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Topic: Quick, answer! Is BTC 0.000152 big or small? (Read 4744 times)

newbie
Activity: 35
Merit: 0
February 14, 2013, 05:10:26 PM
#46
Even at $30 I think a lot of hoarders would continue to hold... I know I will.
I think $100 is a fair point to stabilize at.... once its there for a little while the hoarders will start to sell. 
hero member
Activity: 533
Merit: 501
February 13, 2013, 02:11:35 PM
#45
$1 today according to CPI is equivalent to $0.04 in 1900 (yep, I know CPI is far from perfect). That means that $1 today would have bought $25 in old money. Coincidentally, BTCs are worth $25 in mtgox as of today, so you are really using the equivalent of your ancestor's dollars, and they worked just fine for them, and they didn't even make half penny coins at that point.

Much of bitcoin's value is currently propped up by speculation and not true economic activity. Since it is speculation, the general consensus is that the future value of bitcoin will continue to be $25, otherwise if people believed it would be worth $30, than it would be worth $30 today. My belief is that once it becomes a more common currency for real economic flows, it will drop in value as velocity is a major factor in money value, and any drop will cause a massive devaluation.

In other words, don't worry about bitcoins being valued so highly that we have to sit there counting decimal places by 5 or 6 digits. It is unlikely to ever be a problem, though it would be a problem we would all like to have.
member
Activity: 113
Merit: 11
I can't believe nobody has mentioned "tonal" units yet https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Tonal_Bitcoin. Even Luke-jr was spruiking that one like mad Wink

Seriously though, I can't believe this argument has gone on longer than a page. After D&T pointed out K(thousands), Mil(millions), Bil(billions) etc. is commonly used to express values of regular money the argument should have effectively ended.
hero member
Activity: 836
Merit: 1030
bits of proof
And everybody else out there are engineers in electronics or looking to become one ... Problem solved.
I share your view, the current conventions are foreign to Joe Average and are a hurdle to mainstream adoption.
A single BTC is already too "expensive" to him and calculating in fractions smaller than 1/100 is a challenge. This is why stocks often perform well after a split, and why calculating with percentages is the mathematical event horizon to him.

The way to make this kind of change happen is however not trying to get buy-in from engineers.

What might work is a popular service that brands a name and a split, like the mentioned chips on seals.
vip
Activity: 571
Merit: 504
I still <3 u Satoshi
holy crap.

I wish death and taxes would send me mBTC for telling him I had stupid ideas...
legendary
Activity: 1246
Merit: 1077
Yeah I know that, but since the entire thread is about making up stupid and possibly arbitrary newfangled notations I figured I might as have a go at it myself.

Plus, mine does not even require forking the blockchain!

Though I guess if this is really all about making up excuses for forking the blockchain, I suggest we use 128-bit numbers to get rid of the stupid 8-decimals restriction, and use binary coded decimal math libs, and use three fields for value so we can code Coins, Millis and Micros right into the blackchain as distinct fields.

Oh and while we are at it, I'd like a few million coins for me coded into the genesis block.

-MarkM-


Eventually, the blockchain should migrate to floating-point numbers (X*10^E) as to future-proof it. Proper restrictions on the exponent such as to avoid obscene values of X would be necessary, but could be changed in a decentralized manner. This will, however, require a blockchain fork.
legendary
Activity: 2940
Merit: 1090
Yeah I know that, but since the entire thread is about making up stupid and possibly arbitrary newfangled notations I figured I might as have a go at it myself.

Plus, mine does not even require forking the blockchain!

Though I guess if this is really all about making up excuses for forking the blockchain, I suggest we use 128-bit numbers to get rid of the stupid 8-decimals restriction, and use binary coded decimal math libs, and use three fields for value so we can code Coins, Millis and Micros right into the blackchain as distinct fields.

Oh and while we are at it, I'd like a few million coins for me coded into the genesis block.

-MarkM-
kjj
legendary
Activity: 1302
Merit: 1026
Roman has a "u" ? Cheesy Cheesy

-MarkM-

M (μ), indeed, is commonly used alongside Latin alphabets. See this Wikipedia page.

Ah, M as distinct from m? So we would write B1,30m,10M for 1.030010 BTC?

I don't like it, as capitals "seem bigger than" lowercase, and having a "bigger" symbol for the "smaller" unit just seems gauche / uncouth / potentially misleading to small children / unaesthetic.

Compare Lsd for pounds shillings pence vs LsD for same. Awkward. Unintuitive.

Heh, no, and no.

In Greek, the letter mu is written either as μ (lowercase) or M (uppercase).  Since it is the first letter in the Greek word μικρός (micro) it has been adopted as the SI prefix for 10-6.  It is common to just use u instead of μ when writing with a latin character set (like ASCII).  M (uppercase) is still used for Mega (106).

And no one would ever suggest that silly notation you made up.  1.030010 BTC, or 1030.010 mBTC, or 1030010 μBTC.  In metric, it is pretty much unheard of to mix powers like that.  No one writes 1 Kilometer, 30 meters, 10 millimeters, they pick an appropriate scale and go with it.
legendary
Activity: 2940
Merit: 1090
Roman has a "u" ? Cheesy Cheesy

-MarkM-

M (μ), indeed, is commonly used alongside Latin alphabets. See this Wikipedia page.

