Re:Living On Bitcoin For A Week
by anonymoushn on Wednesday May 01, 2013 @06:14PM
(#5641155)
The unit of bitcoin is currently 10^-8 bitcoins, or about one ten-thousandth of a penny. A smaller unit can be adopted at any time if a majority of the network starts using a client that supports a smaller unit.
You don't need to use Bitcoin in 1-coin denominations. The clients even have support for viewing it in much smaller (millionth) pieces. So the "base" value is really quite irrelevant apart from psychological aspects when trading BTC.
One Bitcoin can be divided down to 0.00000001 BTC.
Yes, I'm aware of this. My comment was about wide-spread adoption.
I have a hard time imaging my parents working with fractions just to buy a coffee.
Come on, you lack imagination. Do you really not see that a simple change of units would solve the pb? It is a mere convention change, not even a technical change! Call 0.001 bitcoin 1 millibitcoin, or 1 mBTC, or 1 "new bitcoin". Done! They do this all the time in countries with inflation/deflation.
Your ancestors did just fine with salaries of a few dollars a year, once upon a time.
It's just a terminology problem because people aren't used to "bitcents" or "mBTC" yet.
Is there an equivalent to a stock split that could be applied?
Just seems like Bitcoin can never really fulfill its dream of being a true global currency if the lowest value of an individual 'coin' is so expensive.