Post
Topic
Board Bitcoin Discussion
Re: Is calling it a "wallet" the wrong thing?
by
Meni Rosenfeld
on 24/03/2011, 20:39:19 UTC
I think the worst analogy of the Bitcoin system is the "bitcoin" part. It leads to all sorts of misunderstandings, concerns about divisibility being the most common one. It took me some time to understand that there is nothing analogous to coins in the system and bitcoins are actually historical transactions. However, the user never has to know how it works, so it's OK.

Compared to that, "wallet" is actually a pretty good one, an I think it's the reason why the coin analogy was appropriate in the first place. You have your cash stored in your wallet, when you spend it it's gone, when you lose your wallet it's gone. It's harder even to grasp, for the non-technical user, that there aren't actual bitcoins stored there. If you get rid of the wallet analogy, you would have to change nomenclature altogether, starting with "bitcoin".
Let's call it "Bitliquid". Since liquid is uncountable, we'll measure it in liters, and talk about sending 21.5 liters of bitliquid. Divisibility problem solved. Tongue