Topic: Bitcoin Exchanges - is it time to move to mBTC? (Read 614 times)

It's interesting you should use that analogy. Here is a thought exercise:

What is a pip in EURUSD?

What is a pip in USDJPY?

Turns out its pretty arbitrary and inconsistent.

I understand millimeters and micrometers and so do most Europeans. I mean hey it's not mebibytes.
Can we use directly microbits? I always loved the idea of having millions of something.  
I believe such choice is forward thinking. And it leaves just a couple of decimal places for the satoshis, which would be like cents. Even uneducated people have a grasp of the concept of cents.

I think non-existent is a bit of an overstatement.  Look at the volume the Forex market trades in.  They've normalized currency exchange rates to the concept of a pip. Everyone that trades it just works on that understanding, even though it is a purely logical concept based on the actual price.

People don't exclaim "Yay I traded a rise from 1.1037 to 1.1082. They just see buys

1.1037

, then

1.1082

and then they say "I just made 45 pips". They don't say "Yay I made 0.4% on a 100x leveraged investment whose leverage is necessary due to the low volatility of the base investment."
The abstraction presented makes understanding all the details less necessary, which allows for greater adoption. 

I figure, such a change could be beneficial. I've yet to come up with a reason it could be detrimental.

There is no mBTC, there is no uBTC, there are only bitcoins and satoshis. The chances of getting milliseconds and microseconds adopted when most of the world doesn't understand the concept of time itself are non-existent.

On board with you. People think that 1000 is a lot for one Bitcoin, even if they do not know how many are there in existence.

bump

First, credit where credit is due: rpietila suggested moving to mBTC months back. Being a bit ahead of his time, the suggestion was not well received.

I think we're at a point where the price listing is adversely affecting Bitcoin's price.

The people I talk to that are just getting in are saying things to me like:
"I'd rather have one of the virtual currencies. Feels a lot better to have more than 1 of something."
"Yeah but at xxx-hundred per Bitcoin? That's just too expensive."

It's not their fault - we get conditioned to see certain prices, from our other experiences, and view them as expensive. While there is no actual change in the valuation of the good, in my view it can certainly help price, for the reasons above, and more.  Hell, stock splits are common practice.  People wouldn't want to buy shares of Berkshire-Hathaway if it were $10000/share.
The same mental barrier could hold back future investments in Bitcoin.

Now normally, that wouldn't seem like such a big deal. Except we're amidst this mania phase. Tons of new money coming in.
Then they get this sticker shock...and invest in some other virtual currency, with no appreciation for what it is and whether it holds long term value.
Some of these people will get burned, badly. That's not good for the Bitcoin, or virtual currency community as a whole.

I think I've seen a growing consensus among the BitcoinTalk community to see this change. The problem is, we don't work at Gox, or Bitstamp, or BTC-China.  We need that right person to take this initiative and get in contact with someone that works. Get the ball rolling.

I'm not that person. My hope is that a thread focused solely on this goal will get the message to these exchanges in one of two ways:
1) Someone else that does have contacts with those exchanges will see this and begin those conversations.
2) Enough interest will be garnered in this thread that representatives from those exchanges will take notice, and act.