Please stop with mBTC, microBTC, ...!

[dyask]

I think the OP is quite off the mark on this one.  Using SI prefixes is a really normal thing to do.  Do you say "I'm going to visit my friend in the next town, he lives just 25000 meters away", or do you say "25km"?  It's really the same thing.  Similarly, most likely you talk about the size of your hard drive in GigaBytes, not 1000000000s of Bytes.

I would, however, agree with you about these proposals for other funky named units "BITS", etc, that stuff does sound like some other coin and it's weird.

SI prefixes are quite standard, however, and they are very useful.

Even people that are on the metric system will not be used to using terms that signify a small percentage of something. Using these terms will cause confusion and will likely cause sellers to get scammed out of their product when they are offered a price that is a small fraction of what their product is worth.

Huh?  It seems it is only the bonehead Americans that refuse to learn a sane system that are at risked of getting scammed.   There isn't any confusion in the metric system.   For example a meter is the measurement of length.  It doesn't matter if you are talking about the distance to the moon or size of a blood cell.  There isn't any confusion because SI prefixes are standard and the meter is a standard length.  

I don't think being american has anything to do with it.  Even americans use kilo/mega/giga/terabytes and milli/micro/nanoseconds.  There are many, many other examples.  I agree with you that the SI prefixes are completly standard and non-confusing.  The thing that americans refuse to adopt (overall) is the base units of meter/liter, etc.  But even Americans use the metric prefixes in the standard way as multipliers.

The Americans using SI prefixes already won't have an issue.  (I'm one of them.)   However many Americans cling to the multiple unit systems that are still commonly used.  (mile, yard, foot, inch / gallon, quart, pint, cup, oz etc.)   It seems to be largely this group pushing for more bitcoin units like "bits" even though those terms don't make any sense.   All that is needed is one unit and prefixes.   I don't have a problem with satoshi because at least there is a reason for it.   

There are a few vendors that support use of "bits" so there is a chance it will catch on, but I seriously hope it just fades away.   

[tspacepilot]

I wish I had a link but I can't find it now.  It seems to me that the absolute bat-shit craziest idea on this topic that some people are apparantly pushing is calling 100satoshi a "bit".  I can't imagine anything more confusing that confounding an atomic unit of computer storage (1 bit) with 100 atomic units of btc.  Have you guys heard of this?

[BurtW]

It is mentioned several times in this very thread:

For those that do not know the entire "bits" proposal, which I personally like because it solves three issues in one proposal is:

1 satoshi = smallest unit, pretty much in general use today
1 bit       = 100 satoshi, eventually every day use, coffee, sandwiches, etc.
1 XBT     = 1 bit, should be the official symbol on all exchanges, forex, etc.
1 BTC     = 1000000 bits = kept for dealing with larger amounts, may fade

1 Bitcoin/bitcoin as a currency unit fades away

Bitcoin = the Bitcoin protocol

Notice that 1 microBitcoin = 100 satoshi = 1 bit = 1 XBT

When adopted we can all look forward to the day when a shave and a haircut will, once again, cost two bits.

[rottentomatoes]

I agree, we need to keep it simple.

[williamj2543]

Question, if we ended up using satoshi (in the future) as a normal payment, maybe even up to a dollar or a cent, then what would the transaction fees be. If for example a coffee costed 2 satoshi, the lowest possible fee could be 1 satoshi since that is the smallest BTC amount possible. Would we create more decimals?

[DeathAndTaxes]

Question, if we ended up using satoshi (in the future) as a normal payment, maybe even up to a dollar or a cent, then what would the transaction fees be. If for example a coffee costed 2 satoshi, the lowest possible fee could be 1 satoshi since that is the smallest BTC amount possible. Would we create more decimals?

A satoshi being worth more than a few cents is so unlikely as to not even be something to worry about. If a satoshi = $1 then 1 BTC = $100,000,000 and the Bitcoin money supply would be $2.1 quadrillion (many multiples of all the money in the world).   Even under the most dubiously optimistic scenarios (i.e. Bitcoin replaces most or all national currencies) a saotshi would still be worth no more than a few pennies (circa 2014 USD in purchasing power).

