Topic: Why I'm switching to mXBT — and why you should too - page 4. (Read 24639 times)

your idea does have a great deal of support over here:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.1627177

i am 100% in support of using XBT (as official) vs BTC (as informal -- and rejected as a valid ISO)

BTC -> would remain 100,000,000 satoshis (called 1 Bit-Coin)
XBT -> would be 100 satoshis (called 1 Eks-Bit)

read the above posts (as well as the supporting arguments) and see if you don't agree
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back to the OP; i totally agree that BTC is a complete turnoff -- as a self-proclaimed bitcoin evangalist its a pain in the ass trying to convince people to cough up >$100 just for 1. i speak from personal experience that a few mBTC to a n00b would be an EASY SELL

Here is what we use

1 drop of bitcoins = 1 satoshi = 0.00001 mBTC = 0.00000001 BTC
1 teaspoon of bitcoins = 120 satoshi = 0.0012 mBTC = 0.00000120 BTC
1 dessertspoon of bitcoins = 240 satoshi = 0.0024 mBTC = 0.00000240 BTC
1 tablespoon of bitcoins = 360 satoshi = 0.0036 mBTC = 0.00000360 BTC
1 cup of bitcoins = 5400 satoshi = 0.054 mBTC = 0.00005400 BTC
1 pint of bitcoins = 10800 satoshi = 0.108 mBTC = 0.00010800 BTC
1 quart of bitcoins = 21600 satoshi = 0.216 mBTC = 0.00021600 BTC
1 peck of (dry) bitcoins = 172800 satoshi = 1.728 mBTC = 0.00172800 BTC
1 hand-full of bitcoins = 20736000 satoshi = 207.36 mBTC = 0.20736000 BTC
1 piggy bank of bitcoins = 44375040 satoshi = 443.7504 mBTC = 0.4437504 BTC
1 black leather case (german made) of bitcoins = 995328000 satoshi = 9953.28 mBTC = 9.95328 BTC
1 shovel of bitcoins = 2388787200 satoshi = 23887.87 mBTC = 23.88787 BTC
1 bag of bitcoins = 7882997760 satoshi = 78829.9776 mBTC = 78.8299776 BTC
1 wheelbarrow of bitcoins = 33108590592 satoshi = 331085.90592 mBTC = 331.08590592 BTC
1 double cherry truck of bitcoins = 960149127168 satoshi = 9601491.27168 mBTC = 9601.49127168 BTC

mBTC conversion for tortilla.

I think that we should be going to microbits (100 satoshi = 1 microbit) but there is no support for my idea.  There seems to be support for moving the decimal about 4 places, which is better than nothing.

The problem is that people keep trying to tie this into the metric system, which is more hassle than it is worth.  For example the euro is not at all metric, even though it is a new currency that could easily been made metric.  So let's call the new unit millibit instead of millibitcoin.  Let's have the symbol be the actual mill symbol ₥ instead of the nonsense that is mBTC.

This idea isn't my favorite idea, but it is the idea that will have support:

1 millibit = 1₥, which currently costs about $0.11 on MtGox.

Again, this isn't my favorite idea but it is the idea that will have support.  Who is with me?  Its time to win.

The developer(s) gave us 8, so with equal division we're left with 2 four-decimal groups if we wish to describe the large range to the right of the decimal conveniently. If he/they had given us 9 spaces, then it would make sense to go with the convention of groups of threes that we use typically with large numbers above 1.

It doesn't matter in the least, however. Currencies typically have unique qualities like this. The dollar currently only goes two places to the right of decimal, but uses non-equal divisions of 1, 5, 10, 25, and 50 for coinage. Again, that's because it's a physical currency still. Other currencies have their own unique divisions and coinage - which, by the way, makes them interesting and fun. Currency is part of culture.

We don't have coinage in Bitcoin, so we only need a few convenient divisions. Because we have 8 decimal places, we must use either groups of two or groups of four. Two groups of four is the obvious choice.

I'm totally sold now on this idea of Bitcoin/bit/Satoshi. I think it's unbeatable. It even looks and feels artful when you lay it out like that. Very elegant.

Thats an interesting point, and it begs the question, why wasnt the satoshi used right from the start? I'm going to go out on a limb and say its for the very same reason (but in reverse) that we are discussing now with regards the move from Bitcoins to micro-bitcoins. If the first block reward had been 50,000,000,000 satoshis (i may have got my zeros wrong. blame wild turkey) then it would have made everything 'seem' worthless. Even more so when mining 50 coins was no big deal. That first pizza would have cost trillions(?) of satoshi. (as it was 10,000 was quite a stretch).

