Subject: [bitcoin-dev] BIP Draft Submission

From: Asher Hopp <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2022 18:07:59 -0800

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 [email-masked].

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