[williamj2543]

Question, if we ended up using satoshi (in the future) as a normal payment, maybe even up to a dollar or a cent, then what would the transaction fees be. If for example a coffee costed 2 satoshi, the lowest possible fee could be 1 satoshi since that is the smallest BTC amount possible. Would we create more decimals?

A satoshi being worth more than a few cents is so unlikely as to not even be something to worry about. If a satoshi = $1 then 1 BTC = $100,000,000 and the Bitcoin money supply would be $2.1 quadrillion (many multiples of all the money in the world).   Even under the most dubiously optimistic scenarios (i.e. Bitcoin replaces most or all national currencies) a saotshi would still be worth no more than a few pennies (circa 2014 USD in purchasing power).

Ok, so then a satoshi being worth a cent would be extremely likely. That means a bitcoin would be worth 1 million dollars, which would be very likely and it would be a good number, and that means a satoshi would be worth a cent, which perfectly matches up to the USD, making it easy to estimate conversions. Also bitcoin being worth a total of 2.1 trillion dollars is very likely, because currently the amount of fiat in the US is around that, probably a bit more, but right away bitcoin wouldn't replace fiat fully.

[DeathAndTaxes]

If 1 satoshi = $0.01 then 1 BTC = $1M USD and the coin supply would be worth $21T not $2.1T.  I also wouldn't call that likely, Bitcoin's long term success isn't a certainty. Also even if it is successful there are a lot of potential scenarios where the total coin supply is valued at a lot less than $21T.   

A $21T money supply would make it the largest supply in the world.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2215rank.html

[crocko]

In a not so distant future we may have this situation:

- an average miner couldn't mine more than few mBTC / uBTC / μBTC per day because of the growing diff
- the price of 1 BTC will be out of the range of large masses, so the introduction of mBTC, uBTC, μBTC has sense.

Already steps on this direction are made: http://www.coindesk.com/coinbase-announces-pricing-bits-bitcoin-buyback-option/

[sed]

It is mentioned several times in this very thread:

For those that do not know the entire "bits" proposal, which I personally like because it solves three issues in one proposal is:

1 satoshi = smallest unit, pretty much in general use today
1 bit       = 100 satoshi, eventually every day use, coffee, sandwiches, etc.
1 XBT     = 1 bit, should be the official symbol on all exchanges, forex, etc.
1 BTC     = 1000000 bits = kept for dealing with larger amounts, may fade

1 Bitcoin/bitcoin as a currency unit fades away

Bitcoin = the Bitcoin protocol

Notice that 1 microBitcoin = 100 satoshi = 1 bit = 1 XBT

When adopted we can all look forward to the day when a shave and a haircut will, once again, cost two bits.

I agree with tspacepilot.  This seems crazy.  As I said elsewhere, it's like saying that I'm gonna call a new unit of currency the meter, because somehow bringing meters into currency is supposed to alieviate confusion?!  A bit is already a unit of information, to confound a computer unit of information with a unit of currency which is calculated by computers seems like a terrible idea.

Also, in the quote above, I can't identify what the "the issues" are that this solves.  The person quoted seems to think that there's a problem with confusing the bitcoin protocol with the bitcoin unit.  But what are the other "issues"?

[dyask]

It is mentioned several times in this very thread:

For those that do not know the entire "bits" proposal, which I personally like because it solves three issues in one proposal is:

1 satoshi = smallest unit, pretty much in general use today
1 bit       = 100 satoshi, eventually every day use, coffee, sandwiches, etc.
1 XBT     = 1 bit, should be the official symbol on all exchanges, forex, etc.
1 BTC     = 1000000 bits = kept for dealing with larger amounts, may fade

1 Bitcoin/bitcoin as a currency unit fades away

Bitcoin = the Bitcoin protocol

Notice that 1 microBitcoin = 100 satoshi = 1 bit = 1 XBT

When adopted we can all look forward to the day when a shave and a haircut will, once again, cost two bits.

