SeeBettor
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May 15, 2014, 06:07:19 PM |
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I know it's been a topic going back for a while now; basically where the decimal point is. This whole debate over deciding what everyone should call a µBTC is, of course, driven by the fact that the decimal is in a poor location when it comes to easing the adoption of more-and-more not-so-mathematically-inclined people.
I think the two following points are givens for anyone pondering this issue: 1) Even for a decently mathematical person, it takes a few moments longer to double-check things when working on the right side of the decimal. There is more potential for human error when not working with a smaller base unit. 2) The silly perception that "one bitcoin is so expensive" is, no doubt, also hurting the adoption rate.
For a while there, it seemed that many were focusing on "what should we call 1 mBTC". I think it is wise that we are looking potentially even further ahead, and attempting to decide "what should we call 1 µBTC".
I think most agree that the best name we have for any unit of Bitcoin is "bitcoin". And by "best", I mean the name that even people who have maybe just begun to hear "Bitcoin", or what a cryptocurrency is, can very easily relate to. The problem is that the name "bitcoin" is already taken (widely accepted) by what is a relatively large unit (1/13,000,000 of all in existence, 1/21,000,000 of all that will ever be). Yes, one-thirteen-millionth is a very large unit in this case; too large for the majority of practical discussions for buying and selling goods or services.
I realize that all that I have said so-far is fairly elementary for most of you concerned about this. I'm just attempting to summarize what is driving this whole "naming" issue we face. I do believe that it is a problem, and I do believe it is hindering the potential further adoption of Bitcoin.
As far as naming a µBTC, I'm all-in-favor of simply what will roll off the tongue best, and so I lean towards "bit", regardless of the concern that it is already a unit of measurement for data. However, I still do not think this is ideal. I think that, ideally, "bits" would just be the slang term people would use instead of saying the more proper word, "bitcoins", and that they would be of equivalent size to one-another.
Because of the great decentralization of Bitcoin, we face a huge problem in implementing any sort of change to what has become the current standards. The only real current standards being the metric prefix system of naming. This metric system of naming is great and fine to have for formal use, it is universal, and should and will remain. But it is really very poor for actual practical casual usage and discussion (the like-minded goal we all have).
The potential way of attempting to implement any naming change (or naming addition), that I heard discussed, would be to attempt to name a future date, such as Jan 1, 2015, and see if by then we could get enough of the players on-board to work the name change into the GUI of much of the supporting software out there; the exchange fronts, merchant sites, etc. I'm not too savvy on it, but I don't think this involves changing the actual calculations that go on in the backend, just the unit in which things are displayed. It is still a huge challenge to get towards any consensus, this I do realize.
In my opinion, we should acknowledge what we preach; that we are still in the relative infancy of Bitcoin. And that we should shoot for what really is ideal.
Conclusion (and for TL;DR)
Ideally (IMO) one current µBTC should be one BTC. One current (2014) micro-bitcoin should be equal to one (2015) bitcoin. The market cap should be (effectively) 13 trillion BTC (rather than 13 million BTC).
A) Ignoring the difficulty of implementation, is this not ideal? If it is not ideal, explain why.
B) Is it just too difficult, approaching impossible, to really implement?
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