it's still not a bad idea. But just that some people might see it to be more expensive in that manner, and likewise if it's been converted into Sats, (I.e 1 BTC = 1,000,000,000 Sats), thats the same way some other people might also see it to be cheap. So I think the unit of Bitcoin is not an issue here, but rather it is peoples ability to know that whatever unit been employed to it, it still won't change your investment, hence, there is no need to bother about it.

[MusaMohamed]

The basic unit of Bitcoin has always been Satoshi or the full whole Bitcoin itself, which people use in measuring the amount an individual has in possession.

The units are satoshi and bitcoin. Pay attention on Capitalized letters.
Satoshi is about the founder Satoshi Nakamoto.
satoshi is a Bitcoin unit.
Bitcoin is about the blockchain.
bitcoin is the currency of Bitcoin blockchain.

"Bitcoin" vs "bitcoin" | Do we know the difference?

[Creeper0]

In Bitcoin, I have been familiar with two units so far, one is sats and the other is mBTC. To be honest, I use the mBTC unit the most and I am more familiar with it. Electrum wallet uses mBTC as the unit, I am familiar with this unit. The mBTC unit may also seem convenient from a calculation point of view. If the whole Bitcoin is worth $60k, then 1 mBTC is worth $60, we will be able to find the value of this unit by simply dropping the "k". If expressed in numbers, the value of this unit is obtained by dropping the last three zeros. Calculating the value of sats is still a bit complicated.

I want a smaller unit than mBTC, which can be kBTC, which would be 1 mBTC/100. When the whole Bitcoin is worth $100k, then 1 kBTC will be worth $1. Bitcoin needs a fixed unit, because 1 whole Bitcoin is now outside the purchase price. So a small unit is very important so that we can easily express the fraction of Bitcoins we have.

[avp2306]

mBTC is a good unit of measurement, and since the price is still below $100,000, I think it will be ideal for the current situation, especially as daily transactions are usually between $100 and $10,000.

These units may change in the future.

And this is really fit on reality and easy to understand, since usually we could see people use to pay $100 above on those figures you have said.

So to avoid using long decimals then to make the prices more easier to read its good to use mBTC. This is also flexible and once Bitcoin price continue to rise then people could definitely use sats or μBTC.

Well the key is to choose the most simpler units which make daily transaction so clear and also easy to read.

[AmoreJaz]

In Bitcoin, I have been familiar with two units so far, one is sats and the other is mBTC. To be honest, I use the mBTC unit the most and I am more familiar with it. Electrum wallet uses mBTC as the unit, I am familiar with this unit. The mBTC unit may also seem convenient from a calculation point of view. If the whole Bitcoin is worth $60k, then 1 mBTC is worth $60, we will be able to find the value of this unit by simply dropping the "k". If expressed in numbers, the value of this unit is obtained by dropping the last three zeros. Calculating the value of sats is still a bit complicated.

I want a smaller unit than mBTC, which can be kBTC, which would be 1 mBTC/100. When the whole Bitcoin is worth $100k, then 1 kBTC will be worth $1. Bitcoin needs a fixed unit, because 1 whole Bitcoin is now outside the purchase price. So a small unit is very important so that we can easily express the fraction of Bitcoins we have.

I believe, btc users just need to educate themselves about this because the reality is it is not that hard to understand the unit of btc - satoshi, mBTC or bits, whatever it is will still need the basic comprehension of what bitcoin is.

[dkbit98]

I personally don't like this new Bitillion unit thing, and inventing new words.
It's already confusing enough for many people with bitcoin units we already have, like mbtc, sats, bitcent and others, and we don't need to have additional complexity.
I am OK if someone want's to use this new unit, but most bitcoin users won't know what it is, and they will ignore it.

[BlackBoss_]

I personally don't like this new Bitillion unit thing, and inventing new words.
It's already confusing enough for many people with bitcoin units we already have, like mbtc, sats, bitcent and others, and we don't need to have additional complexity.
I am OK if someone want's to use this new unit, but most bitcoin users won't know what it is, and they will ignore it.

The project is decentralized and Bitcoin communities are decentralized too. New Bitcoin units won't affect Bitcoin blockchain so it's not big problem if in the future, Bitcoin communities propose and use new Bitcoin units. There are already many precedents so it's no surprise if new units appear in the future.

Generally I agree with you, as I feel enough with existing Bitcoin units and I would like to use only three units among many existing ones. My favorite units are: bitcoin (BTC), satoshi and milli-bitcoin (mBTC). The other Bitcoin units are not necessary for my practice but there is no reason and no power from me to stop the others using other units.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Units