So I think it goes to show how important the location of the decimal point is in the perception of things. I know I've certainly switched my QT miner to show mBTC does wonders for the soul!

We need alias denotations to change people perception of thinking one whole bitcoin is worth allot.
at 10000$/bitcoin we need new denotations not based on BTC itself like mBTC or uBTC.
like a satoshi
we could use exponential increments from a base of 16
1satoshi = 0.00000001BTC = satoshi
16satoshi = 0.00000016BTC = alias
256satoshi = 0.00000256BTC = alias
4096satoshi = 0.00004096BTC = alias
65536satoshi = 0.00065536BTC = alias
1048576satoshi = 0.01048576BTC = alias
16777216satoshi = 0.16777216BTC = alias
268435456satoshi = 2.68435456BTC = alias
why base 16? idk, anything that has small enough interval and not too many aliases to remember.

the mindblock is perceptual and based on language dynamics
has nothing to do with ease
bitcoins, btc, mbtc, ubtc all use a bitcoin as the base,
people want to own units, not subdivisions.

If we can introduce a new language for bitcoins to wrap the subdivisions and disassociate it from a single whole btc,
people will be more willing to buy some of alias A, B or C and less likely to think its overvalued.
but theres actually a more important problem below that, the us dollar is bitcoins reserve currency, we dont know how else to express value quantitatively.

That's irrelevant here. Once adopted, no one need know or care that it's a ten-thousandth. The bit can describe a large range of Bitcoin by itself quite comfortably precisely because it's the midpoint of the decimal range.

Bitcoin is a digital currency. It does not require numerous actual coins of incremental denominations to function. It's just a number we keep in a ledger. We do not need to reference intermediate decimal places at all when we have convenient groups of divisions - in this case, three. We have Bitcoin/bit/Satoshi. That's all we need.

The mathematical names for each decimal place are simply not needed here. In the US, the dollar is currently denominated in pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, half-dollars. These coins are PHYSICAL OBJECTS. If the dollar were totally digital in practice, we would not need all these divisions. We would just use pennies and dollars for reference. No one would say, "I need two quarters (or five dimes, or one half-dollar)," if we weren't using actual coinage. No, all of that is just 50 pennies, and a "penny" would just be the name of the most convenient unit to describe a range of the dollar (three decimal places).

So for a totally digital dollar, you'd only need Dollar/Penny (unless it hugely deflated). You can describe the range of $.01 to $ infinity with these two words along with already established large-scale descriptors like million and billion.

Since Bitcoin has eight decimal places, it makes sense to simply divide that in half and have two four-decimal ranges as a convenient reference - bit and Satoshi. Remember, there are no physical coins here. The mathematical or shorthand names of the intermediate places are irrelevant when describing a range for the sake of convenience. This is a currency and we need it to be as convenient as possible. We don't need nine divisional names for the the damn thing. Three will do just fine.

Bitcoin has a hard cap on the main unit - 21 million. It has currently 8 decimal places to allow for smaller units to accommodate mass adoption. People will only need to reference "Bitcoin" or "bit" to describe anything from .0001 to 21,000,000. They'll do that for a long time. There's only one conversion factor to remember. That's all you'll need to know. It'll be a common factoid: One Bitcoin equals 10,000 bits. One bit equals 10,000 Satoshis. Put it up on Wikipedia and you're done.

That is so simple and convenient. Tell me, why do we need anything else?

well, i think the reason it does not have a 'spaced 3 digit increment name' only makes it special and in need of a name.
but if it is important to stick to the 3digit division we could move the 'bit' a decimal point up or down. 0.00001BTX, still less digits then using either extreme and starting to count from it.

Just price your bitcoins in gold. Get your bitcoins quick while the price is low! Just 0.0736 XAU per bitcoin today!

+1  If we redefined a bitcoin to mean what we now call a mBTC, and its price went down to $0.10, I think we'd see a lot more interest from casual investors/potential-adoptees. Going from $0.10 to $0.20 seems a lot easier than going from $100 to $200. At $200 every one is screaming 'bubble', simply because it's a big number.

But nobody uses tenthousandths. We are all used to converting from mm to m, or from km to m, or from mL to L, which are all increments of three orders of magnitude.

