Post
Topic
Board Development & Technical Discussion
Merits 7 from 1 user
Re: Why not use mBTC more or smaller units?
by
BTCforJoe
on 07/08/2018, 16:51:17 UTC
⭐ Merited by suchmoon (7)
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.

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