Topic: When quoting small amounts of bitcoin, how do you call 100 satoshis? - page 6. (Read 8445 times)

Fair enough.


The comparison is fine as this is still the wild west for bitcoin and we can do whatever we want. As for the dollars to cents idea, the general public would likely laugh at it because it is ass backwards from what they are used to.
If a cent is not a real thing and was merely a fraction of something larger, why would the US government mint a coin after it? They should have cut up 1 dollar bills. As for the Satoshi, it is a fraction is something because 8 places in front of it there is a decimal.



Yes but right now the value of bitcoin isn't high enough to change. In the future when the value it growing there will be a need for a new unit, and it will not be the Satoshi as it is too small.


Less confusing to newbies and more awkward for the general public to use in the future.

Most of your various names for various kinds of dollar bills have the number of dollars that the bill is worth (the names are also very rarely used). The other names simply have the name of the person who appears on the currency so anyone who has previously used it would know what you are referring to.

im saying that average joe will have DOZENS of names slang names.  and then the big whale scientific community will have their mili and micro names.

all im saying is that having just 1 or 2 names shouldn't be a declared rule where no common/slang names cant be used, as it is not helping anyone. but i think finding all possible universal and easy to understand, say, write names. and then whilst average joe uses their preferences depending on their smaller local communities and dialects. that we then find 2-4 universal language names.

at the moment. if a poll was done to say how much is "1bit" we all know from the other polls already done and the dozens of similar topics that well over 500 out of 700 will remember/recognize bit referred to 100sat.

at the moment. if a poll was done to say how much is "1finney" we all know from the other polls already done and the dozens of similar topics that well over 30 out of 700 will remember/recognise bit referred to 100sat.

so right now more people recognise 'bit' as a universal term. that does not mean that with the right PR a good few MEME's being posted in the right places and certain people talking about 'finney' in a certain context that 'finney' might take over.

at the moment 100sat is still common place followed by bit. but until people actually have huge need to spend things in actual 100 sat amounts and a symbol/icon as been adopted for it, safe bet is to stick with 100sat for now... unless you personally want to lead the path of an adoption of a proper name.

its still to early to shout that there can be only 1. and it will be declared 100sat. so be open to evolution when it happens

Just leave it , satoshi is good enough, do not make it more complicated ,because it already is for many people.

You introduced the idea of going to small units entirely, and I merely adopted that notion for the shake of argument, to show you how we don't need a special word for 100 satoshis.


This comparision is invalid. You just can't equate satoshis and cents. Here's the reason:

• A cent (as in percent) implies being a fraction of something. Therefore, a cent is not a thing itself, but merely a fraction of an other thing. For example, a dollar cent is a fraction of a dollar, a euro cent is a fraction of a euro, and so on.
• A satoshi is a thing of its own. Satoshi is a proper noun. The word "satoshi", by itself, contains no reference to being a fraction of a bitcoin.

The term "satoshi" is on the same linguistic level as the terms "dollar" and "euro". One could even think of introducing a "satoshi cent", which would obviously be one 100th of a satoshi. (Currently, the blockchain doesn't allow transacting individual satoshi cents, yet the protocol could be extended to do so.)


So now you want to get rid of bitcoin as well??


My aim is not to make it sound as something familiar, but to find the least confusing way of quoting a price.

And yes: More units means more confusion. 4 567 satoshis is easier to understand than "45 bits and 67 satoshis".






Imagine you are a Japanese tourist on your first day in the USA. At home you were told that the US currency is dollars and cents.

Now people are suddenly talking about nickels, dimes, jeffersons, greenbacks and whatnot...
Wouldn't that be confusing to you?

My website is intended for people who are new to bitcoin. It's for people who just have their first day in bitcoinland.
Thus I want to use as few units as possible. I'm afraid that any additional units might be confusing to my site's users.

(Of course, geeks and insiders might still talk about micros, bits, finneys, ubits, and whatever.)

anyone thinking that people cant understand more than 2 names for currency.

well:

a cent, penny,
5cents, nickel, jefferson, half-dime
10cents, dime, Roosevelt

blah blah blah

dollar, buck, greenbacks,  washington note, 1-note, a single, a bone
5 dollars, 5-note, 5-spot, 5-bucks, lincoln
10 dollars, 10-note, 10-spot, 10-bucks, hamilton,

blah blah blah

you getting the picture?

in most cases names are not given for micro amounts, gold fiat, commodity's in a top down perspective. they given names in a bottom up.

thus i think the accountants and nerds can stick with their "micro"/"ubit" rationale. whilst average joe public can cope with the "bit"/"finney" nicknames.

