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Topic: A proposal: Forget about mBTC and switch directly to Satoshis - page 3. (Read 16441 times)

donator
Activity: 1218
Merit: 1079
Gerald Davis
"Lolz.  If you think this is the biggest challenge facing mass adoption of Bitcoin well all I got to say is lolz."

The only other barriers are technology, regulation and politics. The average end user has zero input into any of those areas. Unless the average end user feels comfortable with BTC it will die a death. Period. But I'll eagerly await your inspired insights.

So Bitcoin will die from being too valuable.   Has that ever happened to anything ever in the history of mankind.

If less people adopted Bitcoin wouldn't the price go down?  If the price goes down wouldn't Bitcoin be less valuable and thus solve the problem of dying from being too valuable?

The idea that something can both be excessively valuable and die is ... well silly.  Lots of things could kill Bitcoin, it being too valuable isn't one of them.
sr. member
Activity: 371
Merit: 250
"Lolz.  If you think this is the biggest challenge facing mass adoption of Bitcoin well all I got to say is lolz."

The only other barriers are technology, regulation and politics. The average end user has zero input into any of those areas. Unless the average end user feels comfortable with BTC it will die a death. Period. But I'll eagerly await your inspired insights.
donator
Activity: 1218
Merit: 1079
Gerald Davis
Theres no difference in writing 0.1 Ms, 100Ks, or 1mBTC.

But there is a difference in using mBTC just to throw it away later.  Using satoshi's solves that problem.

Who says it will be thrown away later?  Isn't this kinda a carriage before the horse thinking.  Even if it is "thrown away" later ... later might be decades from now. 
donator
Activity: 1218
Merit: 1079
Gerald Davis
I think this is an urgent issue and one of the most pressing for the (healthy) future of bitcoins.

Lolz.  If you think this is the biggest challenge facing mass adoption of Bitcoin well all I got to say is lolz.

In the meantime tell your bank manager a "millibit" is still under a buck.
sr. member
Activity: 371
Merit: 250
FWIW I tried explaining bitcoins to a bank manager in Malaysia yesterday. All was going well until I told her what the current price was and you could tell she had lost interest. If BTC/XBT hits $1K then human psychology is going to kick in as a barrier to acceptance for the average Joe and Jane. It probably would have been better if the value of satoshis and BTC were reversed, then we could talk in MBTC, GBTC like disk space.  I think this is an urgent issue and one of the most pressing for the (healthy) future of bitcoins. If a new and sensible naming convention can be decided upon, it will be a very positive step.
full member
Activity: 476
Merit: 100
Satoshis are too small to switch to for the near future. mBTC makes total sense though.

Theres no difference in writing 0.1 Ms, 100Ks, or 1mBTC.

But there is a difference in using mBTC just to throw it away later.  Using satoshi's solves that problem.
full member
Activity: 476
Merit: 100
I prefer metric .
I would love to see micro after the milli , and maybe some popularity for centibitcoins.
Satoshis are too small and confusing in my opinion.


Satoshi are the base unit.  If you want to do 'metric' you have to use satoshis.

BTC was arbitrarily chosen by satoshi to be 100,000,000 satoshis. BTC breaks orders of magnitude, not satoshis.
full member
Activity: 476
Merit: 100

Great, so those same "humans" would rather have 1000000000000000 B disk drives, right?

You don't write 1000000000000000 B.  You write 1 TB.

You don't write 100,000,000 S. You write 1 Ms.

Hopefully that clears things up.
donator
Activity: 1218
Merit: 1079
Gerald Davis
Im with you on this OP.

I tell my friends about bitcoin and they go 'well it costs over $300' how can I afford that???

I try to explain that, no, you don't need a whole one, and yes, you can buy half or a quater or whatever.
Hopeless.

Tell them a mBTC is only $0.30 and it can be used anywhere that takes BTC so they can buy thousands of them.  Smiley
member
Activity: 98
Merit: 10
Have to do it gradually, amounts measured in mBTC look natural to the eye at this moment of time.

But micro is too small, not to mention satoshi, those would be cumbersome to count in at this point.
newbie
Activity: 56
Merit: 0
Im with you on this OP.

I tell my friends about bitcoin and they go 'well it costs over $300' how can I afford that???

I try to explain that, no, you don't need a whole one, and yes, you can buy half or a quater or whatever.
Hopeless.
jr. member
Activity: 58
Merit: 10
I've made a (somewhat silly) attempt at making mBTC sound a bit less abstruse:

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.3518845
legendary
Activity: 1204
Merit: 1002
RUM AND CARROTS: A PIRATE LIFE FOR ME
Satoshis are too small to switch to for the near future. mBTC makes total sense though.
legendary
Activity: 1120
Merit: 1038
I prefer metric .
I would love to see micro after the milli , and maybe some popularity for centibitcoins.
Satoshis are too small and confusing in my opinion.
legendary
Activity: 1708
Merit: 1010
Maybe we can move beyond all these comments and put the matter to a vote?