Yes, it makes sense to name just a few groups of divisions. The midpoint is a bit and the endpoint is a Satoshi. So you can then describe everything in between in terms of these two quite easily. And, of course, you still have the full bitcoin reference as well. So these three simple names can cover very small to very large amounts easily.

IMO, the math-like names are just too cumbersome. They're just awful for use in mass adoption. But with bitcoin/bit/Satoshi, you have three groups of ten thousandths that cover the whole range.

This is how I work too, except that I don't have a name for it. Eight decimal places call for either 4 subdivisions of 2 places each or 2 subdivisions of 4 places each.

I agree with the one guy who seemed to have the fresh idea of picking the mid-point (four decimal places) and just calling it a "bit." That is a really cool idea because it does away with the jumble of "mBTC" and sounds NATURALLY like it should be the acting base unit of BITcoin.

Then it would be easy to tell people, "You want Bitcoin? You need to buy bits. The exchanges sell bits. Merchants price in bits. A bit is $.01 right now. How many would like?"

I like this idea! This is a highly appealing streamlined solution. It's non-geeky too because you're not even thinking of decimal places like you would with mBTC. We just take the midpoint and give it a very simple convenient name which is actually in Bitcoin so it can stand for Bitcoin.

Think about mBTC. What is that? It's a code you have to decipher. It's a jumble of letters, not a word. Those letters will be assaulting your eyes forever. A bit, on the other hand. What is that? A small word - light and airy - no caps even, no codes. Everyone recognizes that it means some kind of small unit. Yes, exactly. It's the base unit of Bitcoin.

So how many bits are in your wallet right now?

Could the Bitcoin Foundation help spreading this? It could be under a Best Practices section.

+1 to OP and post #61.

I like the notation mB too, but I'd prefer it pronounced em bee. (Micros would then be uB and pronounced you bee.)

Edit: Come to think of it, embits and youbits sounds nice too.

Unless I can buy 1 Google, I am just going to go buy something else. I do not want to own 0.000000001 Google, I want the whole damn thing. Why is Google so expensive? They should lower the price so I can have it ...


Satoshi had no idea what the price of a bitcoin was going to be. He just put the decimal about half way through the total (21 000 000.000 000 00), and that is why a bitcoin is the size it is.

Count me in for mBTC, but my psychological threshold to think primarily this way is a floor price of about $0,25/mBTC. Units worth much less than that are barely worthy of merit now, IMHO. Bitcoin is hard money after all.

I'll switch my client to mBTC at $0,25/mBTC.

I think this thread is spot on.

First, let me say I don't like using XBT. Although I understand the reason behind it I believe it will confuse people (the majority that use it); already in this thread people are putting the X in different places. BTC makes sense and is the most widely adopted.

Second, I do think we should make a concerted push toward mBTC (we shouldn't skip all the way to Satoshis).

Newer people will not know that we had a large discussion about moving the decimal place early in this forum's and Bitcoin's life. Some of the exact same reasoning about perception being key was brought up, including by myself. In fact, if you look at the chart on this page you will see there was one weird spike in Bitcoin's price history where it went from around $1 to $30 and back to around $1-2 in a short timespan. Guess what. That spike, if you look at this forum's history, corresponded with discussing moving the decimal place in a concerted way. People understood that if 1 mBTC reached dollar parity then owning whole bitcoins would mean a lot of value (1 thousand times more, to be precise), and the price shot up, then crashed.

We mostly didn't move the decimal place. I think because it wouldn't have made sense. We had only recently reached dollar parity, giving Bitcoin that crucial credibility boost. It wouldn't make sense to hide that by referring to everything with mBTC which would then be worth about $.001. Now, however, things are different. We've reached $100, and I think perception is one reason we're sort of stuck there. If we go to mBTC now they would be worth $0.10 each approx, which is easy to comprehend.

I think we need to push the exchanges to do this. If they do so everyone else will follow.

I totally agree, and I 'll try  most of the time to use  mBTC.
i actually think it's a big issue that could stop bitcoin from rising up in value. I would not like to own 0 point xxx of something and if i can't afford the full thing i'll certainly switch to something cheaper lite litecoin.

And I would add that, I am not a big fan of the "satoshi" thing ..Yeah I know it's cool it put some kind geeky mystic aura in that cryptocurrency but (with all respect I have for that Satoshi person or group of person) I don't think it's a good marketing idea for bitcoin. It might not sound really serious, really reassuring, really cool for many people ..including me actually