Switching to mBTC and its psychological impact

[promise444c5]

Some student with $750 in BTC would have to use magnifying glass to count the zeroes in their BTC holding's number. With mBTC they would know that they hold roughly a dozen and the decimals aren't even that important.

Exaggerated.. max decimal place on most wallet is  8 with some supporting 6 and  anything  below 5 is most likely dust. Besides I don’t think most people really care about the unit that much, they care more about the equivalent in fiat and how close they are to 1 BTC/ how many BTC they have.

Units may only get more attention when its acceptance as a means of direct payment increases at large.

Still prefer either sats or BTC anyway ..

[Nothingtodo]

Over time, the price of Bitcoin may be increasing day by day, meaning that earlier if someone wanted to invest, it was possible to buy hundreds of Bitcoins at the same time personally. But now if someone wants to buy one Bitcoin, it is beyond his means. Considering the digit in this situation, if someone wants to invest $100, then zero will come after his point more than once. So in this situation, mBTC or Sats will give him mental comfort that he has 10 mBTC or a few million sats. However, several non-custodial wallets have already added the issue of such currency units. Those who use Electrum non-custodial wallets will mainly see this advantage.

[d5000]

But maybe some people can argue that having similar name to bitcoin can make people get confused about it.

Exactly that's my problem with "bits". Some could, for example, argue that "bit" could also simply be a short form of "Bitcoin". And then you have a new source of confusion, even for possible scam attempts.

There was another idea which was the "Hal" or the "Finney" for some small unit (I guess it was 10 satoshis according to the Bitcoin wiki, although other sources claim it's the "Finney" is worth 10,000 satoshis). This is better in my opinion, because it is distinctive. However, at least the 10-satoshi unit imo is innecessary. If the "Finney" was worth the same as the "bit", i.e. 100 sats, or alternatively 1000 sats, then I'd support it because it would occupy a space close to current fiat units.

But I stand by my stance of the previous post - I think "Bitcoin" and "Satoshi" are largely sufficient.

PS: If Bitcoin really gets significantly above the 1 million USD mark, then thinking about smaller units than the satoshi could be necessary. So we could imagine a "Satcent" (1/100 sats). I don't really like the "msats" of the Lightning Network, but they have got some acceptance now so I'm nobody to interfere there ...

[Smartprofit]

When I was young, I dreamed of earning $1,000,000. I don't know why... I was young and foolish, and saving $1,000,000 seemed like a pretty good life goal. Now I don't think so. I never achieved $1,000,000. If I had, I'd probably be very proud of that achievement. 🙋

However, I still love the number 1,000,000. It's very beautiful!

That's why, for me, the unit of measurement for Bitcoin is 0.01 BTC (1,000,000 satoshi). Earning 0.01 BTC is much easier than earning 1 BTC. 1 BTC = 100 million satoshi. Easy to calculate and easy to remember. It's easy to feel like a millionaire!

As for mBTC, I personally don't like that unit of measurement for Bitcoin. 💁

[Smack That Ace]

At which price do you think the world, and particularly exchange trading will switch to mBTC?

I think primary reason for this is branding and psychological anchoring.
Bitcoin's greatest strength is its fixed supply cap of 10 million limited supply. So, one Bitcoin carries sense of prestige, much like gold standard.
When we say Bitcoin, we still think of whole coin.

Speaking for myself, I would still prefer to see BTC as primary unit by default on exchange. Because I have become accustomed to counting using that 0.00. Perhaps the exchanges won't change these thing on their own, as they would naturally make them user friendly and unless any major market maker like- Strike, Cash App force them.

[tabas]

You can start it from yourself, from the wallets, exchanges or casinos that you have an account you can switch it for it. But I'm afraid that not everyone will do the same as we're all used to the btc instead of mBtc. To each their own but that's a good idea if someone looks at it just like that because not everyone is really understands the psychological effect of it. There's even the satoshi branding for the smaller units.

[notocactus]

There was another idea which was the "Hal" or the "Finney" for some small unit (I guess it was 10 satoshis according to the Bitcoin wiki, although other sources claim it's the "Finney" is worth 10,000 satoshis). This is better in my opinion, because it is distinctive. However, at least the 10-satoshi unit imo is innecessary. If the "Finney" was worth the same as the "bit", i.e. 100 sats, or alternatively 1000 sats, then I'd support it because it would occupy a space close to current fiat units.

But I stand by my stance of the previous post - I think "Bitcoin" and "Satoshi" are largely sufficient.

There are many Bitcoin units and with me I don't need too many units like such. For my practice, I only need two main units: bitcoin and satoshi. Some people would like to use mBTC unit but I don't like it and I don't want to do a small math every time I check my wallet balance, to convert mBTC to BTC for knowing how much BTC I have in that wallet.

