Cross post from other thread:
I definitely think new names would reduce the chance of confounding denominations, as well as make handling smaller amounts of BTC much simpler.
Additionally those new names should not have the same sound to them, as that also facilitates confusion when two parties negotiate over price or when you send funds.
Third, in this stage of bitcoin, it seems futile to me to try press names into a scheme mirroring the Dollar-Cents relationship, because we have no idea where the valuation of bitcoin will end up in 1, 2, 5 years from now.
It might make more sense to use first names of people that heavily contributed to the bitcoin ecosystem (as in 1 Satoshi), in steps of 1000 as that is the scheme every SI unit generally follows. For all practical purposes the "cent" denominations can be added to the main denomination like so:
My official proposal:
1 Bitcoin, == 100 Bitcoincent (or 1 Bitcent),
1 Bitcoin, == 1000 Gavin (or Gav for short)
1 Bitcoin, == 1000 00 Gavincent (or Gavcent)
1 Bitcoin, == 1000 000 Finney (or Fin for short)
1 Bitcoin, == 1000 000 00 Finneycent (=Fincent, or Satoshi)
Pairs: Bitcoin/Bitcoincent, Gavin/Gavincent, Finney/Finneycents(Satoshis)
Advantage of that scheme is, that whatever the current valuation of bitcoin, you can always use bitcoin in the familiar way you handle the Dollar/cents pair.
So eg use Bitcoin/Bitcents for denominations of Bitcoin < 100$, Gavin/Gavincents for denominations of Bitcoin at 100$ and above, and later at maybe around 10k USD use Finneys/Finneycents(Satoshis).
Why Finney and not Hal? Gavin and Satoshi are first names, but Finney is a last name. I think if we are going to use names, we should use them consistently.
Your system has units with 2, 3, 5, 6, and 8 zeros. Why not 2, 4, 6, 8? This would be much simpler and easier to understand.
Finally, you say it's your “official proposal”. What makes this official, compared to the other proposals in this forum?
1) I went with Finney because I like the two syllable sound of it. Consistently using first names would be nicer, I agree with you there. We cound make that a Hal
2) The denominations come naturally when you descend down in steps of 10^3, name the units and add a cent denomination. Ie:
1 Bitcoin
1 Gavin (1/1000 Bitcoin)
1 Finney (1/1000 Gavin) (or a Hal)
Very clear and distinct for my feeling. Now to add some ease in handling these units, you add cents to each of them:
1 Bitcent (1/100 Bitcoin)
1 Gavincent (1/100 Gavin),
1 Finneycent (1/100 Finney), or also called Satoshi
That would make it nicely fit our familiarity with fiat denominations at whatever bitcoins trading range is atm.
3) Official means "my official" proposal, for what it's worth