Post
Topic
Board Bitcoin Discussion
Re: Which of these bitcoin units do you NOT want to use?
by
teukon
on 03/11/2014, 10:53:23 UTC
That guy says "I thought 1 bit = 1 satoshi. I guess i stand corrected" so you could equally argue satoshis were the problem.

Not at all.  "satoshi" is a much better established term than "bit" in this context.  When people want to refer to an amount of bitcoin in a nomenclature thread they almost invariably use "BTC" or "satoshis" for simplicity/clarity.  People argue about the name to give "0.000 001 BTC" or "100 satoshis".  Also, notice the order used here: "1 bit = 1 satoshi", not "1 satoshi = 1 bit".

"satoshi" was not pushed in the way that "bit" was.  The first suggestion that "satoshi" might refer to 0.000 000 01 BTC was made over 3 years ago and slowly and naturally became adopted because it was a useful term which resonated with those that would use it.  There were no leagues of "satoshis" threads where people denounced the term, came up with various alternatives.  There was no crowd of SI proponents claiming "10 nans" to be superior.

A few months later, the first suggestion that the term "Bit" might represent 1 µBTC was made.  In this case, the term naturally died out, only to be resurrected by an evangelical Reddit thread and an advertising campaign launched by a small number of (either linguistically foolish or intentionally destructive) people.  Rather than the gradual emergence of a new useful term brought about by need, we've been treated to a year of flamewars, causing many to avoid the 100-satoshi unit altogether.

"satoshi" is to "bits" as free-market is to central planning or evolution is to intelligent design.  Arguing a peership between the two is just laughable.