Exactly that's my problem with "bits". Some could, for example, argue that "bit" could also simply be a short form of "Bitcoin". And then you have a new source of confusion, even for possible scam attempts.

In my very first months with Bitcoin, I knew that there were scams with misleading term "bits" rather than "bitcoin". Victims thought bits means bitcoin and they were ripped off by sending money to buy 1 bitcoin but eventually they receive only 1 bits for example.

Scammers frequently use the term "bits" (a smaller unit of Bitcoin, where 1 Bitcoin = 1,000,000 bits) to psychologically manipulate and deceive buyers or novice investors.

[Alvin_talk]

I think no one would argue that in case of persistent repricing upside we *would have to* switch to mBTC eventually. So why wait? Why not initiate it slowly now?

This may apply to me alone but whenever I hear of mbtc, it becomes as if I am suddenly solving a complex mathematics problem and I wouldn't want to feel that way while trading, buying or viewing my balance .

I think Satoshi sounds alot better to me and is more relatable and easier to understand. If bitcoin price increases significantly in the future (which is likely inevitable anyways), it will definitely be useful to switch to smaller units, of which I'd prefer Satoshi instead of mbtc.

[Darker45]

I've never been a fan of the mBTC unit. For me, it was unnecessary. When it was implemented on the gambling platforms that I used years ago, it didn't really make things easier and better. On the contrary, it became an unnecessary confusion for me. Even over time, I'm still not comfortable using it. For me, 0.0026 BTC is much easier to understand than 2.6 mBTC. But, yeah, the unit is already widely used right now.

Anyway, as far as psychological impact is concerned, it's probably better to use Satoshis. Your $10 would already give you 13,387 Sats. That'd probably make you more excited, richer, happier. And that's also much easier to understand and compute with BTC than having it in 0.1338 mBTC.

[Bd officer]

If I trade on an exchange, I calculate how many dollars worth of BTC I trade with and try to close the trade when I make $5-10 profit.
But switching to Satoshi or mBTC in terms of holding is not interesting to me.
My target is 0.05BTC, I started from zero and will try to reach that number gradually. Lately I have been using Blue Wallet where BTC can be switched to local currency.

[Don Pedro Dinero]

At which price do you think the world, and particularly exchange trading will switch to mBTC?

Never, but I think you've got a point here.

Every bull run there's a crowd that buys the "cheapest" among top assets (i.e. DOGE, XRP) just so they could own "a lot of it".

That is why listed companies carry out share splits when the share price rises significantly – because of the psychological effect. The problem is that you can’t do that with Bitcoin. The only thing is that if the price were to rise significantly, people might start keeping track of it in satoshis, as d5000 points out, but even so, I’m not sure that will actually happen; the name Bitcoin is far too well established, and how it is accounted for does not depend on a central authority, unlike companies that carry out share splits.

[BigTarget]

At which price do you think the world, and particularly exchange trading will switch to mBTC?

I think even now it would be psychologically easier for new people to get unboarded (especially the youth). BTC is way too inaffordable for many. Some student with $750 in BTC would have to use magnifying glass to count the zeroes in their BTC holding's number. With mBTC they would know that they hold roughly a dozen and the decimals aren't even that important.

I think no one would argue that in case of persistent repricing upside we *would have to* switch to mBTC eventually. So why wait? Why not initiate it slowly now?

I think there is no need for any switching, however, exchanges can provide an option for users to switch between BTC and mBTC, so that for those who are okay with their assets being shown in BTC, it will be on default, and those who want to change it because they feel like they have very less when it's shown in BTC, they can switch it to mBTC, but in my opinion, it's totally unnecessary. A person's holdings has nothing to do with how they are shown, if they know how much money they have spent, and can clearly see how much their portfolio or even bitcoins are worth, then I see no reason why one would worry about how they are shown.

Younger generation should not be so sensitive about such a simple thing. Instead of caring about how much bitcoins their wallet is showing, they should focus on how much more they can buy and add to their portfolio. It's a very big misconception that Bitcoin is becoming unaffordable because one can't buy a whole Bitcoin anymore, but why does one need to buy a whole Bitcoin when they can buy portions of it? Just save as much money as you can, and buy Bitcoin with it, without thinking that you don't have 1 whole Bitcoin, etc.

[LoyceV]

Ever since I joined Bitcoin (in 2015), I've preferred mBTC as as unit. Back then, it was worth $0.20, at the moment it's $66. In both cases, it's a convenient unit. Every wallet I use supports this.
But every exchange still uses "full" BTC as a unit, adding a lot of zeros for most amounts. I've also seen many people who don't understand SI-prefixes, so "m" is lost on them. I've seen topics from people who sent 1000 times less than required, because they didn't know their wallet showed mBTC. That's probably why exchanges don't use this, it adds confusion.

With $75, that is 0.001 BTC.