I agree with tspacepilot.  This seems crazy.  As I said elsewhere, it's like saying that I'm gonna call a new unit of currency the meter, because somehow bringing meters into currency is supposed to alieviate confusion?!  A bit is already a unit of information, to confound a computer unit of information with a unit of currency which is calculated by computers seems like a terrible idea.

Also, in the quote above, I can't identify what the "the issues" are that this solves.  The person quoted seems to think that there's a problem with confusing the bitcoin protocol with the bitcoin unit.  But what are the other "issues"?

1/8th of a dollar is also a bit.  A quarter is two bits and 8 bits is a dollar.  That is leftover the an old Spanish system.   Now that is confusing!

Still, I have to wonder if that isn't partly why a byte has 8 bits?

Anyway overloading the term bit again, just brings more confusion. 

[STT]

A byte is 2 to the power of 3 as computers process everything in binary which is a base of 2 I think that is mostly why.  Ascii was 128 characters or 2 to the power of 7 for printer codes and now they use 1 byte for each character

  Someone should look at the history of currency and how bitcoin relates. Deci is ten but originally currency was not with a base of ten.  The dollar was originally a silver piece and could be cut up into pieces of eight?

[BurtW]

Bit was a monetary unit before it was a unit of information.

In information "bit" is a contraction of the term "binary digit".

It might be a bit confusing, I like the proposal a little bit but we might have bit off a bit more than we can chew at this time.  We might have to wait a bit for it to catch on but I will bet you two bits that in a bit we could not only measure the size of the block chain in bits but also measure our net worth in bits.  Finally I hope to someday buy a drill bit with bits.

[sed]

Bit was a monetary unit before it was a unit of information.

In information "bit" is a contraction of the term "binary digit".

It might be a bit confusing, I like the proposal a little bit but we might have bit off a bit more than we can chew at this time.  We might have to wait a bit for it to catch on but I will bet you two bits that in a bit we could not only measure the size of the block chain in bits but also measure our net worth in bits.  Finally I hope to someday buy a drill bit with bits.

I think your point here is the massive homophony for the string "bit".  With respect to your usages, I see the adverb meaning "a little", the adverbial noun meaning "a little amount" (x4), the past of "bite", the obscure, erstwhile monetary unit, and then the computer atomic unit of storage, then this weird bitcoin fraction, then a piece of a drill.

As cute as that is, I think the only relevant ones are the modern usages related to information and computers.  No one is going to confuse a fraction of a bitcoin with a drill bit.  However, given that bitcoin transactions can indeed be measured in bits (although kilobytes would be more typical way to express it), there is a real confusion.  For me it seems crazy pick out odd decimal points along the bitcoin unit and then put overloaded terms as names for those amounts.

[DeathAndTaxes]

However, given that bitcoin transactions can indeed be measured in bits (although kilobytes would be more typical way to express it), there is a real confusion.

Really? Lets put aside the argument if you do or do not like "bits" as a unit.  You honestly would be confused.  You can't determine the meaning of the word from the context even though you do it for thousands of other words every single day.

My internet connection is blazing fast, it is 50 Megabits per second. Would you honestly believe he was saying his internet connection generating 50 million bits of currency a second?  Really?

The tickets are 5,000 bits.  Would you honestly be trying to figure out how they compressed the concert tickets to be less than 1KB?  Really?

[sed]

However, given that bitcoin transactions can indeed be measured in bits (although kilobytes would be more typical way to express it), there is a real confusion.

Really? Lets put aside the argument if you do or do not like "bits" as a unit.  You honestly would be confused.  You can't determine the meaning of the word from the context even though you do it for thousands of other words every single day.

My internet connection is blazing fast, it is 50 Megabits per second. Would you honestly believe he was saying his internet connection generating 50 million bits of currency a second?  Really?

The tickets are 5,000 bits.  Would you honestly be trying to figure out how they compressed the concert tickets to be less than 1KB?  Really?

