Interesting

Normies have zero clue what is happening in the world of bitcoin… if this change happened, I doubt people would think “oh Bitcoin is affordable now,” rather I’m sure they would think “see one bitcoin crashed to way less than $0 I knew it would fail!”

Would be huge mess imo. Too much confusion for normies.

Sats works. Don't touch it

Already touching it!

Changing unbroken things seems like a bad precedent to set

Still think this is too confusing… But it the idea really gained momentum… IMHO would make more sense to keep sats and have 1 million :1 ratio eg rename bits (100sats) to bitcoin. At $1m usd we get 1 btc = 1 usd and 1 sat = 1 cent 1 BTC becomes1 000 000 BTC 21 trillion bitcoin 100 sats for one bitcoin And maybe some among convention for old vs new, maybe with upper lower case? Or rename to MBTC? 1MBTC = 1000000 btc = 100 000 000 sat

The thing I like about the "fetch" meme is that it made "fetch" a meme, thus "happen" ;)

unpopular opinion: If you don't understand divisions, you probably won't understand why bitcoin is better money. View quoted note →

Dismissing people that are different than you is a very popular opinion, and it's probably ok, but when you actually need that people to join your movement because of network effect that becomes a dumb move.

From a physics standpoint, I agree with the rationale behind standardizing Bitcoin units at the quantum level. We need to do better. In my work calculating Bitcoin’s Block Temperature, Block Energy, and Cumulative Chain Energy in joules, I’ve been using satoshis; what you’re proposing to formalize as “bitcoin” at the scale of 1 × 10⁻⁸ BTC. A quantum, by definition, is the smallest indivisible unit of measurement in any domain. Anchoring Bitcoin’s denomination system around this principle is most logical. It mirrors how we treat all units in physics. Given that we already use metric prefixes (milli, centi, kilo, etc.) for quantities like hashrate, power, and energy, it would be helpful to me to have the same standard for my calculations. This would make Bitcoin unitization consistent with established physical systems and simplify precision when modeling Bitcoin’s thermodynamics. Right now the language is messy and we need a standard.

not entirely opposed to this

what happens when we choose to add decimal places beyond the 8th decimal? Opposed to this unecessary change. a little cognitive gymnastics might not be bad for fiat world anyway lol

Read the BIP.

I feel this is some for Asset, not Currency. It certainly feels good to see 10,000 bitcoins appearing on your exchange page. But when you hear "1 bitcoin" in a store, which do you intuitively imagine?

99% of people on earth have never owned bitcoin. Of that 99%, the majority have no idea what it's worth. If you tell them 1000 bitcoin is worth around $1, they'll go "okay cool".

I can already hear the midwit chorus: 'Then it wasn’t a fixed number of 21 million—they produced more!'

That would be extremely confusing to change it after all this time with very little real world benefit.

It is confusing already and people just live in ignorance.

Most people on earth, if you told them that 1,000 Bitcoin equals roughly one dollar, they go "cool, now I know". It's a minority that would reply that they thought it was worth more and for whom you'd have to clarify the change. 99% of people on earth have never owned Bitcoin and of those I'm pretty sure that over half of have no idea what the worth of 1 Bitcoin might be and whatever amount you told them they'd be like "cool".

It's not confusing. People see BTC and at some point they learn there are sats. No need to solve a non-existant problem IMHO, at least I have never noticed this to be a problem. If people are smart enough to think about float vs integer, they can figure out sats vs. btc. For others it does not matter.

New users just learn it when they become bitcoiners. It would create great confusion for the millions of people who already know. "Are you talking about the old bitcoin or the new bitcoin?" The unit of account is like language, it is extremely difficult to change. I am from a country that experienced at least two currency changes (depending how you count) and there are still people who think in Slovak crowns and not euros. Yes, 16 years later. If you don't change the name, just redefine it, it will be even worse. This is a spectacularly bad idea.

Some people disagree with you, and your arguments are all speculative and subjective, so, it is what it is.

These millions of people are a tiny percentage of the people of earth though. If only 1% of the Slovak population had ever used money at all before the Euro then pretty sure the 99% who hadn’t would pick up on things quick.

Yes, but this assumes there is a problem with current Bitcoin denomination. There is no problem. Don't touch it and both 1% and 99% will be fine. Touch it, and 1% (of real users) will be confused for long time, it will create friction. And 99% don't care yet and will be confused when they become Bitcoiners, because you would have to say "old bitcoin or new bitcoin" for years to come, you would have to explain that there was a change. And why? I think it's even quite nice that you have this as a memento of how much Bitcoin grew. Now you need only 0.0003 to buy dinner!

I get the argument, but the counterargument is pretty strong. I can pay for things in dollars and I can pay for things in cents. So having both worlds makes everyday sense. Nobody will ever pay for anything with Bitcoin. Every advertisement you see for any product will give the price in Sats. “For a limited time only 55k Sats, buy now!”. TV, podcasts, Youtube, flyers, all Sats. Sats, Sats, Sats. Every label at every store will be in Sats. The word Bitcoin will become like the word "Bullion", reserved for certain corners of Wall Street only. There will a transition period where some people say "Bitcoin Sats", but that will end. After it'll just be Sats. People will pay attention to the “price of Sats”. People won’t “come to Bitcoin” as you said, that phrase will not enter common usage because. The word Bitcoin will not be tied to anything people see and touch. Only the word Sats will be. It'll take over. The young generation will grow up never using the word Bitcoin in their online chats but only using the word Sats (What semantic value would ever make the word Bitcoin come up?) Many will have no idea that Sats started off as Bitcoin, that’ll be something the professor informs them in economics 101. Adding to the mess, after all these years we have no symbol for Sats. And there’s no indication that 10 more years will result in a unicode symbol. Or any agreed symbol at all. Or any coordination on when to say Satoshis and when to say Sats. Or whether it's Milli-sats or nano-Bitcoin? So what will be have accomplished? We’ll have completely overwritten the Bitcoin brand in the context of everyday life—the most important context of all—with something that doesn’t carry any overt connection to the old brand and doesn’t even have a unicode symbol. If that’s the rebrand you want then all power to you, but you have to acknowledge it is an all-encompassing rebrand.