But for much smaller amounts, I have to carefully look at the zeros to distinguish between 0.00003 ($2.20) and 0.000003 ($0.22).

I think I will prefer 1 bits than to be using sats.
1 bits = 100 sats.

In SI-prefixes, that would be hectosat or microbitcoin

[Myleschetty]

At which price do you think the world, and particularly exchange trading will switch to mBTC?

It's unlikely that there will ever be a mandatory global standard for the switching to mBTC, which is acceptable since we already have wallets that allow us to display amounts in mBTC, bits, or sats at our convenience.

Many individuals focus on the number of whole coins they possess rather than how many satoshis or the equivalent purchasing power, which contributes to my belief that transitioning to mBTC is a matter of personal choice.
Moreover, the markets and exchanges will always respond to price and usage rather than the reverse, so altering the default display unit on exchanges could lead to confusion for some users when the total supply suddenly appears as 21 billion mBTC, and price charts change, etc.
It's preferable to maintain BTC as the primary unit and allow users to select the denomination that feels most intuitive.

[bitmover]

At which price do you think the world, and particularly exchange trading will switch to mBTC?

You can use other units not only mBTC

I want to share  this unit convertor I have created that show all bitcoin units



https://bitcoindata.science/bitcoin-units-converter.html

[Catenaccio]

Ever since I joined Bitcoin (in 2015), I've preferred mBTC as as unit. Back then, it was worth $0.20, at the moment it's $66. In both cases, it's a convenient unit. Every wallet I use supports this.
But every exchange still uses "full" BTC as a unit, adding a lot of zeros for most amounts. I've also seen many people who don't understand SI-prefixes, so "m" is lost on them. I've seen topics from people who sent 1000 times less than required, because they didn't know their wallet showed mBTC. That's probably why exchanges don't use this, it adds confusion.

More units will add more confusions and practically platforms and people will try to avoid it by sticking with bitcoin and satoshi units. Like with Bitcoin transaction fee rate, it's common to mention it with satoshi/vbyte than bitcoin/vbyte or mBTC/vbyte, it's too confusing.

Like finney unit that is a good honorable unit for Hal Finney and his earliest contribution for Bitcoin project and community. He deserves it but in practice, I believe that nobody uses the finney unit.

https://www.learnbitcoin.com/rabbit-hole/bitcoin-units

Finney
One ten-thousandth of a BTC, or 10,000 sats. Named after Hal Finney, the cryptographer who received the first Bitcoin transaction from Satoshi in January 2009 and was probably the second person to ever run Bitcoin software. The name is community-honorary; you won't see it in many wallets. Worth knowing about because of who Hal was.

[Hatchy]

But I think the practice will become more extended once 1 satoshi moves close to the price of 1 US dollar cent. This would be the case if the price rises above 500,000 USD approximately.

I think I will prefer 1 bits than to be using sats.

1 bits = 100 sats.

The reason I will prefer using 1 bits is because it is very similar to bitcoin and people can easily use it to know that it is a smaller unit of bitcoin.

But maybe some people can argue that having similar name to bitcoin can make people get confused about it.

I do not know the reason most people like to skip the unit on this forum.

Most times, people find it easier to remember 0.0001 as BTC than to call it sats. Maybe it also sounds more familiar to them to use BTC instead of the appropriate units. I still think it has something to do with their knowledge of these units. Since we don't use them very often on the forum, many newbies and other users are not familiar with them. Bits are also not very common. In fact, I think sats are more familiar to many people than bits. So, the general issue might be how frequently we use these terms when referring to Bitcoin amounts below 1 BTC.

[tsaroz]

Even if we put the decimal places on our coin anywhere, the exchanges would always report the price in whole bitcoin unit. Some might even provide users to see at price of mbtc but for default it would always be 1 bitcoin.
Expressing bitcoin on smaller units might seem like it's affordable or you hold a good portion of it and not a fraction as a psychological morale but at the same time it might feel the fees are larger than they are.
Considering both of it, I believe we are better on what we have currently. It expressed the largeness of bitcoin value and still be a part of something rare and transacting at a small fraction of fees.

[dzungmobile]

Even if we put the decimal places on our coin anywhere, the exchanges would always report the price in whole bitcoin unit. Some might even provide users to see at price of mbtc but for default it would always be 1 bitcoin.

Exchanges use bitcoin unit to avoid confusion and they even don't use satoshi unit.

Only one unit, bitcoin, is enough with exchanges because with services, they have many things to care about and to serve customers. They never want to add something "cool" but potentially create losses on customers because of confusion and mistakes, then results in unnecessary pressure on their customer support team, even their exchange reputation.

[Aliciaworld]

Most custodial wallets allow you to switch easily between BTC and MBTC so I think it's rather a personal issue based on how the user wishes to store their funds and their personal preference on other things. This doesn't have to be a popular or general decision, the option is available for all to make for themselves.