Bitcoin will not be adopted because it has.. too many decimal places?

[TheButterZone]

Everyone who uses BTC can be expected to know what BTC1 is. The same cannot be said of these ridiculous names for decimal places that are too easily confused with one another by business and consumer alike, and may shift in and out of common use (and memory) depending on the fiat/BTC exchange rate.

0) Fixing rates/prices will help
1) QR codes will help
2) Rounding will help
3) As of now, 1 US cent=BTC0.00003423. For that same cent to equal BTC0.00000001, BTC will have to equal $1 million USD.
4) I think I'm going to propose right now that we A) read prices <BTC1 either as "point single/double/triple/quad-zero {then the last digits}" (as it's common to say point at the beginning of a sub-whole number), or B) keeping with the 8 decimal place standard, that we have a directional shift button and all trailing zeroes be displayed. If the price is BTC1 or more, entry will be left to right. If <BTC1, hit the button, and the entry starts from right, the 8th decimal place, and goes to the left. So for 0.00015310 you would hit the button, and enter 0-1-3-5-1, the spaces would fill in the last 5 digits, and then you hit enter and it fills the remaining zeroes in, goes fullscreen for easy comparison to the price source, and enter again to confirm.

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[Hazir]

I am newish to Bitcoin. I am wondering what your thoughts are on this. The average person doesn't have the time to calculate Bitcoin value out to the millionth decimal place. Would this be a problem for widespread adoption?

First let me ask you a questions Do you count your bitcoins yourself? Do bitcoins transfers can work without hardware? If you answered 'no'
They you probably noticed that you don't have to calculate anything, in fact, your mobile device, pc or other piece of hardware will do it for you.
You just have to press "send". Easy as that.

[fox19891989]

There is a unit already widely used in casinos, mBtc = milli btc =  0.001 btc.

Therefore 1m btc is more like tips or changes, is equivalent to 0.2X USD.

IMO, mbtc will be more popular in the future. And the bigger figure gives people more satisfactions. 1000mbtc looks better than 1btc, right?  

[nachoig]

Is the division of bitcoin fixed, or can it be adjusted in the future, allowing it to be divided into even smaller parts than currently possible if needed?

It's possible to add even more decimal points, you just need a soft fork, although I think the current number of atomic units is already sufficient.

[calme]

Instead of diverting the attention to whether there is or isn't a search button, it's good to note that people asking the same questions as have been asked is just another indicator of growth. In an industry that is inherently technical at that, and with "new" bitcoiners who are inherently less technical and should have a warm welcome. They are still pioneers/early adopters/whatever, and those who get involved five years from now should be given a warm welcome too.

[hua_hui]

I think the merchants who are accepting Bitcoin payment should label the two price, one is bitcoin, the other is fiat money! Then the customers will see right away!

[calme]

I think the merchants who are accepting Bitcoin payment should label the two price, one is bitcoin, the other is fiat money! Then the customers will see right away!

Then maybe they should list three amounts.
1) Fiat cost
2) BTC cost and its fiat value

This is if they are offering a discount for using BTC. By offering a discount, you save money and they get more customers.

[PenguinFire]

Honestly I have never thought about it like this but I can see how it would.  That is one of the ONLY one thing an alt coin could have over bitcoin. 

[cryptojumper]

in fact i think bitcoin has too few of those.. and if bitcoin gains real value in future it will either have to make more or altcoins would be used for casual shopping..

[franky1]

in fact i think bitcoin has too few of those.. and if bitcoin gains real value in future it will either have to make more or altcoins would be used for casual shopping..

atleast try to look at the numbers
21,000,000.00000000

imagine $1 =100sat/1bit (0.00000100)

=$21,000,000,000,000
=$21 trillian

more than enough!
especially when you consider demand/deflation would cause goods usually worth $1 today (milk or bread), to be able to be bought for far less than 1bit.
in short it will be like the 1920's again where multiple loaves of bread can be bought for $1 and a house costs only $5k

[futureofbitcoin]

I'm having trouble understanding what you mean.
I mean, you don't go to the store and have them expect you to figure out the price of the product, taxes and exact change by yourself.. you know?
Why would it work any differently with Bitcoin?

If you're doing a friend to friend transaction most wallets tell you the price or you can look up the exchange rate yourself.

For example, what if you were in a Coffee shop, and the cup of coffee costed .000125 BTC

The average person would not want to waste time squinting at the decimal places and figuring up how much it actually is. Of course this is just my assumption that ordinary people would not want to do the math in their head all the time. I am decently intelligent and even I have to stop and think about it sometimes.

The problem isn't with the decimal places. It's because you're trying to value bitcoin against another currency. If you always used bitcoin, and know that starbucks sells coffee for .000125btc, macdonalds sells coffee for .000120btc, and so on, if you learned to value things in bitcoin, you don't need to do any math. You just intuitively feel how expensive or cheap it is.

On the other hand, if you go on vacation and use chinese yuan or japanese yen or something, even though the number of decimals is the same, you still need to do some math in your head to get the USD value or euro value or whatever currency you use.

It's about how used to the currency you are, not about the decimals.

[Rampton]

I'm having trouble understanding what you mean.
I mean, you don't go to the store and have them expect you to figure out the price of the product, taxes and exact change by yourself.. you know?
Why would it work any differently with Bitcoin?

If you're doing a friend to friend transaction most wallets tell you the price or you can look up the exchange rate yourself.

For example, what if you were in a Coffee shop, and the cup of coffee costed .000125 BTC

The average person would not want to waste time squinting at the decimal places and figuring up how much it actually is. Of course this is just my assumption that ordinary people would not want to do the math in their head all the time. I am decently intelligent and even I have to stop and think about it sometimes.

It will likely be priced in a fiat value so you will know how much it really costs. All you need to do is scan a QR code and everything will be done for you so it's not like you have to type in all the decimal places yourself. Regardless of that I think it'll just take some getting used to but people will adapt to it over time.

[BillyBobZorton]

I am newish to Bitcoin. I am wondering what your thoughts are on this. The average person doesn't have the time to calculate Bitcoin value out to the millionth decimal place. Would this be a problem for widespread adoption?

Wallets automatically convert quantities into other currencies ,at least some do. Bitcoin-QT doesn't, but other more user friendly ones should do so this is not a problem.
Also in the future when 1 BTC is like 100K dollars, we'll be using mBTC as the standard anyway.

[Balls]

I think the merchants who are accepting Bitcoin payment should label the two price, one is bitcoin, the other is fiat money! Then the customers will see right away!

This is what usually happens. In fact, stores like computer exchange and newegg just list everything in fiat then when you go to checkout it tells you the price in bitcoins which is then easy to pay by scanning a qr code or whatever. I don't think it's such a big deal

[Amph]

maybe adding a text under you balance on bitcoin-core client

for example if you have 0.001, under that it will report "you have 1mbtc or 1m bitcoin"

[cambda]

With little practise it is not problem anymore. 8 decimal places is not so much anyway, I thinking in Bitcoins, miliBitcoins and Satoshis naturally now, like
1.1258965

I read as 1 Bitcoin, 125 mili Bitcoins and 89650 Satoshis.

[Eastfist]

When something is designed too well, it's too effective. 

It makes no difference if you add 8 more zeroes to 21 million or 8 zeroes after a decimal place. Try to think about it more objectively. The decimals, psychologically speaking, make the numbers seem smaller and more manageable. That is all. Otherwise, yes, let the wallets and machines do the math.

[Snail2]

If you like the many zeroes you can switch to mBTC, or bits or whatever views. This depends only on your client. So decimal places shouldn't be an issue.