As the price of one bitcoin approaches and hopefully surpasses $1000, many ordinary investors will feel that it's "too expensive" to buy in. Yet they would be happy to buy if the asset were denominated in millibitcoins (mBTC), because then it would "feel cheap" at ~$1 per unit.
This psychological resistance to the high price of one unit of an asset is the reason why most stocks do splits, to keep the price of one share under a few hundred bucks.
Also, we should keep in mind that bitcoin is still essentially like a penny stock or a pre-IPO security -- i.e. a risky early-stage investment -- and therefore in most people's eyes a price of nearly $1000 seems overpriced. I'm talking about the Average Joe here.
We need to bring the quoted price of the unit in line with the very early-stage nature of this investment opportunity. We don't need Average Joe comparing the price of one bitcoin to the price of one share of Google stock, because it is entirely inappropriate to compare bitcoin's current stage of development to the stock price of a well-established huge corporation. As long as people are inclined to make this comparison, due to the price, it will hold bitcoin back from widespread adoption.
I believe the bitcoin community should change over to a mBTC standard as soon as $1000/BTC is reached. Exchanges should report the exchange rate in mBTC, and bitcoiners should talk in terms of mBTC. This would reinforce the reality that we are still near the beginning of the process of bitcoin's growth.
This psychological resistance to the high price of one unit of an asset is the reason why most stocks do splits, to keep the price of one share under a few hundred bucks.
Also, we should keep in mind that bitcoin is still essentially like a penny stock or a pre-IPO security -- i.e. a risky early-stage investment -- and therefore in most people's eyes a price of nearly $1000 seems overpriced. I'm talking about the Average Joe here.
We need to bring the quoted price of the unit in line with the very early-stage nature of this investment opportunity. We don't need Average Joe comparing the price of one bitcoin to the price of one share of Google stock, because it is entirely inappropriate to compare bitcoin's current stage of development to the stock price of a well-established huge corporation. As long as people are inclined to make this comparison, due to the price, it will hold bitcoin back from widespread adoption.
I believe the bitcoin community should change over to a mBTC standard as soon as $1000/BTC is reached. Exchanges should report the exchange rate in mBTC, and bitcoiners should talk in terms of mBTC. This would reinforce the reality that we are still near the beginning of the process of bitcoin's growth.
If you want it to feel cheap, let's move all the way to uBtc