One micro for short.

I can't vote 

But my choice would be 100 satoshis. I just think it's easier to remember (for me at least) how much of a Bitcoin it is.

But this isn't for the general public - it's for the users of one website. And there are plenty of sites that already use Satoshi exclusively. The OP has no power to abolish BTC/"bitcoin", and I'm quite certain has no desire either.

Ive always called it micro bit.!! no clue about others..!

Its good, but i think Centoshi will be easily confused with Satoshi because it sounds so similar.

Maybe if you had a Toshi and a Centoshi....

winner winner, chicken dinner! i love it

One yu-bit (µBTC)

So now you want to get rid of bitcoin as well. What do you think would happen if you asked the general public to drop the dollars and only use cents?  

We need 2 units, only the bitcoin will not be one of them. A "bitcoin" will be so huge that only the wealthy will own them. It will be somewhat of a status symbol, kind of like being a "millionarie" in todays world. It will be more of a term to describe the protocol.


For the general public we need 2 units:

Bits/Mikes/Fins whichever we agree upon. This will be .000001 unit.
and Satoshis. 100 of which will fit into the above unit.

This is a sensible way to rollout bitcoin to the general public. As soon as you tell them that a bottle of coke costs 45 bits plus a handful of satoshis for tax, the 2 unit setup rings a bell as something familiar. If we tell them that bitcoin doesnt have a "cent" unit at all they will compare it to places like Zimbabwe that suffer from hyper inflation.

Yes, this is what I'll probably do.


I think I'll do a (BTC-denominated) tool-tip for desktop and laptop, and/or a footnote for tablet and smartphone (I want to serve to both).


BTW: Thanks, this community is great - one can come here and ask and get excellent advise... for free!

You're quite right - been a while since I used Microwallet. CoinBox.me also uses BTC - I guess when I used them both I mentally converted to Satoshis (which is only OK as long as they use a fixed number of decimal places). I guess then I'd still say Satoshi on the grounds that your users should be able to convert in their head once they reach Microwallet. And that excellent tool-tip suggestion from another user? Maybe use - or at least include - the BTC value so your users see what they'll see once they reach Microwallet.

Okay, if we go to the moon, let's suppose the exchange rate is one million dollar per bitcoin.


No, the chair is 21k satoshis. I don't see any problem with that. It rolls off my tongue perfectly.


We only need 1 unit of measure.


The decimal is placed 8 spots too far to the left.


Yes, we really need to move the decimal. But if we do it, we should do it wisely.

And if we move it 6 places, we could just as well move it 8 places, with the advantage that we already have a very well established name for 10^-8 bitcoins (i.e. "satoshi").

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You are right, cookies are an option, but that makes the default value more important (when the site is used from multiple devices/computers).

I just won't get around choosing a reasonable default.


I've already glanced through the competitors, and literally no one uses what microwallet uses.

The reason: Microwallet uses whole BTC and decimal numbers, which is basically a no-go as the payouts would appear too tiny.

Sensible minimising barriers - but there's no reason why they'd need to sign up in order to pick a system! Their choice could persist beyond the initial session by cookies, for example. (To be honest I assumed you'd want them getting to "their currency" as quickly as possible, and even in a classic eCommerce system signing in is usually seen as being a near-final step).


Well, if you really are stuck with one system (and I don't think you are) then you should probably go with the  system Microwallet.org uses (Satoshis, IIRC?) - the principle of least surprise.

If I was advertising to people who are new to Bitcoin I would say 100 satoshis because it sounds like a lot.

There's no reason you cannot say, "that will be 2 bits and 53 cents". After all, "cent" refers to 100s and is in the common english vernacular.

And R2D221 I understand your point, and I completely agree. We could simply call it something else. Then the question is, does a unit of "mike" have a contextual reference in the world of "bitcoin"?

Per diction, these are my *personal* suggestions:

0.00000001 BTC = "1 bitcent", or even "1 satoshi" because the name is already established. Similar to how $0.01 is both referred to as "1 cent" or even "1 penny".

0.000000100 BTC = 1 bit = "1 bit"

1.00000000 BTC = "1 Bitcoin", or "1 coin", or "holy crap, an ENTIRE (bit)coin???"

And i'll agree once again, whether the name is "bits" or "mikes" or "r2d2's", whatever name it is should be related to, and contextually understood as being related to, bitcoin as the BTC (or XBT) currency.