Topic: Why not use mBTC more or smaller units? (Read 350 times)

mBTC is already pretty widely used, as Bitcoin gets more stable and recognizeable, we'll surely see a swift to the smaller denomination as it is way more useful.

Umm, what does volatility have to do with naming adoption acceptance? Please GTFO and stop shitposting in Dev & Tech.

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It's not so much that it shouldn't be changed, but rather that it's highly unlikely that it will be changed, even if it should be.

I keep coming back to the idea that in the future, we'll end up using satoshis as a unit of reference to Bitcoin, rather than "bitcoin" itself, as the value of BTC keeps increasing. I do firmly believe that, within my lifetime, 1 Satoshi will actually be worth at least 1 cent. Imagine that... Paying 350 Satoshi for a cup of coffee.

Other than that, I honestly don't think that measurement units like mBTC or uBTC or bits will ever catch on. I think it will always just follow the naming protocol of Bitcoin and Satoshi.

the smallest unit or based unit is always in satoshi, and Satoshi Nakamoto decided bitcoin = 10^8 satoshis
we have been using BTC decimal unit since the beginning, and more appropriate at that time
price never goes over $50 in the early beginning, not until 2013 when bitcoin reached close to $200
maybe when we reach $100,000/BTC we can make common use of mBTC or μBTC (bits)
that would be $100/mBTC or $0.1/bits, sounds better and less intimidating

As pointed out above by d5000 there already have been many services trying to popularise all kinds of denominations. mBTC, even bits. You can see some dice sites, for example (and actually a lot of gaming sites that came up between 2014-2016) still use the bits and mBTC denomination in their dashboard. It stuck with them and clients I deal with from these sectors still talk about mBTC and bits.

We've even got a fairly recent BIP 176 proposing to formalise the use of "bits", generally for the same easier comparisons of fiat currencies value relative to Bitcoin. But I feel that if we keep doing this because of price effect, then we're just making it more inconvenient down the road when price almost certainly will change.

Like DooMAD says, you're free to use mBTC. I've still somehow found it much easier to just use decimals. I do use satoshi at times, but generally when talking about micro transactions, but then again satoshi is formalised already.

mBTC has never been used to represent BTC in the protocol level, BTC is still denoted in fractions and that will likely be the case. It doesn't make sense for the client to have to recalculate the entire blockchain again and convert everything to BTC. It is definitely possible for websites and various wallet client to represent the BTC in smaller units but the protocol shouldn't be changed.

This feeling and experience was same as mine. I don't even know what mbtc and satoshi's was before until I have to use a converter.

I find it easier to use with unit of BTC only and just add those zeroes and now I usually use it like others.

No problem on what unit you prefer to use since there are converters on how much is the exact value of mbtc/sats to btc, vice versa.

I think the reason is the volatility Bitcoin still having. That could be why mBTC isn't more adopted even though it is a fine option.

I used "satoshi" and "mBTC" years ago when I was using these damn faucet websites but at the end, your mind keeps to think in BTC (like if your brain is auto-converting it) It's years since I have used these words. At the same time, it makes you feel you have more BTC if you use BTC instead of mBTC (ie: I have xBTC and I have X mbtc).
I think it's just a psychological thing (like an optical illusion), at least for me.

As ever, not enough consensus. We have mbtc, bits, and on and on. Nothing's caught on.

I think going straight to satoshis is the only one that's fully comprehensible for everyone. Even after all this time, when i see a price in mbtc my first thought is 'Eh? How much is that?

The value in fiat currency should bear no value to how we classify and name fractional bitcoins, as the fiat-to-btc value is forever fluctuating.

However, using it as a relevant narrative, imo, is important. mBTC is a bit confusing, as it is worth a thousandth of a Bitcoin, while most people (at least in Western countries) are used to currency being broken down into hundredths (dollars and cents). The challenge is the gap between a mBit and a Satoshi. One day, I believe that we will be referring to Satoshis as a popular reference of value as the BTC value increases... For example, "Hey Bob, did you get my payment of 850 Satoshi for the lunch you bought me?".

But what about the gap between Satoshis and mBTC? 1mBTC = 100,000sat. I think it would be weird to reference satoshis to the 100,000 mark before starting to call it m-bits... "Hey Bob, I sent you 85,550 satoshi for selling me the bike. Thanks!"

At the end of the day, this just emphasizes the misconception that Bitcoin is not user-friendly, and I tend to agree... Explaining to people that they don't need to buy a whole bitcoin to get their skin the game gets tricky when you have to say things like "Hey Bob, you don't need to buy a whole bitcoin! You can start by buying $10 at a time. Then you'll get zero point zero zero one four bitcoin!", but then I always get a look of bewilderment.

So there's that. What to do? lol

it was always difficult for us to get to read to all decimal points in that situation i have wondered if we had different denominations for bitcoin.1 mbtc=1/1000 of bitcoin is still no where near a dollar;unless our btc rate should be so high.

