If you're serious about this, you should write up considerations around using the satoshi as a unit. That unit has none of the problems you describe. Satoshis is already a well accepted unit, and is likely to be a very practical one that might match within an order of magnitude of (the current buying power of) US cents. > this BIP is a consensus change around the display of Bitcoin wallet balances Fyi, this is not something that's considered a "consensus change", which is something that affects the validity of a block. On Fri, Mar 4, 2022, 09:19 Asher Hopp via bitcoin-dev < bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org> wrote: > This is my first time submitting anything to this mailer list, so I am > here with humility and I would appreciate any feedback about any aspect of > my BIP draft submission below. If you want to reach out to me directly you > can email me at asher@seent.com. > > Abstract > Rather than having a maximum supply of 21 million Bitcoin, there should be > a maximum supply of 21 trillion Bitcoin. This can be accomplished by moving > the decimal place 6 places to the right of where it is today, while > reserving two degrees of accuracy after the decimal point. > > Copyright > This BIP is under the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license. > > Background > On February 6th, 2010 Satoshi Nakamoto responded to a bitcointalk forum > discussion about the divisibility and economics of bitcoin as a global > currency. Satoshi chimed in to the conversation when two ideas formed: > 1. Bitcoin is so scarce that a perception may exist that there is not > enough to go around – there is not even 1 Bitcoin available per person on > Earth. > 2. If Bitcoin’s value continues to deflate against inflating fiat > currencies, Bitcoin transactions may become smaller and smaller, requiring > the potentially tedious use of many leading 0’s after the decimal point. > > Satoshi’s suggested response to these issues was a software update to > change where the decimal place and commas are displayed when software > interprets a Bitcoin wallet’s balance: “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) > > Since 2010, when Satoshi wrote that post Bitcoin has indeed become a > globally adopted currency, the dollar has inflated significantly, and > Bitcoin has deflated. There are many debates in the Bitcoin community > concerning the nomenclature of Bitcoin’s atomic unit (satoshis, sats, bits, > bitcents, mbits, etc). The debate has somewhat spiraled out of control, and > there is no clearly emerging community consensus. Additionally this issue > impacts the technology world outside of Bitcoin because there are several > proposals for various Unicode characters which factions of the Bitcoin > community have started using to represent the atomic Bitcoin unit despite > no formalized consensus. Therefore The conditions are right to move > forward with Satoshi's vision and move the decimal place. > > Details > There are several benefits to moving the decimal 6 places to the right in > Bitcoin wallet balance notation: > 1. Unit bias. It is a widely held belief that Bitcoin’s adoption may be > hindered because would-be participants have a negative perception of > Bitcoin’s unit size. One Bitcoin so expensive, and some people may be > turned off by the idea of only owning a fraction of a unit. > 2. Community cohesion. The Bitcoin community is deeply divided by various > proposed atomic unit names, but if this BIP is adopted there is no need to > debate nomenclature for the Bitcoin atomic unit. Bitcoin software providers > can simply continue using the Bitcoin Unicode character (₿, U+20BF), and > there are no additional unicode characters required. > 3. Simplicity and standardization. Bitcoin has no borders and is used by > people in just about every corner of the world. Other than the name Bitcoin > and the Unicode character we have, there is no consensus around other > notations for Bitcoin as a currency. Rather than introducing new concepts > for people to learn, this BIP allows Bitcoin to grow under a single > standardized unit specification, with a single standard unit name, unit > size, and unit Unicode character. > > There is only one drawback I can identify with this BIP, and it is purely > psychological. Moving the decimal place may produce bad optics in the > short-term, and Bitcoin’s detractors will likely seize the opportunity to > spread misinformation that moving the decimal place changes the monetary > value of anyone’s Bitcoin. It is important to note that if this BIP were to > gain consensus approval, the community would need to prepare talking points > and coordinate educational outreach efforts to explain to Bitcoin users and > wallet developers that this change does not change the proportion of the > total value of Bitcoin any particular wallet holds, and is simply a > notational change. There are no “winners” and no “losers” in this BIP – all > Bitcoin participants would be impacted in an equal and proportionate manner > on pari passu terms, and there is no change to Bitcoin’s monetary policy. > > Implementation > The software updates needed to implement this BIP are restricted to the > wallet's CLI/GUI configuration, and only involve changing the location of > the decimal point and commas when viewing balances or reviewing transaction > data. Each wallet provider including Bitcoin Core would simply need to > update the display of a wallet’s balance by moving the decimal place 6 > places to the right. > > Compatibility > Because this BIP is a consensus change around the display of Bitcoin > wallet balances and transaction amounts, everything will be backwards > compatible with previous versions of Bitcoin. There would be no > interruption in services for Bitcoin wallets which do not implement this > BIP, however there could conceivably be human error problems with > miscommunication between counterparties after this BIP is implemented. I > believe this risk is extremely minimal because an error of 6 decimal places > is so significant that it should be immediately noticed by any two parties > conducting a transaction. > > Cheers, > Asher > _______________________________________________ > bitcoin-dev mailing list > bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org > https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev >