Bitcoin Fractional Units

[adamstgBit]

This thread will attempt to standardize bitcoin's fractional units, once and for all. The hope is that through community effort we can come up with a set of bitcoin fractional units, and also determine how these units should be used by wallets to display balances, or my merchant sites to display prices.

why is this an issue?

because bitcoin qt says 1,000,000^th of a bitcoin is called a "micro-bitcoin", and blockchain.info's wallet says that 1,000,000^th of a bitcoin is called a "bit"

and this bugs me.

[jbreher]

Using the term 'bit' to refer to 1/1000000 of a Bitcoin is by no means a Generally Accepted Concept.

Yes, wallets can already 'display balances as BTC and BITS ex. 3.1BTC and 238903BITS'. Get coding.

Incidentally, the 'official' wallet already has a user-settable option to display in BTC, mBTC, or uBTC.

I'm not dropping mBTC. You can if you want. I recognize that I have no ability to force your behavior.

As a passing comment, I note that humans already have an issue with 6 decades of dynamic range. Introducing new units to reduce from 8 decades to 6 (i.e. 'Satoshis' to 'uBTC' or 'bit'), without an intervening unit (i.e. 'mBTC'), accomplishes very little.

[adamstgBit]

Using the term 'bit' to refer to 1/1000000 of a Bitcoin is by no means a Generally Accepted Concept.

sure it is! blockchain.info and qt wallets both allow you to view your balance in BITS already.

Yes, wallets can already 'display balances as BTC and BITS ex. 3.1BTC and 238903BITS'. Get coding.

i only saw wallets that either display in bits or BTC, never both, maybe thats the best approach  just throwing an idea out there.

Incidentally, the 'official' wallet already has a user-settable option to display in BTC, mBTC, or uBTC.

yes, i see that, and thats good, but what does it default to? when i send a payment and i want to send it in BTC but my Qt or blockchain wallet is set to bits, will i need to go into the setting and then send my BTC payment out and then set it back to bits ? thats a bitch, wallets need to be able to switch from BTC / BITS on the fly, as i am about to make a payment, some sites will quote prices in BTC some in BITS, needs to be fast and easy to switch back and forth when making a payment.

I'm not dropping mBTC. You can if you want. I recognize that I have no ability to force your behavior.

As a passing comment, I note that humans already have an issue with 6 decades of dynamic range. Introducing new units to reduce from 8 decades to 6 (i.e. 'Satoshis' to 'uBTC' or 'bit'), without an intervening unit (i.e. 'mBTC'), accomplishes very little.

if we all just leave this up in the air, no standards defined anywhere, let everyone do their own thing, and hope it all sorta works out in the end, its going to get really messy and hard to work with... how do i pay a site that prices things in mBTC when my blockchain wallet doesn't even have a setting for mBTC??? ( if you think its no problem just multiply it by 10 and you get the BTC amount, then your voting that we simply accept the way things are and make due... we can do better -_- ) we need to think about these thing, discuss them, draw out some standards,  maybe drop mBTC because it just making things just that much more complicated.

[adamstgBit]

I prefer 'mills' (mBTC) and 'mikes' (uBTC), as it reuses existing patterns well-known to anyone who has had a need to handle numbers of anything over a range of magnitudes (i.e. the SI system, used nearly universally in other areas of measurement). I may be in the minority. As such, I recognize the need to sit back and let consensus emerge. Trying to force the issue will not be resistant to whatever socially-selected solution eventually emerges.

this is excellent! i have updated OP.

I like BITS because it sounds cool.

maybe we can have the best of both worlds by renaming these,  mills (mBTC) bits (uBTC)

[pequelore]

I prefer 'mills' (mBTC) and 'mikes' (uBTC), as it reuses existing patterns well-known to anyone who has had a need to handle numbers of anything over a range of magnitudes (i.e. the SI system, used nearly universally in other areas of measurement). I may be in the minority. As such, I recognize the need to sit back and let consensus emerge. Trying to force the issue will not be resistant to whatever socially-selected solution eventually emerges.

this is excellent! i have updated OP.

I like BITS because it sounds cool.

maybe we can have the best of both worlds by renaming these,  mills (mBTC) bits (uBTC)

Bits sounds professional too.

[adamstgBit]

I prefer 'mills' (mBTC) and 'mikes' (uBTC), as it reuses existing patterns well-known to anyone who has had a need to handle numbers of anything over a range of magnitudes (i.e. the SI system, used nearly universally in other areas of measurement). I may be in the minority. As such, I recognize the need to sit back and let consensus emerge. Trying to force the issue will not be resistant to whatever socially-selected solution eventually emerges.

this is excellent! i have updated OP.

I like BITS because it sounds cool.

maybe we can have the best of both worlds by renaming these,  mills (mBTC) bits (uBTC)

Bits sounds professional too.

Bits comes out naturally

I have a friend i talk to about bitcoin alot, and he started saying things like " hows the bits doing ",  long ago.

i am all for using Bits as a fractional unit of bitcoin. and i think alot of poeple like it too  

[adamstgBit]

[adamstgBit]

OP was too open ended and all over the place, so i decided to make it more specific. Join in the discussion so we can come up with detailed specifications as to bitcoin's fractional units.

[colinistheman]

I like how "bits" sounds.

It's professional and simple.

And as the value per bitcoin increases, the utility of "bits" will still be usable for a long time. For example, it may cost 5,000 bits for a cup of coffee now (I haven't done the exact math).

But eventually it will only be 50 bits, for a cup of coffee, for example.

It will save us from having to rename the common unit for a long period of time.

[solex]

This looks good!

[phillipsjk]

I am not sure why we need yet another poll on this.

I still hate 'bits' because I (and others) will find it confusing. Others will come in with other seemingly confusing examples to try to prove I can handle it with my big-boy pants.

The poll is also strangely worded; in terms of the current exchange rate: which I doubt is finished moving around.

One thing I do support is:

• 10⁸ Satoshies = 1 BTC
  
• 100 Satoshies = 1 XBT (ISO 4217 compliant)

That solves the problems with financial software assuming 2 decimal places. It also avoids confusion because the XBT term is not widely used yet.

Of course, calling XBT=100 Satoshies "one Bitcoin" would cause confusion.

[adamstgBit]

I am not sure why we need yet another poll on this.

I still hate 'bits' because I (and others) will find it confusing. Others will come in with other seemingly confusing examples to try to prove I can handle it with my big-boy pants.

The poll is also strangely worded; in terms of the current exchange rate: which I doubt is finished moving around.

One thing I do support is:

• 10⁸ Satoshies = 1 BTC
  
• 100 Satoshies = 1 XBT (ISO 4217 compliant)

That solves the problems with financial software assuming 2 decimal places. It also avoids confusion because the XBT term is not widely used yet.

Of course, calling XBT=100 Satoshies "one Bitcoin" would cause confusion.

this is interesting, you have some compelling reasoning too..

so you purpose only 1 Fractional Unit  1XBT = 1 / 1,000,000^th of a bitcoin.

why X. B. T. tho?

why not  B. I. T. ?

[franky1]

so this is poll number 1million and thread number 10 million all about the topic of bits.. and so far bits is in the lead....

....
....
....
hopefully the OP and all the other posts they cry about bits, will realise that although the poster doesnt like it, the majority of others that bother reading these endless topics keep highlighting that bits is good.

you can try twisting the words all you like but every poll that has asked about bits has shown bits to be best.. can we finally just accept it and move on

[mkc]

I don't care, anything is okay

[phillipsjk]

so you purpose only 1 Fractional Unit  1XBT = 1 / 1,000,000^th of a bitcoin.

why X. B. T. tho?

why not  B. I. T. ?

In addition to codes for most active national currencies ISO 4217 provides codes for "supranational" currencies, procedural purposes, and several things which are "similar to" currencies:

• Codes for precious metals Gold (XAU), Silver (XAG), Palladium (XPD), and Platinum (XPT) are formed by prefixing the element's chemical symbol with the letter "X". These "currency units" are denominated as one troy ounce of the specified metal as opposed to "USD 1" or "EUR 1".
• The code XTS is reserved for use in testing.
• The code XXX is used to denote a "transaction" involving no currency.
• There are also codes specifying certain monetary instruments used in international finance, e.g. XDR is the symbol for special drawing right issued by the International Monetary Fund.
• The codes for most supranational currencies, such as the East Caribbean dollar, the CFP franc, the CFA franc BEAC and the CFA franc BCEAO. The predecessor to the euro, the European Currency Unit (ECU), had the code XEU.

The use of an initial letter "X" for these purposes is facilitated by the ISO 3166 rule that no official country code beginning with X will ever be assigned. Because of this rule ISO 4217 can use X codes without risk of clashing with a future country code.

- ISO 4217

[cryptomanik]

http://s24.postimg.org/igushgsyd/Bitcoin_Fractional_Units.png

This looks good!

Bitcent.. I said bitcent. Bits not sounds so good for  a very serious kind of matter.

[ytr8]

$5 is about 0.0125BTC,NOW

[Q7]

For me I'm fine with the term bits, xbt, mbtc, ubtc, whichever as long as the other guy understands it. I know there won't be a one voice consensus here because everybody will have their own opinion

[orsotheysaid]

We should talk in BTC to talk big amounts, bits for single digit dollar ammounts, satoshis for cents of dollars.

[mlferro]

This looks good!

Bitcent.. I said bitcent. Bits not sounds so good for  a very serious kind of matter.

liked !! very good the picture