Ah, M as distinct from m? So we would write B1,30m,10M for 1.030010 BTC?

I don't like it, as capitals "seem bigger than" lowercase, and having a "bigger" symbol for the "smaller" unit just seems gauche / uncouth / potentially misleading to small children / unaesthetic.

Compare Lsd for pounds shillings pence vs LsD for same. Awkward. Unintuitive.

-MarkM-
legendary
Activity: 1246
Merit: 1077
Roman has a "u" ? Cheesy Cheesy

-MarkM-

M (μ), indeed, is commonly used alongside Latin alphabets. See this Wikipedia page.
sr. member
Activity: 560
Merit: 256
And everybody else out there are engineers in electronics or looking to become one ... Problem solved.
legendary
Activity: 1232
Merit: 1001
The capacity of 1 Farad is so large that all involved in electronics get accustomed to use microFarads and nanoFarads. No problem.

Very good example, nobody is talking about Farad in electronics and everyone is just totally used to microFarads so that is normal.

Another good example is Bell, nobody used Bell because its just to huge, Decibel is the "normal" unit.
hero member
Activity: 531
Merit: 505
The capacity of 1 Farad is so large that all involved in electronics get accustomed to use microFarads and nanoFarads. No problem.
legendary
Activity: 2940
Merit: 1090
Roman has a "u" ? Cheesy Cheesy

-MarkM-
newbie
Activity: 19
Merit: 0
µ=micro
m=milli
so not both starting with "m"
legendary
Activity: 2940
Merit: 1090
Ok, pence it is, since millies and micros both start with m and we don't want any silly non-British (ahem Roman, but who cares) alphabets! Smiley

-MarkM-
legendary
Activity: 1022
Merit: 1033
Lets be traditional and very British about it!

Don't write 1.030010 BTC, instead write B1,30m,10p! One coin, 30 millies and 10picos, maybe colloquialised to one coin 30 mils and sixpic, or even what the heck call the pics pence?

Micros, not picos. Or as people already mentioned here "mikes".

Quote
People managed with pounds, shillings, and pence for how long, and all of a sudden they can't handle coins, millies, and picos?

I think we all can agree that OP is just somewhat uneducated and stop beating the dead horse.

Also, um, 152×10-6.

Or, maybe 1.52E-4
legendary
Activity: 2940
Merit: 1090
Lets be traditional and very British about it!

Don't write 1.030010 BTC, instead write B1,30m,10p! One coin, 30 millies and 10picos, maybe colloquialised to one coin 30 mils and sixpic, or even what the heck call the pics pence?

After all, all this silly decimal stuff is just silly nerd stuff, new pence was a funnymoney scam, not one coin of it real sterling silver fergoshsakes!

People managed with pounds, shillings, and pence for how long, and all of a sudden they can't handle coins, millies, and picos?

What is the world coming to!?!?!

-MarkM-
kjj
legendary
Activity: 1302
Merit: 1026
Just use whatever name you like for 1/1000, eventually one or more will catch on and be the de facto base unit.

At Seals we use 'chips' to mean 1/1000.

I agree with this. I do hope that we will use some other notation than mBTC and uBTC though. Putting a prefix in front of the currency code looks very akward to me. Would be much nicer to have a separate symbol for "millies" or whatever we choose to call them (like $ and ¢ for dollars and cents).

This made me laugh.

Cents is from the latin centi, meaning one part in 100.  We just don't call them centidollars because after hundreds of years, the word has been worn down to a stub.

Not sure that I get your point here. I do know that cent means one part in 100, just like milli means one part in 1000. My point was that we don't write cUSD, we write '¢'. We write 14¢ and we might write 0.14 USD if we use the currency code but we don't write 14 cUSD (I'm not american so correct me if I'm wrong).

I don't think that I've ever actually used the cents symbol even once in my entire life.  I rarely even write the word cents, usually opting for something more like $ 0.14.

Also, keep in mind two things.  First, dollars were around for hundreds of years before the concept of a "currency code" was ever imagined.  And second, the world has effectively never seen a deflationary currency before, meaning that we've never ever needed more precision in a currency, always less.
sr. member
Activity: 311
Merit: 251
Bitcoin.se site owner
Just use whatever name you like for 1/1000, eventually one or more will catch on and be the de facto base unit.

At Seals we use 'chips' to mean 1/1000.

I agree with this. I do hope that we will use some other notation than mBTC and uBTC though. Putting a prefix in front of the currency code looks very akward to me. Would be much nicer to have a separate symbol for "millies" or whatever we choose to call them (like $ and ¢ for dollars and cents).

This made me laugh.

Cents is from the latin centi, meaning one part in 100.  We just don't call them centidollars because after hundreds of years, the word has been worn down to a stub.

Not sure that I get your point here. I do know that cent means one part in 100, just like milli means one part in 1000. My point was that we don't write cUSD, we write '¢'. We write 14¢ and we might write 0.14 USD if we use the currency code but we don't write 14 cUSD (I'm not american so correct me if I'm wrong).
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