Ok, I think you're trying to get me to address whether or not I would be confused.  And I think you're right to put it into context.  If you say "my internet connection is fast, 50megabits per second" then there's very little chance for confusion because you primed me with the adjective "fast".  However, in your second example, you use the semantically bleached "are" which is interpretable in many different ways, so I like this example.  Now imagine these are etickets, you say "tickets are 4096 bits".  Are you talking about the price of the tickets in bitcoins or are you talking about the size of the tickets as a network packet?  Presumably, in whatever context our conversation occurs, we can disambiguate this.  However, I think it's clumsy to use a unit of size on a network to indicate an arbitrarily placed decimal amount of a currency that's basically transmitted in packets over a network.  I really do think this is a lot like saying, I have a new name for price of 3 bottles of soda water, we're going to call it a "litre".  So, yes you can now buy 6 litres for 1 litre. 

[tspacepilot]

However, given that bitcoin transactions can indeed be measured in bits (although kilobytes would be more typical way to express it), there is a real confusion.

Really? Lets put aside the argument if you do or do not like "bits" as a unit.  You honestly would be confused.  You can't determine the meaning of the word from the context even though you do it for thousands of other words every single day.

My internet connection is blazing fast, it is 50 Megabits per second. Would you honestly believe he was saying his internet connection generating 50 million bits of currency a second?  Really?

The tickets are 5,000 bits.  Would you honestly be trying to figure out how they compressed the concert tickets to be less than 1KB?  Really?

Ok, I think you're trying to get me to address whether or not I would be confused.  And I think you're right to put it into context.  If you say "my internet connection is fast, 50megabits per second" then there's very little chance for confusion because you primed me with the adjective "fast".  However, in your second example, you use the semantically bleached "are" which is interpretable in many different ways, so I like this example.  Now imagine these are etickets, you say "tickets are 4096 bits".  Are you talking about the price of the tickets in bitcoins or are you talking about the size of the tickets as a network packet?  Presumably, in whatever context our conversation occurs, we can disambiguate this.  However, I think it's clumsy to use a unit of size on a network to indicate an arbitrarily placed decimal amount of a currency that's basically transmitted in packets over a network.  I really do think this is a lot like saying, I have a new name for price of 3 bottles of soda water, we're going to call it a "litre".  So, yes you can now buy 6 litres for 1 litre. 

So, looking at the OP, we are really being asked to stop using metric prefixes on BTC rather than simply sticking to BTC and satoshi.  This idea of "bits" must have another thread elsewhere I guess.  I agree with sed that the "bits" thing seems weird.

Personally, I have no problem with the metrix prefixes and I have my own bias because I played a lot of dragons tale casino.  In that game, mBTC is commonly used and below mBTC we usually see kSAT.  So, we go from millibtc to kilosatoshis, then, obviously, just plain satoshis.   My own opinion is that if you were going to pick out a special decimal place to name, it should probably be somewhere around 0.00001, something between mBTC and uBTC because that's on the order of magnitude to the value of a USD penny.  Well that's my opinion anyway.  Naming it something other than kSAT seems unmotivated to me, and naming it something like "bits" or "meters" seems outlandish.

[BurtW]

Yes, there are several threads.

As for those darn tickets they are 512 bytes and cost 4,096.00 bits.

[sed]

Yes, there are several threads.

As for those darn tickets they are 512 bytes and cost 4,096.00 bits.

Randomly generated bits?  Good thing its X.00, I wouldn't know how to split a bit into 100ths.  

I know what you mean by 512 bytes though, that has to be the weight of the thing, right?

I'm just teasing, I can see that by 4,096.00 bits you obviously mean 4.096mBTC

[dyask]

A byte is 2 to the power of 3 as computers process everything in binary which is a base of 2 I think that is mostly why.  Ascii was 128 characters or 2 to the power of 7 for printer codes and now they use 1 byte for each character

  Someone should look at the history of currency and how bitcoin relates. Deci is ten but originally currency was not with a base of ten.  The dollar was originally a silver piece and could be cut up into pieces of eight?

I'm not sure about the dollar, but Spanish coins were used before that and they cut into eights.   For a very long time the stock market used 1/8th of a dollar for the tick size.  (It is a penny now.)   There was a long term use of "bits" even when it was no longer really being used.   However now a bit is the simplest storage element, 0 or 1.   That is an important meaning and it is used in many places.   Using "Bits" for bitcoin doesn't make sense.