Topic: Let's get the denominations of BTC straight - page 2. (Read 3110 times)

Well, I'd say its more of an opinion than a strong argument.

You said you didn't understand why people like it.
I'm telling you why I like it, and keep in mind the
reasons why people like stuff aren't always perfectly
logical.

I notice you gave a lot of options but didn't specify
your own personal preference.  If you DON'T
like bits, feel free to tell us what's a better
option and why you like it.

There are a lot of words that are short and easy to say.  Personally, I find that many of them are better choices than "bits".


I hope you're wrong about this, but I suspect you're probably right.  Time will tell.


This is a false argument.  It doesn't matter what nickname you use for microbitcoins, you'll still have "a relatively small unit" and "2 decimal places after it".  There is nothing intrinsic about the word "bits" that makes it any smaller of a unit or any different a number of decimals than any other nickname you might choose.


I disagree here, since a satoshi is a smaller amount.  "Bits" are 100 satoshi, that seems like more than "a small amount".

Well personally, I like bits for microbitcoins because I think it is easy to say, short,
and will catch on well in mainstream society...and because of unit bias , we want
a relatively small unit...plus the fact that there's 2 decimal places after it
normalizes it...not to mention it makes sense in terms of "a bit" meaning
just a small amount of something.

because either some company (cough-bitpay-cough) or some hot headed users decided that they will ram "bits" down everybody's throats, but as numbers here are showing, only 37% are happy about it.

Your "bit" isn't any more "universal" or "international" than my "microbit".  They are both just popular nicknames, or as you call them "local terms and social terms".

in england what we use for 100x the smallest denomination(penny) is:
quid
bin lid (cockney: bin lid~quid)
nicker
squid

but these are all local terms and social terms, the universal and international term is 'pound'

so although people will make up their own unique local favourite terms socially there still needs to be a universal term. and 'bit' seems to be the favourite for 100satoshi. yes there are a few nay sayers, so no need to push reply just to make yourselves known. this argument has gone on for 10 months now.. and its time you stop arguing about it and accept that many are saying yes to bit, or for you to invent  new term and start actually using it, rather then just saying no on a forum..

From what i've gathered during my time here (1+ year) people just don't care to name bitcoin values beyond BTC and satoshi. Usually when there are like 2 or 3 0's (0.002 or 0.0002) they talk in terms of BTC, then when the amount of 0's become ridiculous they just say 2000 satoshi or what not. I have never seen anyone talking in terms of milibits in chats or whatever.

This is a minor issue and needlessly confuses a lot of people.  I've gone to just using satoshi for up to one bitcent.  It is simple, everyone knows what I am talking about and for whatever reason zeros to the left of the decimal place with separators are easier for people to grasp than zeros to the right.

I'm all for people using whatever they want, but often the bit, m, and µ just confuses people.

Good Luck!

How about this:

People use whatever they want to use. I don't use Satoshis, unless it's a Satoshi. I sometimes use Bits. Sometimes mBTC.

Haven't we had this discussion already quite a lot of times? I'm quite puzzled though, what are SI units when it comes to bitcoin? Anyways, how heavy is a single bitcoin at normal atmospheric pressure and a temperature of 24 degrees celsius?  

satoshi seems the simplest to me. It would be easy if each decimal place had a name. for example 8 places after the decimal is a satoshi. 7 places after the decimal could be another name. Maybe once we learned the names it would be easier to understand and calculate on the fly.
 

1 BTC = 1.000 mBTC = 1.000.000 uBTC = 100.000.000 satoshis

I use satoshies to refer to the base-unit. 1 µBTC to refer to 1 millionth of a Bitcoin.

I think using "bits" to refer to any denomination of Bitcoin is silly myself.

So is the letter "A", this entire forum, all floating point numbers, and whole Bitcoins.  They all use more than one bit and hence are represented by bits of data.  Still I have never once heard anyone refer to 1E-8 BTC as "1 bit" until you just did.  Even if some people do it certainly wouldn't be a majority and thus saying Danny is "wrong" is kinda silly right?

I would like to clarify my understanding of 'bits'.

0.000001 = 1/1,000,000 of a bitcoin (also known as a microbits, micro-bitcoin, or "bits", or 100 satoshi).

I agree with DannyHamiliton and earnabit's original view.

I also agree with DannyHamilton that it doesn't much matter what we call 1 millionth of a bitcoin as long as the terminology uniformly means the same thing worldwide.

There are two posts above that get it 'wrong' in my view.  It is critically important that everyone settles on the same definition of a bit.

mBTC is here to stay. 1 BTC = 1000 mBTC. People remember and use what's simple e.g. KIS.

I think we found a winner.

I wasn't explicitly trying to say danny was mistaken, I was trying to say the 1bit= 1/100,000 of  BTC was mistaken. I was trying to echo danny's response to show that "bit" is not a universally agreed-upon standard.


Technically, satosies are represented by bits. The software uses integers.

Well first of all there is no "mistaken".   You can call "a bi"t whatever you want and so can Danny and so can anyone else.  There is no international standards body to act as a body of trusted elders to lay down the definition by decree.  Still I have NEVER see anyone refer to 1E-8 BTC as a "bit".  Of all the possible subunits the only two which have almost universal consensus are "1 Bitcoin" (1BTC or 1E8 satoshis) and "1 satoshi" (1 discrete unit or 1E-8 BTC).


I think that it is self evident.  You assume everyone else believes 1E-8 BTC = "1 bit" while the reality is (I am guessing here) >99% of the population would disagree with the assessment.

I wasn't sure about 'bits' at first, as I felt that mBTC might be a better transition, and more in parity with the dollar.

But, I've changed my mind.  Jumping straight to bits now seems like a good idea.

It will be one transition.  The original QT client already supports it, but calls it uBTC (micro-bitcoins).

All the legacy accounting systems will work with bits because it has two places after the decimal point.  So any accounting system can then store all the way to the 'satoshi' level by using the standard two places to the right of the decimal.

It's pretty easy to remember that $1.00 is in the ballpark of 1500 bits, so a $3.00 coffee should be around 4500 bits instead of 0.004838.  This seems a little easier to me than making sure I have the right number of zeros after the decimal place so I'm not overpaying (or underpaying) by a factor of 10.   I have a pretty good head for numbers, but when I'm sending bitcoin that isn't coming back, I usually feel safer double-checking with a calculator before hitting send.   Moving to bits would solve this for me and make the mental math easier, so I would not feel the need to double-check with a calculator -- at least for amounts under $100.

It also solves the problem of 'unit bias'.  It's already a problem that potential new bitcoin users don't want to buy bitcoin either because they think they have to buy a 'whole' one, or because they are buying such a small fraction of one that it seems insignificant.  Mathematically it makes no difference, but psychologically it matters.  Warren Buffet doesn't split Berkshire Hathaway A shares because mathematically it doesn't matter and it doesn't add value, but most shares are split to keep them in a psychologically attainable $10 to $1000 range.  It's just more satisfying to own 100,000 bits rather than 0.1 bitcoin.   It also seems more generous to give someone 5000 bits bits to get them started, rather than 0.005 BTC.

CoinCPA will make an option to display bitcoin balances in bits.

Just my 33 bits ($0.02).  

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