Message-ID: <532327DD.7030005@monetize.io>
Date: Fri, 14 Mar 2014 09:01:33 -0700
From: Mark Friedenbach <mark@monetize.io>
Organization: Monetize.io Inc.
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Subject: Re: [Bitcoin-development] moving the default display to mbtc
Precedence: list

A cup of coffee in Tokyo costs about 55 yen. You see similar magnitude
numbers in both Chinas, Thailand, and other economically important East
Asian countries. Expect to pay hundreds of rupees in India, or thousands
of rupees in Indonesia.

This concept that money should have low, single digits for everyday
prices is not just Western-centric, it's English-centric. An expresso in
Rome would have cost you a few (tens of?) thousand lira in recent
memory. It was pegging of the Euro to the U.S. dollar that brought
European states in line with the English-speaking world (who themselves
trace lineage to the pound sterling).

No, there is no culturally-neutral common standards for currency and
pricing. But there are ill-advised, ill-informed "standards" in
accounting software that we nevertheless must live with. These software
packages do not handle more than two decimal places gracefully. That
gives technical justifications for moving to either uBTC or accounting
in Satoshis directly. An argument for uBTC is that it retains alignment
with the existing kBTC/BTC/mBTC/uBTC conventions.

However another limitation of these accounting software practices is
that they do not always handle SI notation very well, particularly
sub-unit prefixes. By relabeling uBTC to be a new three-digit symbol
(XBT, XBC, IBT, NBC, or whatever--I really don't care), we are now fully
compliant with any software accounting package out there.

We are still very, very early in the adoption period. These are changes
that could be made now simply by a few big players and/or the bitcoin
foundation changing their practice and their users following suit.

On 03/14/2014 07:49 AM, Andreas Schildbach wrote:
> How much do you pay for an Espresso in your local currency?
> 
> At least for the Euro and the Dollar, mBTC 3.56 is very close to what
> people would expect. Certainly more familiar than µBTC 3558 or BTC
> 0.003578.
> 
> Anyway, I was just sharing real-world experience: nobody is confused.
> 
> 
> On 03/14/2014 03:14 PM, Tamas Blummer wrote:
>> You give them a hard to interpret thing like mBTC and then wonder
>> why they rather look at local currency. Because the choices you
>> gave them are bad.
>>
>> I think Bitcoin would have a better chance to be percieved as a
>> currency of its own if it had prices and fractions like currencies
>> do.
>>
>> 3.558 mBTC or 0.003578 BTC will never be as accepted as 3558 bits
>> would be.
>>
>>
>> Tamas Blummer Bits of Proof
>>
>> On 14.03.2014, at 15:05, Andreas Schildbach <andreas@schildbach.de>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> btw. None of Bitcoin Wallet's users complained about confusion
>>> because of the mBTC switch. In contrast, I get many mails and
>>> questions if exchange rates happen to differ by >10%.
>>>
>>> I suspect nobody looks at the Bitcoin price. It's the amount in
>>> local currency that matters to the users.
>>>
>>>
>>> On 03/13/2014 02:40 PM, Andreas Schildbach wrote:
>>>> Indeed. And users were crying for mBTC. Nobody was asking for
>>>> µBTC.
>>>>
>>>> I must admit I was not aware if this thread. I just watched
>>>> other wallets and at some point decided its time to switch to
>>>> mBTC.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 03/13/2014 02:31 PM, Mike Hearn wrote:
>>>>> The standard has become mBTC and that's what was adopted.
>>>>> It's too late to try and sway this on a mailing list thread
>>>>> now.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Thu, Mar 13, 2014 at 2:29 PM, Gary Rowe
>>>>> <g.rowe@froot.co.uk <mailto:g.rowe@froot.co.uk>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> The MultiBit HD view is that this is a locale-sensitive
>>>>> presentation issue. As a result we offer a simple
>>>>> configuration panel giving pretty much every possible
>>>>> combination: icon, m+icon,  μ+icon, BTC, mBTC,  μBTC, XBT,
>>>>> mXBT,  μXBT, sat along with settings for leading/trailing
>>>>> symbol, commas, spaces and points. This allows anyone to
>>>>> customise to meet their own needs beyond the offered default.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> We apply the NIST guidelines for representation of SI unit
>>>>> symbols (i.e no conversion to native language, no RTL giving
>>>>> icon+m etc).
>>>>>
>>>>> Right now MultiBit HD is configured to use m+icon taken from
>>>>> the Font Awesome icon set. However reading earlier posts it
>>>>> seems that μ+icon is more sensible.
>>>>>
>>>>> Let us know what you'd like.
>>>>>
>>>>> Links: m+icon screenshot: http://imgur.com/a/WCDoG Font
>>>>> Awesome icon:
>>>>> http://fortawesome.github.io/Font-Awesome/icon/btc/ NIST SI
>>>>> guidelines: http://physics.nist.gov/Pubs/SP811/sec07.html
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On 13 March 2014 12:56, Jeff Garzik <jgarzik@bitpay.com 
>>>>> <mailto:jgarzik@bitpay.com>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Resurrecting this topic.  Bitcoin Wallet moved to mBTC
>>>>> several weeks ago, which was disappointing -- it sounded like
>>>>> the consensus was uBTC, and moving to uBTC later --which will
>>>>> happen-- may result in additional user confusion, thanks to
>>>>> yet another decimal place transition.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Sun, Nov 17, 2013 at 9:28 PM, Wendell <w@grabhive.com 
>>>>> <mailto:w@grabhive.com>> wrote:
>>>>>> We're with uBTC too. Been waiting for the signal to do
>>>>>> this,
>>>>> let's do it right after the fee system is improved.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> -wendell
>>>>>>
>>>>>> grabhive.com <http://grabhive.com> |
>>>>>> twitter.com/hivewallet
>>>>> <http://twitter.com/hivewallet> | gpg: 6C0C9411
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Nov 15, 2013, at 6:03 AM, Jeff Garzik wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Go straight to uBTC. Humans and existing computer
>>>>>>> systems
>>>>> handle numbers to
>>>>>>> the left of the decimals just fine (HK Dollars, Yen).
>>>>>>> The
>>>>> opposite is
>>>>>>> untrue (QuickBooks really does not like 3+ decimal
>>>>>>> places).
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> -- Jeff Garzik Bitcoin core developer and open source
>>>>> evangelist BitPay, Inc.      https://bitpay.com/
>>>>>
>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>>
>>>>>
> Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book
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>>>>>
>>>>>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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>>>>> Databases" is the definitive new guide to graph databases
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>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>> Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book "Graph
>>>>> Databases" is the definitive new guide to graph databases and
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>>>>> field, this first edition is now available. Download your
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>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
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>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>> Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book "Graph
>>>> Databases" is the definitive new guide to graph databases and
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>>>> field, this first edition is now available. Download your free
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>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book "Graph
>>> Databases" is the definitive new guide to graph databases and
>>> their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the
>>> field, this first edition is now available. Download your free
>>> book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/13534_NeoTech 
>>> _______________________________________________ 
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>>
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>
> Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book
>> "Graph Databases" is the definitive new guide to graph databases
>> and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the
>> field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book
>> today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/13534_NeoTech
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________ Bitcoin-development
>> mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net 
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> 
> 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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> "Graph Databases" is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their
> applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field,
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