[Bitcoin-development] moving the default display to mbtc

[Alan Reiner]

I highly recommend that if we make any move towards this, that the
software show verification in both/all units.

For instance, there should be 3 input fields, one for "BTC", one for
"mBTC" one for "uBTC".  As the user enters a value in one of the fields,
it would automatically update the other fields with the converted value
as they type.  This makes it really difficult to get it wrong... if
you're typing "10" into the BTC field, thinking it's mBTC, you'll see
10,000 mBTC showing up in the other box as you type.  Similarly, it
should display all units on all verification windows.  Users may also
use it for sanity checking conversion between units.

Personally, I'm of the opinion that this change is important in the long
run:  the current price makes Bitcoin *intimidating* to new users.  But
I'm also of the opinion that it's freakin' hard to change the base unit
in such an established system.  There is no easy way to do this that
doesn't cause more heartache than it's worth.  But it's possible if you
make it idiot-proof enough, and roll it out in the least inconvenient way.

-Alan


On 11/14/2013 06:45 AM, Melvin Carvalho wrote:
> Rationale
> =======
>
> Given the recent rise in value there seems to be anecdotal evidence
> that 1 bitcoin being so high is putting off a lot of normal buyers,
> because they feel that putting down $400+ and only getting "1 coin",
> or having to buy in multiples of 1 whole coin, is too much.. only
> after it being explained that they can buy fractional amounts to they
> regain interest, apparently happening increasingly.
>
>
> Straw Poll
> ========
>
> 6 months ago there was a straw poll on this
>
> https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=220322.0
>
> Roughly 2/3 of respondents favoured switching
>
> A further 20% said to switch after it hits 1000
>
> Satoshi's comments:
> ================
>
> Eventually at most only 21 million coins for 6.8 billion people in the
> world if it really gets huge.
>
> But don't worry, there are another 6 decimal places that aren't shown,
> for a total of 8 decimal places internally.  It shows 1.00 but
> internally it's 1.00000000.  If there's massive deflation in the
> future, the software could show more decimal places.
>
> If it gets tiresome working with small numbers, we could change where
> the display shows the decimal point.  Same amount of money, just
> different convention for where the ","'s and "."'s go.  e.g. moving
> the decimal place 3 places would mean if you had 1.00000 before, now
> it shows it as 1,000.00.
>
> https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=44.msg267#msg267
>
>
> Would now be a good time to start thinking about changing the default
> display in the software.  Perhaps initially it could be a dropdown
> display option, then at some point mbtc becomes the default?
>
>
>
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