Tell HN: Bitcoin's 8 decimal places are preventing its adoption. | Hacker News Reader

Tell HN: Bitcoin's 8 decimal places are preventing its adoption.

3 pointscitizenkeys10 comments

Bitcoin's real problem is the "BTC" unit is divisible to 8 decimal places ( http://bitcoin.org/en/about ). Why is that a problem? Most people don't know what a decimal place is and can't divide. So imagine asking people to not only divide, but divide to 8 decimal places every time they do any sort of financial transaction, no matter how insignificant. For example, a $4 frappuccino costs 0.02116402 BTC.

The solution: A unit I'm calling "BTU", Bitcoin Units. It's nothing more than a BTC divided to 8 decimal places, making it an indivisible currency unit like a yuan. No division, no decimal places, just integers. Everybody can easily understand it.

Any reason why we can't accept this new term?

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Those already have the name "satoshis." It's the 4th sentence in the Wikipedia Bitcoin page.

A quick Google search shows "satoshis" (the currency) neither mentioned nor used almost anywhere. Also, asking people to understand an entirely new word "satoshis" is almost as confusing as the decimal places.

That is why all increments of American money are called dollars.

I don't think people would be any happier paying 10,000,000 satoshis for a pair of alpaca socks than they would 0.10 BTC. Some people in the community are pushing for mBTC (1/1000 BTC) which would give more readable prices (and probably spur another mini-bubble towards dollar parity).

BTU = 'British Thermal Unit', the common unit for natural gas in Europe and often seen in the US as well.

Yeah, I almost acknowledged that myself in the original post. But most people don't know what British Thermal Units are, either. And you can't call them "Bitcoin Cents" because that would also be "BTC".

But most people don't know what British Thermal Units are, either

I'm guessing your utilities are included in your rent. Anyone who owns a home or rents an apartment with its own meter is familiar with BTU from their gas/electricity bill.

In the U.S., at least where I've lived, the meter measures gas in cubic feet. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_gas#United_States

It seems to vary which part of the country you're in, oddly. Some use BTU, some use therms, some use cubic feet.

http://www.aga.org/KC/ABOUTNATURALGAS/ADDITIONAL/Pages/Howto... - looks like it depends on whether they choose to measure volume or energy content.

The satoshi is divisible. The software just doesn't handle it at the moment.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/FAQ#How_divisible_are_bitcoins.3F

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