User appeal and denomination

[nebulus]

I was wondering, does anyone else feel that for an entry-level user (customer, payee, merchant) dealing with micro-bitcoins might seem as an unappealing feature? 

I am imagining a scenario sometime in the future where a random he or she employs bitcoin to buy a chocolate bar. Rather than paying an even nice-looking value like (1 buck), he /she has to pay something like 0.000000023BTC. Describe it anyway you want, this is extremely unappealing. Of course, I am considering here that the ultimate realm of bitcoin will be that of common human dealings. Maybe terms like micro-bitcoin haven't yet been mainstreamized.

I do understand that people around here feel great that they can say 1BTC is worth than 1 dollar. I am not trying to generate a discussion around that. Maybe next time.

Looking forward to yours answers. Thanks!

[CIYAM]

This has been discussed before and is really only a client-side display issue.

If BTC becomes much more valuable than it is now then the clients could be changed to start displaying values as mBTC (being .001 BTC?) or something similar so the end user won't need to see a bunch of leading zeroes.


Cheers,

Ian.

[theymos]

0.000000023BTC

That's more precision than Bitcoin supports.

The UI will probably just move the decimal if small amounts like that become common and are found to be annoying. For example, 3.12345678 could be "312,345,678 bitmotes", or even "3 gold bitcoins, 1,234 silver bitcoins, and 5,678 copper bitcoins".

[nebulus]

Okay, seems like you are saying it is up to the software developer to choose a unit of measure. Might be confusing for customers, but at the same time can spice things up a bit, can spin off a myriad of different current for different businesses.

[theymos]

The client already messes with the decimal point. Internally Bitcoin views all values as integers: 3 bitcoins is 300000000 base units as seen by the protocol.

[wumpus]

It is already possible to set the denomination to mBTC (1/1000) or even μBTC (1/1000000) in the Satoshi client, if you like large numbers better than small fractions.

[bg002h]

It is already possible to set the denomination to mBTC (1/1000) or even μBTC (1/1000000) in the Satoshi client, if you like large numbers better than small fractions.

In my head I had been calling μBTC "Mikes" and mBTC "Millies". I think this slang terminology was discussed here elsewhere. I also internally called 5 Satoshis (base units) a little bitnickel...10 Satoshis a little bitdime , etc while calling 0.05, 0.10, 0.25 BTC a big bitnickel, big bitdime, etc...I guess medium versions for Millies could be considered too (ie 0.25 mBTC being a millie bitquarter).

[julz]

As mentioned - this comes up often.
I'm also guilty of launching a thread like this:  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=27663.0 (Bitcoin Unit Colour Chart)

TLDR;   - It's up to the UI designers.    (Though an informal 'standard' would be nice)

[goodlord666]

What if I told you there was something in the works nobody has come up with yet? It's just too early for it.

Relax.