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Comment by mtgx | Hacker News Reader

Bitcoins should lose 3 zeros, like many countries do to their currencies.

So 1 new Bitcoin = 0.001 old Bitcoins = $0.3

I think I'd like that more than just starting naming them something else all of the sudden, and call them Satoshis or whatever, and then when the Bitcoin reaches $10,000 we'll probably have to use new names yet again.

Cutting the zeros could be a little confusing at first, but I think less confusing than starting talking about Satoshis, or mCoins or whatever, all of the sudden.

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A "Satoshi" already has the common usage/definition of 0.00000001 BTC -- the current smallest denomination.

[1]https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/FAQ#What_do_I_call_the_various_de...

people have suggested mBTC or "millibits".

I think it's not something that can be mandated. A new terminology will naturally arise if the need is genuine.

I don't think it'll be needed until/unless bitcoin stablises enough that people start quoting prices in bitcoin.

Right now, advertising a computer at 3 bitcoins is not practical. The value of those bitcoins change to fast.

> Right now, advertising a computer at 3 bitcoins is not practical.

Only if you're seeing the "real" value as the USD. No-one says "$100 is meaningless because its conversion to Thai Baht varies so wildly".

The only thing that will kill bitcoin is stability without utility.

> No-one says "$100 is meaningless because its conversion to Thai Baht varies so wildly".

I would, if I lived in Thailand. I wouldn't quote prices in dollars.

Sure, what really matters is how well bitcoin price is correlated with food, labour etc. - things you actually need. But those are pretty closely correlated with USD in practice, and bitcoin is not well correlated with them.

What about 8 bitcoins = 1 bytecoin

And 1 nibblecoin == 4 bitcoins.

>Bitcoins should lose 3 zeros, like many countries do to their currencies.

I've never heard of that, although the opposite has been done plenty of times. But that's rarely a sign of a healthy economy, most of the time it's done out of desperation I would think.

It was very 'popular' in the 80's and 90's for countries coming out of high inflation. Off the top of my head, Brazil, Peru, Russia, Poland, Yugoslavia, Turkey and Bulgaria all cut three or 4 zeros from their currency to make the numbers easier to handle and to try to mark a psychological end to previous inflation.

Zimbabwe did it about once every other year or so back in the mid 2000's.

Mathematically speaking you are talking about dividing but GP talks about multiplying. That I've never heard of too.

Sorry. Realized I completely misread both posts.

Zimbabwe removed 25 zeros (in 3 stages).

I live in a country that used to need that. The real reason for doing that is simply not having to write so many useless zeroes. The people who were calling for cutting zeroes were mostly banks having issues dealing with whatever hard-coded limit was on their systems. There was no expectation that cutting zeroes would actually improve anything at all.

Though the situation was exactly the opposite of Bitcoin. Money was losing value so the numbers were getting too big. Bitcoin is becoming too valuable so the numbers are getting too small.

It's becoming 'too valuable' in USD. There are other currencies, and the world does NOT in fact turn around US.

No, it's becoming "too valuable" in terms of the goods a person would normally buy with it. It is more convenient to quote prices in whole number units than in tiny fractions of a unit. The USD is irrelevant here.

At the beginnings of 20th century ~310USD (which coincedentally is 1BTC at today's - or this hour's - prices) would feed an average american family for a whole year. http://libraryguides.missouri.edu/content.php?pid=298741&sid...

People used cents in day-to-day dealings and I doubt anyone found it inconvenient. Same stuff with BTC and satoshis. People will get used to that sooner than you'd think.

Ya, I don't disagree. satoshies or mBTC or whatever. I'm just saying that the argument has to do with cost of goods in BTC, not anything related to USD.

you really don't want that. imagine a confusion you'd have all the time when using software. say a year from now, you launch your older wallet software, and send 1 (old btc) instead of 1 (new btc) to someone. You'd need to double check every single place you'd ever spend bitcoins on to make sure that it's new bitcoins and not old bitcoins.

Similarily with software - everyone in the source code it'd say "bitcoin" programmers would need to check whether it's new or old.

The amount of confusion, and engineering work would be staggering. It's far better to have a new term alltogether. People have been proposing "millis" or "millibits".

There's a theory that it could just keep going for a while yet.

We're talking $10,000 to 1BTC. So what then? Lose another set of zeros?

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