There is a problem. People think it is divisible. It is not. Dividing is multiplying here. This makes people infer incorrect things about how Bitcoin works.

People don't have slightest idea how fiat system works and they use it everyday. There is no real problem for use. Infering wrong things is fixed just by learning how it works.

I still don't see a problem. I pay with banknotes and coins and still know it's euros. This is purely invented problem and a proposed solution creates confusion. If people start using "sats", so what. It will be sats. People who want to know what is Bitcoin will know. We have real problems to solve, this is not it.

You know it's Euros because 1 euro is a meaningful denomination in everyday life. If 100,000 euros was called a Didgeridoo you'd be none the wiser. People will of course start using Sats. What's the alternative? Imagine this future in-podcast advertisement: “Get yours now, only zero point zero zero zero zero zero one bitcoin” “Wait, Mark, how many zeros did you say?” “I think I said four, Linda.” “I counted five.” “Ah, right, my mistake. Get yours now, only zero point zero zero zero zero Bitcoin!” “Yeah that was four.” “Cool.” Like I said, if you're in favour of dropping the brand Bitcoin for Sats in the context of everyday life that's cool but you have to come out and acknowledge that's the rebrand you're pushing for.

Yes, you can say sats. It's ok. The system is called Bitcoin and the unit is called sats. No problem there. It's the same as with guarani. Something is 200k. Everyone knows it's guarani, no one knows how much one guarani is worth (almost nothing). Everyone is able to operate in this environment. - Can you pay me in Bitcoin? - Sure, how much? - 2k sats, here's an invoice - sure, here you go No problem. - Can you pay me in Bitcoin? - Sure, how much? - 1 bitcoin - What? Wasn't 1 bitcoin like 100k$? - no, not the old bitcoin, the word now has a different meaning, haven't you read the BIP? - really? since when? just tell me how many sats. - 1 sat - you could have told me that in the first place

This is not what will happen though: - Can you pay me in Bitcoin? - Sure, how much? - 2k sats, here's an invoice - sure, here you go This is what will *actually* happen: - Can you pay me in Sats? - Sure, how much? - 2k, here's an invoice - sure, here you go The reason is that 90% of the world will "Come to Bitcoin" by seeing a price-tag in Sats. A breakfast menu with scrambled eggs showing as 3,000 Sat (maybe the world spelled out, since we'll never agree on a symbol). So they won't come to Bitcoin, they'll come to Sats. Sats will be all they'll ever know. Bitcoin people find it hard to see this because they can't imagine what it's like to be that person who first encounters Bitcoin in any sense from scrambled eggs. They think the fact that Sats are Bitcoin is self-evident (it's not at all). In this future world of Sats, the word "Bitcoin" has no semantic value. It doesn't describe anything of everyday relevance. It adds no value that the word Sats doesn't already convey. It's pure baggage, and it'll disappear. This is how language always evolves. And that would be a sad waste and slow down adoption by several years.

I don't see a problem. If dollars are called dollar-cents, it's ok. We have even nice shorter word - sats. Totally fine. BTW: I have used this trick during the 2017 craze. I met a guy who said that $20k for one Bitcoin is too much. I laughed and I told him I have a much better deal for him then, it's called Sats, it's fresh and cheap, he should buy. I still see this as a non-issue and even your worst case is much better than confusing people by redefining a word with an existing definition.

You're missing the point about Dollars and Cents both being denominations you can price everyday goods in. They are both words with everyday relevance. That is not true of Bitcoin and Sats. In the case of Bitcoin and Sats, it's only the word Sats that will have everyday relevance. The word Bitcoin won't, because it's an irrelevant denomination to people's lives. Words just evolve that way. We used to say “pound sterling”. There was a reason. Sterling silver has 93% or more real silver so it weighs a certain amount. (Less pure silver weighs differently.) And pounds had to weigh one troy pound of sterling silver. So not all “pounds” were of the sterling type. But now the word "Sterling" no longer has semantic value in everyday life. So we've dropped it and now just say pounds—it's been relegated to the Financial Times. That will be the fate of the word Bitcoin because it will go from having some everyday relevance (when it was small enough to) to having none. Sats will suffice for 99% of people. Basically you're advocating for relegating the word Bitcoin to the Financial Times.

That's natural progression of the word. Not what you are proposing, that's centrally planned redifinition of word. That won't work.

Plenty of examples of where such things have worked. And this one will too. That is to say if enough teams get onboard with it, specifically teams working to approach the 99%, then it will work and 1 Bitcoin will be understood globally as the smallest individual unit—and also the daily transacting unit—as it should be.

Fortunately I would be very surprised if people went through with it. So let's leave it as a discussion with 🍿, agree to disagree and see what happens.

Agreed 🍿🍿🍿 Good chat, good sir.

as bitcoin becomes increasingly more used as a medium of exchange people will say they spent/request “x of bitcoin” whether developers or investors like it or not its best for bitcoin to align its nomenclature with its numerical digits View quoted note →