I agree that the high price of bitcoin scares off a lot of new investors.  I think they are more comfortable psychologically paying a smaller price per coin even if it's a microbit.  Maybe coinmarketcap will list bitcoin as mBTC one day if it gains enough adoption.  As others have stated many gambling sites use mbtc as their default. 

Actually, most of the gambling site uses btc, mBTC, bits, and satoshi's so you can set up the suitest one to make gamble more addictive.

Well that's the thing, you can use mBTC if you want to.  And I suspect most newcomers will.  It's just human nature to form a habit and stick with it, sometimes.  So really, this all comes down to personal preference.  If we had all been using mBTC from the outset, then that's probably what we'd still be doing.  Chances are, most people who get involved going forwards will feel more naturally inclined to use either mBTC or μBTC.  Once that becomes the norm, the rest of us will probably start using it too.



For the base layer, you can change just about anything if there's consensus for it.  The tricky part is reaching that stage.  Basically, it requires a fork.

For anything built on top the base layer, such as Lightning, it's much easier.  Lightning can already deal with units smaller than satoshis.

I quite agree with posts quoted, speaking about mBTC or BTC is not a big issue.

There's a question related to this thread but I'm quite confused about the answer i.e. about the 8 decimal places rule.
What if in 20 years thanks to a big increase of BTC valued they will not be enough (let's dream a 20,000,000 $/BTC or even more ) ?
Lurking around this forum I've sensed it's not possible to add new decimal places, is that right ?
 

With the example you have given we are still in the position of using decimal places as .000653 BTC is equal to 0.653 mBTC, it really does not come any close to the dollar value you are hoping since 1 mBTC is equal to .001 BTC or 1/1000 of a Bitcoin. I also don't think that coming close to the Dollar or Euro value is a prevalent problem here for the general population as switching back and forth from BTC, mBTC, or even uBTC will be a much more greater problem as what BTCforJoe mentioned it will cause a lot of confusion when it comes to payments for them. BTC is still new and a lot of newbies don't know the other two denominations I have mentioned.

Sticking up to the BTC value which has 8 decimal places is what a lot of people are used to, I was confused at first but then I tried reading the values from the start of the number after all the zeroes and thinking it as a whole number at that point on reading BTC values was an easy thing for me to do. Also in my own opinion this is not our problem to solve, if this became an issue the government could easily set a standard on what denomination will their country use when it comes to cryptocurrency payments and the transition will be easy if that happens.  

Adoption is the issue. Most of the early adopters were able to purchase Bitcoin when it was a few bucks or less. They never had a need to call it anything but "bitcoin" thus far, as there probably wasn't any need to indicate that they had transferred more than a few decimal places worth of Bitcoin. Because of this, by the time that Bitcoin had become more valuable, it was just easier to say "0.001 btc" instead of trying to come up with a new naming convention for what to call the fractional amounts.

Like @d5000 has indicated, many companies have tried and failed to gain mass adoption for these fractional amounts. Inevitably speaking, we, as a community, need to start thinking about what to call fractional amounts, as I find that most people that I talk to about their first discussion with Bitcoin is always under the impression that they need to buy a whole Bitcoin in order to own it. If we started to use a term that the general consensus agrees with, it would be so much easier to get mass adoption.

Kind of like how there's dollars and cents, maybe we can choose either one or two fractional names to start putting out there. Because currently having BTC, mBTC, bits/μBTC, and Satoshi is just overly confusing to the bitcoin newb.

Unfortunately, I think we're at a time where these names cannot be changed, so it's a matter of utilizing the ones that already exist... But if I were to tell you that I'm sending you 150 mBTC, would you, as an average BTC user, know exactly how much that is in BTC without using a converter?

See, that's the problem. So what would be the ultimate solution for the future?

Discuss lol

There are already lots of services, websites and wallet providers that have tried that (for example, good ol' Bitcoinity already did that in 2013 or 2014).

I even remember that Electrum, in some moment, switched the standard unit to mBTC. Then there was the discussion about "bits" as a new standard unit, which also didn't really get traction.

Besides the full BTC, the only unit having some use is the Satoshi. So what maybe could be possible is to use units like kSat (1000 sat.) or MSat (1 million sat.).

My own personal and humble opinion would be that the mBTC or smaller hasn't been more adopted due to the volatility that Bitcoin still has. Once it is more stable I'm sure that the mBTC or smaller would be adopted more in line with what the dollar and/or euro would be equal to, or any other currency denomination. The fluctuation of where the dollar is at compared to BTC could change drastically in a few hours and keeping it in the BTC standard is the easiest way to keep track of it. But that's how I see things.   

The general population would rather deal with a currency that is somewhat close to the USD or Euro value.  Why are we still talking in terms of 0.000653 btc when we should be using mbtc more and eventually talking in satoshi once bitcoin reaches 500k levels.

This is why Satoshi gave bitcoin so many decimal places.