This is totally alien and unfamiliar. So let’s banish the USDcoin moniker completely.
Instead, let’s enumerate using dollars at their actual value of 1 dollar = 100 cents.
So 30,000 cents = $300.00.
See how much more familiar and comfortable that feels?
You have the dollar symbol so you can instantly see it as dollars and you have the decimal point so you can clearly differentiate between dollars and cents.
So a USDcoin is 100,000,000 cents or $1,000,000 dollars.
Why use the USDcoin label at all? Everything can be enumerated in dollars and cents. Instead of 3 USDcoin you have $3,000,000 dollars.
Why do we impose the former methodology on new entrants to bitcoin? It’s totally alien and unfamiliar, but this is exactly what we are expecting people to adopt with bitcoin.
Bitcoin = 100,000,000 sats.
If adopted as a medium of exchange, the fridge would be priced as: fridge = 0.00030000 bitcoin or 30,000 sats.
Instead, let’s keep the bitcoin moniker for the Bitcoin network and start to use “bits” for the currency and remove the complexity.
100 sats = ₿1.00 or 1 bit.
The fridge would now be priced as: 30,000 sats = ₿300.00.
See how much more familiar and comfortable that feels? The ₿ symbol has been historically used to enumerate whole bitcoin and is highly familiar to people. I would suggest that we now adopt the ₿ symbol for bits. It’s highly unlikely anyone will confuse whole bitcoin with bits. If you see a price tag of ₿300.00 you’re not going to think it’s 300 whole bitcoin. If you want to deal in whole bitcoin, you can go back to eight decimal places, e.g., 3.09367835 BTC.
But most normal people will never need (or be in a position) to transact in whole bitcoin. If they are fortunate enough, they can transact in millions of bits. Remember 1 BTC is ₿1,000,000, so 3.09367835 BTC is ₿3,093,678.35. This is what we do with USD or GBP: we use millions of units, e.g., $1,000,000 or £1,000,000.
We need to move away from talking about the price of bitcoin in bitcoin and start talking about the bit price, just as we talk about things priced in dollars or pounds. Let’s leave the name Bitcoin for the network and let’s focus on bits.
Adopting bits to enumerate bitcoin has other benefits. A bit is a “bit” of a bitcoin. People are more likely to associate the word “bit” with bitcoin and are more likely to understand that a bit is a part of a bitcoin. A “sat” means nothing to the average person.
If this terminology is adopted by exchanges, people will perceive lower prices because bitcoin would be priced in bits making bitcoin appear more affordable. People would be encouraged to buy and spend in bits.
As previously mentioned, nothing new is required. No changes are needed to the underlying monetary asset or Bitcoin network. Bits are already built in and they were included for a reason. Do you really think the fact that they mirror dollars and cents, or pounds and pence, is a coincidence? I think Satoshi Nakamoto was already looking to the future when bits would become the new global currency and built this familiarity into the protocol.
This is a guest post by Don McAllister. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.
