From: Gordon Mohr <gojomo@gmail•com>
To: bitcoin-development@lists•sourceforge.net
Subject: Re: [Bitcoin-development] "bits": Unit of account
Date: Fri, 02 May 2014 19:06:11 -0700 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <53644F13.1080203@gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CACq0ZD6EJnG4iwehfcFU-4AhBiNdtyf7eE9iGW8d6rv6327Eug@mail.gmail.com>
[resend - apologies if duplicate]
Microbitcoin is a good-sized unit, workable for everyday transaction
values, with room-to-grow, and a nice relationship to satoshis as 'cents'.
But "bits" has problems as a unit name.
"Bits" will be especially problematic whenever people try to graduate
from informal use to understanding the system internals - that is, when
the real "bits" of key sizes, hash sizes, and storage/bandwidth needs
become important. The "bit" as "binary digit" was important enough that
Satoshi named the system after it; that homage gets lost if the word is
muddied with a new retconned meaning that's quite different.
Some examples of possible problems:
* If "bit" equals "100 satoshis", then the natural-language unpacking of
"bit-coin" is "100 satoshi coin", which runs against all prior usage.
* If people are informed that a "256-bit private key" is what ultimately
controls their balances, it could prompt confusion like, "if each key
has 256-bits, will I need 40 keys to hold 10,000.00 bits?"
* When people learn that there are 8 bits to a byte, they may think,
"OK, my wallet holding my 80,000.00 bits will then take up 10 kilobytes".
* When people naturally extend "bit" into "kilobits" to mean "1000
bits", then the new coinage "kilobits" will mean the exact same amount
(100,000 satoshi) as many have already been calling "millibits".
I believe it'd be best to pick a new made-up single-syllable word as a
synonym for "microbitcoin", and I've laid out the case for "zib" as that
word at <http://zibcoin.org>.
'Zib' also lends itself to an expressive unicode symbol, 'Ƶ'
(Z-with-stroke), that remains distinctive even if it loses its stroke or
gets case-reversed. (Comparatively, all 'b'-derived symbols for
data-bits, bitcoins, or '100 satoshi bits' risk collision in contexts
where subtleties of casing/stroking are lost.)
(There's summary of more problems with "bit" in the zibcoin.org FAQ at:
<http://zibcoin.org/faq#why-not-bits-to-mean-microbitcoins>.)
- Gordon
On 5/1/14, 3:35 PM, Aaron Voisine wrote:
> I'm also a big fan of standardizing on microBTC as the standard unit.
> I didn't like the name "bits" at first, but the more I think about it,
> the more I like it. The main thing going for it is the fact that it's
> part of the name bitcoin. If Bitcoin is the protocol and network, bits
> are an obvious choice for the currency unit.
>
> I would like to propose using Unicode character U+0180, lowercase b
> with stroke, as the symbol to represent the microBTC denomination,
> whether we call bits or something else:
> http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/0180/index.htm
>
> Another candidate is Unicode character U+2422, the blank symbol, but I
> prefer stroke b.
> http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/2422/index.htm
>
> Aaron
>
> There's no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole
> government working for you -- Will Rodgers
>
>> On Apr 21, 2014 5:41 AM, "Pieter Wuille" <pieter.wuille@gm•..> wrote:
>>
>>> On Apr 21, 2014 3:37 AM, "Un Ix" <slashdevnull@...> wrote:
>>>
>>> Something tells me this would be reduced to a single syllable in common
>>> usage I.e. bit.
>>
>> What units will be called colloquially is not something developers will
>> determine. It will vary, depend on language and culture, and is not
>> relevant to this discussion in my opinion.
>>
>> It may well be that people in some geographic or language area will end up
>> (or for a while) calling 1e-06 BTC "bits". That's fine, but using that as
>> "official" name in software would be very strange and potentially confusing
>> in my opinion. As mentioned by others, that would seem to me like calling
>> dollars "bucks" in bank software. Nobody seems to have a problem with
>> having colloquial names, but "US dollar" or "euro" are far less ambiguous
>> than "bit". I think we need a more distinctive name.
