Topic: Bitcoin needs something equivalent to a stock split - page 3. (Read 5462 times)

Just use millibitcoin now and in 10 years, use microbitcoin, then in 50 years, use statoshi.

OP's idea is the most idiotic idea I have heard for a long time.

1 BTC = 1 BTC
A=A

0.001 of a bitcoin is a millibit if you wish.

If bitcoin's spread is contingent on a change in a decimal place then the human race deserves to fail.

Do you really think the unbanked, the oppressed, those under hyperinflation give a f**k about where the BTC decimal place is?

Should we edit the historical internet so all mentions of BTC amounts are multiplied by 1000?

Perhaps we should airbrush all images of Mark Karpeles from history?

Grow up and get an abacus or something.

Dogecoin has enough numbers above 1 for you - although that crowd are too smart for you.

Wanted something similar enough to 'bitcoin' to suggest a relation – same general size/sounds/syllables – but different enough to avoid constant confusion.

Spent some time looking at 'tibcoin' – just reversing the 'bit' part – but was concerned with 'T' having too many colliding meanings (tera-, TiB tebibytes, time, etc), and the abbreviation (TBC) being too much like BTC, and 'tibcoin' being too easily confusable with 'bitcoin' by single-letter transposition typos or flubbed speech.

Still, having the internal 'b' seemed helpful for slight bitcoin-suggestiveness, so went through the alphabet for '*ibcoin' options... Most had problems of colliding meanings or unclear/unhelpful pronunciations. 'Z', though, offered:

• 'Z' as a fairly distinctive one-letter abbreviation; 'ZBC' just different enough from 'BTC' to avoid too many mistypes/misviews
• Ƶ (Z-with-slash) available currency-ish unicode character
• 'zib' pronounceable with no obvious word collisions in English
• 'zib' very action verb-able, by my native English speaker ears, compared to 'bit' or 'mic' ("I'll bit 10,000 to you" or "I'll mic 10,000 to you" both sound wrongish compared to "I'll zib 10,000 to you")
• a useful connotation of 'finality' or 'the last' – once this unit is adopted, even satoshi-sized values need no more than 2 decimal places, and the search for new units or places to move the decimal point can end

Stewed on 'zibcoin' for a little while, then decided to write up the case in a few stable public places. I believe it solves the core issue, with the minimum required novelty. But, I know it'll take time to evaluate – to become familiar with the sound/spelling/abbreviations, and observe the compactness/unambiguity benefits compared to other options.

Getting the case out in a few forums lets it enter the thinkable-solution-set for people struggling with BTC-deep-decimal/mBTC/µBTC display issues, which come up repeatedly (including recently among core & wallet developers).

If Zibcoin doesn't sound quite right on first consideration... maybe it will over time, as more people repeatedly face BTC appreciation/denomination/communication issues.

(I thought a microbitcoin-based denomination would be overkill/superficial/silly the first few times I heard the idea... but now see it as so obviously beneficial that I just want to help remove the major remaining obstacle, the awkward language of 'microbitcoin' and 'µBTC'.)

I would like to know the etymology of "zib".

So that the thousands of projects, and millions of users, can switch at the same time, when's the switchover day where 'Bitcoin' is redefined?

Will the markets be closed, like when a country changes the side of the road it drives on?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagen_H

I have the solution. Create consensus to rename units as follows:

1 BTC --> becomes 1 Satoshi (the largest unit named in honor of the inventor)
1 mBTC --> becomes 1 BTC

Too much confusion and effort for too little a benefit. Using mBTC would work out better in my opinion.

Sweet.

http://i.imgur.com/2976bsf.gif

Hah it's funny because I can totally see this happening.

The need is clear, and the microbitcoin is a nice sized unit, but a mess of a word/abbreviation.

What's needed is a new word, related to Bitcoin and just as breezy, but with one unambiguous meaning (µBTC) that still leaves plenty of room for appreciation.

My proposal is here:

Ƶibcoin: Your New Favorite Altcoin

Lots of reasoning there, much of which has already been mentioned here, but the TLDR:

  1          bitcoin = 1,000,000    zibcoin = 100,000,000 satoshi
  0.000001   bitcoin =         1    zibcoin =         100 satoshi           
  0.00000001 bitcoin =         0.01 zibcoin =           1 satoshi

...and...

          Ƶ1 = 1 µBTC = BTC0.000001
      Ƶ1,000 = 1 mBTC = BTC0.001
  Ƶ1,000,000          = BTC1

'Zib' can be used as either a noun or verb in casual conversation:

“I’ll bring you a pizza for 10,000 zib”

“when are you going to zib me 10,000 for that pizza Friday night?”

Unless the satoshi is ever made divisible, other new terms won't be necessary. Zibcoin units can be adopted incrementally over time – there's no need for a big synchronized switchover, where old terms change their meaning.

I know it sounds a bit silly, but I think it'll grow on you if you give it a chance.

No. It's not a technical issue.
Any banking software that wants to interface with Bitcoin efficiently will have to adapt the client in various ways.
Changing the output of the RPC interface is a trivial task and changes to the graphical user interface are completely meaningless to this adaption.

You seem to completely overestimate the technical overhead of this change compared to any other challenges that the adaption of Bitcoin might cause.

Jeff Garzik brought up this argument, but he erred about that. You can see the discussion on the GitHub page, for example:


This is not about being a programmer or mathematician. Read my earlier posts in this thread. I have pointed out that it is generally more difficult to grasp the magnitude of a decimal number compared to an integer.
I am a programmer myself and I also prefer a smaller unit (kilosat, in my case) for the very same reason: It's more readable.

In case you didn't know it: The Bitcoin-Qt client allows you to change the displayed currency unit to your preference. Check the preferences' window.
If there's a particular exchange / online wallet / other service that doesn't allow you to do that, then you should complain to the operator of that service.
But please don't moan about the developers. It's not a technical issue.


I get the impression that you're waiting for the Central Bitcoin Authority to approve the switch, isn't it?

I have to disappoint you. You'll never get this approval. You are the "peer" in peer-to-peer. If you want to switch to microbitcoin, then just do it!

If you want to have a specific change in the way Bitcoin-Qt displays currency, I have already offered my help (twice).
(Please note that displaying currency in µBTC is already implemented. Just check the preferences' window.)

It is both social and technical.
1. Technical-because bank software, apparently, is not set up to use any more decimals than two, hence a proposal to move to XBU (microBTC).
2. Second (social)-regular folks (not programmers or mathematicians) cannot easily distinguish between 0.0002 and 0.00002 when they have to pay. It is known that many numbers after the period are inadvisable.

The question is how to get from here (full BTC with 8 decimals to XBU-as an example- and two decimals for satoshis).

I have read the GitHub discussion and I think this whole debate is completely blown out of proportion.

Firstly, this is a purely linguistic problem, not a technical one. The core developers are techies, not linguists, so they shouldn't be annoyed with this.

Secondly, if people want to use other units of currency, then they'll just start doing so by themselves.
For example, if you want to use microBTC as a unit, then just do so. You can change the appropriate setting in the client.

There is a "default" value for this setting which is applied to newly installed wallets. But as everyone can change the unit directly after installation, there's no reason to pay much attention to the default value.
Also, already installed wallets aren't affected at all. This is really only about the preset value for new installs.

I think everyone understand not to change a meaning of bitcoin, but the default wallet representation.
Instead of 3,012321 BTC it will be 3012321 microBTC. It would make sense to assign a three letter symbol to microBTC (XBU has been proposed).
in this case, wallet will read 3012321 XBU(microBTC). In a few years, once people get used to XBU (or some other three letter symbol), brackets and microBTC description will go away.
What is wrong with this?
I don't show this as my idea (it is not, of course); I simply bring some of the github discussion here.

The meaning of the word "bitcoin" can't be changed because it's already in use.
It's just impossible to change the meaning of in-use words. Instead, new words are introduced.


This is not the task of the core developers. It's a task of the community.
Core developers have lots of other, more important things to do.

The actual changes to the source code are minor, and I've already offered my support to do this, if there's enough interest (see my post above).
Again: If anyone wants to have more options in that currency selection drop-down box, just tell me, I'll release a modified client then.

So, what are core bitcoin dev planning? See github https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/issues/3862.
Are we switching to 1 microBTC as a base unit (=100 satoshis) or what?
I think it would be cool.
Each 1BTC will become 1mil microBTC.
I say, skip mBTC (millie) and move to micro. This way, you only switch once.

It's not the same issue, just a similar one. Here's the difference:


Imagine a can of coke is valued 0.99 $, and also imagine people would prefer to use the unit "kilodollar" (k$) for some insane reason.
Now, how would that can of coke be priced?

It's 0.00099 k$.

...or was it 0.00990 k$?
...or maybe .000099 k$?

On the other hand, let's imagine people would prefer to use "millidollar" (m$) for some other insane reason.
Taking the same can of coke, how would the price look like?

It's 990 m$.

This cannot be mistaken as 9900 m$.
And it cannot be mistaken as 99 m$.


Have a look at the numbers above. As you can see, it is much much more difficult to count the post-decimal zeros than to just measure the length of the number. That's a big difference.
So, if we're in doubt, we should prefer to use a too small-sized unit rather than a too big-sized unit.


Currently, people use a too big-sized unit (BTC), which makes it necessary to count post-decimal zeros. This is inconvenient and error-prone.

agree - the issue is to use bitcoins for its purpose ie low cost transactions. the yen is about 1% of the US dollar but people get their head around it. its the opposite to something being about 650 times one dollar but it is the same fundamental issue.

someone else has also posted how we price gold in terms of weight and we all understand that.
 

The Press would love that. "Bitcoin drops by half overnight."