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Topic: Why I'm switching to mXBT — and why you should too - page 8. (Read 24639 times)

staff
Activity: 3276
Merit: 4111
Interesting read, I totally agree with the statements made.
Most of my friends are the same.
legendary
Activity: 3598
Merit: 2386
Viva Ut Vivas
I agree. Switching to mɃ from now on. I suggest we just call these "millibits," which is easier to say than "millibitcoin".

Millies have been agreed upon for millibitcoins and Mickeys for microbitcoins.
pa
hero member
Activity: 527
Merit: 501
I agree. Switching to mɃ from now on. I suggest we just call these "millibits," which is easier to say than "millibitcoin".

(I finally figured out how to type the "B with bar" character in OS X Mountain Lion--need to go to System Preferences/Language & Text/Input Sources. Then scroll down and select "Unicode Hex Input" and select "show input menu in menu bar."  Then go to the input menu selector icon in the menu bar, choose Unicode, and hold down the Option/Alt key while typing "0243".)
sr. member
Activity: 364
Merit: 250
I fully agree on this.

I will add it to my sig.
Let's all do that and try if we can change something!
legendary
Activity: 1246
Merit: 1076
Bitcoin is known by many but owned by few.

Most of my friends know about Bitcoin. There are few exceptions. News coverage recently has been phenomenal.

But I can't say the same about their opinion of Bitcoin. One pointed out, "who would spend hundreds of dollars on that thing?". Another replied, "yeah, the price is way too high".

For perfectly rational human beings, the price is not an important factor. After all, a single bitcoin can be divided into 100000000 units—this is so large a number that the satoshi, worth 0.00000001 BTC, is worth a third that of the lowest physical denomination of currency: the Uzbekistani tiyin.

But rational and human together form an oxymoron. Whereas my friends were easily corrected on the ability to purchase fewer than one bitcoin, the psychological barrier cannot be ignored. People do not consider using something unless they have at least one of them. Nobody buys half a car, or 0.25 houses. We can't eat 0.03 apples, and we would reject a gift of 0.007 trees.

These comparisons obviously do not apply to bitcoins, as they are effectively divisible anywhere. But because Bitcoin is abstract, we tend to compare a bitcoin to something physical. As a result, we balk at not being able to own a single bitcoin.

This also hurts the economy. Most are so accustomed to spending dollars, quarters, etc. that the thought of spending 0.007 BTC is awkward. Even worse, some merchants reject Bitcoin because they feel that 0.05 BTC is unfair compensation for the products they offer.

What if we used mBTC by default? Then merchants would get payed 50 mBTC. The "dollar" store would offer products for 1 mBTC. Et cetera.

For those living in countries with a currency valued at or higher than the US dollar, also recall that most countries have lower-valued currencies. The mBTC, among currencies, would be right in the middle of the pack.

For all these reasons, I will begin to use mBTC. It just makes sense. And I hope we could demonstrate the power of the decentralized system of governance, and band together to do so. I aspire to transact with others only in mBTC by the end of May. And I hope you will too.
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