It doesn't really matter what we do here.  It's not really up to us.  The membership who would vote on such a thing, in an obscure forum, in a particular thread, have no more authority to make any such determination than a church business meeting in Kansas has any authority to vote on the legality of pot in Germany.  No one gives a shit, and our opinion matters not at all.

In the long run, the market will tell us what the answer is.
hero member
Activity: 532
Merit: 500
Are you like these guys?
Maybe we can move beyond all these comments and put the matter to a vote? The title of the thread essentially requests a yes or no answer, sure there is room for other suggestions and if anyone wanted to put a vote topic together collating the suggestions on this thread, it might be easier if people voted so that we can get a snapshot of what people think as a whole rather than endless variations being discussed here which aren't really all that individually relevant unless they happen to become the dominant viewpoint.

For what it is worth (and that's not very much) I'd say Yes, forget about mBTC and switch directly to Satoshis.

Why? Well, the finance sector doesn't even use BTC, it uses XBT so if we're going to go mainstream with bitcoins, new adopters won't have a clue what mBTC is, they might not even know exactly what BTC is because the increasingly internationally accepted term is XBT. It's easy to then explain that Satoshis are parts of a bitcoin named after the guy who created them.

Check out 'The World's Favorite Currency Site' www.xe.com it includes bitcoins, type 'XBT' or even 'bitcoin' into the converter field, up it comes, type 'BTC' into it and it defaults back to XBT.

Anyway, on a scale of one to ten on whether I care what they're called, it's a three or maybe a two Wink





full member
Activity: 236
Merit: 100
This proposal is nonsensical to me.

MS (mega satoshi) is okay, but mB (milli bitcoin) is not?

What is the difference? You can't be seriously suggesting that one is 'psychologically' better than the other? Whether it 'feels' small or large is irrelevant, since you'll be both receiving and paying.
legendary
Activity: 1246
Merit: 1077
Bitcoin is naturally deflationary, so units will have to change. Just like we no longer use MB and instead measure disk capacity in TB, we will eventually have to change units.

Going from BTC to mBTC to μBTC to (eventually) nBTC is the natural direction. As time goes on, prefixes get stronger. This is how it works with disk capacity (kB to MB to GB to TB and eventually to PB), which people are familiar with. This is how it works with frequencies (MHz to GHz and eventually to THz). This is how it works with die sizes in semiconducting (μm to nm and eventually to pm).

Humans like to have prefixes increase in intensity as time goes on, not decrease. This is not possible with using Msat, because instead of going to the intuitive Gsat, it goes to ksat. The prefixes are not increasing in intensity. Worse yet, when the prices go from ksat to sat, the next step is msat. From here on, prefixes do go in order of increasing intensity. Not only is using satoshi cumbersome and unprecedented, but it is also inconsistent in the long run.

You're wrong. Humans would rather have 1Ms and know that the buying power of their satoshis are increasing, instead of changing units.

It's not cumbersome. It's only unprecedented because it hasn't been needed yet. But will soon.  Infact, satoshi's are used on all the dice sites. Everyone talks about how many satoshis they won/lost.

Great, so those same "humans" would rather have 1000000000000000 B disk drives, right?
donator
Activity: 1218
Merit: 1079
Gerald Davis
You're wrong. Humans would rather have 1Ms and know that the buying power of their satoshis are increasing, instead of changing units.

Good thing you speak for all humans.  Of course since everyone wants that it will happen and there is no need for a proposal.  Job well done everyone.
full member
Activity: 476
Merit: 100
Bitcoin is naturally deflationary, so units will have to change. Just like we no longer use MB and instead measure disk capacity in TB, we will eventually have to change units.

Going from BTC to mBTC to μBTC to (eventually) nBTC is the natural direction. As time goes on, prefixes get stronger. This is how it works with disk capacity (kB to MB to GB to TB and eventually to PB), which people are familiar with. This is how it works with frequencies (MHz to GHz and eventually to THz). This is how it works with die sizes in semiconducting (μm to nm and eventually to pm).

Humans like to have prefixes increase in intensity as time goes on, not decrease. This is not possible with using Msat, because instead of going to the intuitive Gsat, it goes to ksat. The prefixes are not increasing in intensity. Worse yet, when the prices go from ksat to sat, the next step is msat. From here on, prefixes do go in order of increasing intensity. Not only is using satoshi cumbersome and unprecedented, but it is also inconsistent in the long run.

You're wrong. Humans would rather have 1Ms and know that the buying power of their satoshis are increasing, instead of changing units.

It's not cumbersome. It's only unprecedented because it hasn't been needed yet. But will soon.  Infact, satoshi's are used on all the dice sites. Everyone talks about how many satoshis they won/lost.
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