Post
Topic
Board Economics
Re: When to "move the decimal points" ?
by
shawshankinmate37927
on 30/01/2014, 02:55:09 UTC
Change the decimal now or it's dead. Wake up people !
How about we call one-millionth of a BTC (i.e. a micro-bitcoin) a Finney? One million Finneys equal a Bitcoin.
Conveniently, 100 Satoshis equal a Finney, so we can use a convenient two digits after the decimal point, just like dollars and cents. So 0.0015 BTC becomes 1500.00 Finneys.
Forex traders don't like more than two digits after the decimal, so this notation should suit them perfectly.
A Finney is currently worth around a tenth of a cent, so it will remain a useful unit as the price of a bitcoin rises.
The Finney is named in honor of Hal Finney, of course.

Why not Finney ? It sound absurd to rename it "Finney" but it is much better than Bitcoin. As you said, decimals make no sense for normal people.

For most people a "Finney" does not seem to refer to Bitcoin....

Using a new term for the smaller units of currency would have the additional benefit of making it easier to differentiate between bitcoins (the units of currency) and Bitcoin (the payment system/network/service).

For example:
 - PayPal is a payment system that allows for payments in dollars and cents.
 - Bitcoin is a payment system that allows for payments in finneys and satoshis.