>>
>> --
>> Pieter
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> "Accelerate Dev Cycles with Automated Cross-Browser Testing - For FREE
> Instantly run your Selenium tests across 300+ browser/OS combos. Get
> unparalleled scalability from the best Selenium testing platform available.
> Simple to use. Nothing to install. Get started now for free."
> http://p.sf.net/sfu/SauceLabs
> _______________________________________________
> Bitcoin-development mailing list
> Bitcoin-development@lists•sourceforge.net
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
>
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2014-05-03 2:06 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 56+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2014-05-01 22:35 Aaron Voisine
2014-05-03 2:06 ` Gordon Mohr [this message]
2014-05-03 5:41 ` Aaron Voisine
2014-05-03 15:48 ` Christophe Biocca
2014-05-03 16:02 ` slush
2014-05-03 16:10 ` Tamas Blummer
2014-05-03 16:27 ` Mike Caldwell
2014-05-04 1:04 ` Chris Pacia
2014-05-04 5:18 ` Drak
2014-05-04 6:15 ` Aaron Voisine
2014-05-04 6:23 ` Un Ix
2014-05-04 6:27 ` Wladimir
2014-05-04 6:36 ` Tamas Blummer
2014-05-04 6:59 ` Wladimir
2014-05-04 14:42 ` Mike Caldwell
2014-05-05 22:33 ` Gordon Mohr
-- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
2014-04-20 12:35 Mike Gehl
2014-04-20 13:15 ` Rob Golding
2014-04-20 14:28 ` Tamas Blummer
2014-04-20 14:52 ` Christophe Biocca
2014-04-21 8:52 ` Thomas Voegtlin
2014-04-21 9:34 ` Tamas Blummer
2014-04-22 14:55 ` Natanael
2014-04-20 14:53 ` Pieter Wuille
2014-04-20 15:05 ` Tamas Blummer
2014-04-20 15:50 ` Alan Reiner
2014-04-20 16:19 ` Chris Pacia
2014-04-20 16:27 ` Wladimir
2014-04-20 16:30 ` Chris Pacia
2014-04-22 13:51 ` Aaron Axvig
2014-04-23 9:44 ` Danny Hamilton
2014-04-23 9:56 ` Tamas Blummer
2014-04-23 11:48 ` Chris D'Costa
2014-04-20 16:23 ` Erik Garrison
2014-04-20 16:30 ` Alan Reiner
2014-04-20 16:56 ` Mike Caldwell
2014-04-20 17:47 ` Jannis Froese
2014-04-20 18:10 ` Pavol Rusnak
2014-04-20 17:42 ` Arne Brutschy
2014-04-20 18:11 ` Mike Caldwell
2014-04-20 18:22 ` Arne Brutschy
2014-04-20 18:34 ` Mike Caldwell
2014-04-20 18:43 ` Oliver Egginger
2014-04-20 19:19 ` Christophe Biocca
2014-04-20 19:32 ` Gmail
2014-04-20 20:28 ` Mike Caldwell
2014-04-21 0:16 ` Justin A
2014-04-21 1:18 ` Mike Caldwell
2014-04-21 1:33 ` Un Ix
2014-04-21 3:34 ` Mike Caldwell
2014-04-21 4:08 ` Christopher Paika
2014-04-21 5:41 ` Pieter Wuille
2014-04-21 5:51 ` Tamas Blummer
2014-04-21 6:21 ` Tamas Blummer
2014-04-21 12:14 ` Un Ix
2014-04-21 12:24 ` Tamas Blummer
Reply instructions:
You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:
* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
and reply-to-all from there: mbox
Avoid top-posting and favor interleaved quoting:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style
* Reply using the --to, --cc, and --in-reply-to
switches of git-send-email(1):
git send-email \
--in-reply-to=53644F13.1080203@gmail.com \
--to=gojomo@gmail$(echo .)com \
--cc=bitcoin-development@lists$(echo .)sourceforge.net \
/path/to/YOUR_REPLY
https://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-send-email.html
Be sure your reply has a Subject: header at the top and a blank line
before the message body.
This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox