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BIP 177 is terrible. 1. It will happen again: Multiple BTC "stock splits" will be needed over time. We will go much smaller than 1 sat. We can either create a new name for each of them or constantly change what "1 Bitcoin" means by adding or removing zeros like fiat does. To make matters worse, because it is an Ok move to make, each county can decide to redenominate BTC for their people. This is a can of worms we do not want to open. 2. Stock splits force updating the past since what was 1 BTC last year is now 100,000,000 BTC. All accounting records related to BTC must change. Since a lot of systems are stuck in time, it is likely that we will need to add date-and-timezone-dependent rules to adjust units when doing reports over old systems. This is equivalent to the current "daylight saving" problem, where each country has multiple historical tables to adjust time when doing reports. 3. The International System of Units never changes the unit of account. Users are supposed to add a prefix (nano, pico, etc) as things get small or (tera, peta) when they get too big. Keeping things historically sane significantly reduces the work of engineers. I don't need to remind anyone of the multiple mega bugs these types of conversion issues have caused over the years. 1 BTC = 1 BTC.

Replies (44)

Your argument then is that BTC is synonymous with lower case bitcoins. But a counter argument could be that BTC is distinct from bitcoins, and are usually pronounced bee tee cee. The only reason this shit matters, if it does matter is that calling BTC bitcoins, instead of calling sats bitcoins, make bitcoin sound extremely unaffordable. You can argue that normies are retarded for not knowing that BTC is millions of times bigger than what they can actually buy, but that won't help. I hope people arguing against the bip at least engage with the unit bias argument instead of insisting that the 21 meme has anywhere near the same effect on the general population perception of Bitcoin
But what I am saying is; 1. We don't have that consensus at all, we only have a consensus on the 21_00_000_000_000_000 units, regardless what they are called, sats or bitcoins. 2. To the extent that the "21 million" meme matters to anyone, it is regarding the token "BTC", not for the lower case bitcoins word. 3. That the negative effect of the unit bias, is way bigger than the positive effect of the 21 meme, even if you insist that the meme is "21M bitcoins" not "21M BTC" If you disagree with that... fine, people will fight this one out in their app implementations, no one can force anyone to do anything.
1. No one even knows about the 21_00.. units. Only devs know how Bitcoin is represented in code. How can we have "consensus" on somebody nobody even knows it exists? That's not the consensus. 2. 21M is not a meme. It is on all books and all serious educational materials and software we use. Calling it a meme means you are discussing this in bad faith. You know better. 3. Unit bias is negative and will always be negative regardless of which decimal point you write "bitcoins" after. Multiple countries will have different unit biases. You can't solve this by moving the decimal.
Most people have heard of Bitcoin and think they can’t afford it. (That’s the whole point of making the decimal point disappear) So when they see that Bitcoin is at 9 cents they will think Bitcoin has crashed all the way down from 100,000.00 to 0.09 This creates more confusion and doesn’t help anyone.
Again, you are just saying that BTC is interchangeable with "bitcoins". I can accept that argument and the discussion ends after that because I disagree and it is too subjective to settle, and everyone can do what they want going forward. But I disagree with the last point too, I don't think we will need to divide bitcoins further than the granularity in the code, even though I actually don't think "millisats" are fake, but I just don't think we will have that much economic activity on the Internet flowing through Bitcoin that one unit becomes too expensive. Anyways, if only these were our biggest problems.
Don't you at least think that no one could ever mistake a 100Mx? As in if you saw 100,000 bitcoins on an invoice, is there a chance in hell you are going to confuse that for a 100,000BTC? I don't know man, I just want bitcoins, I don't want sats it sounds shit. But what I want the most is for Ark (or something) to work and scale so we can have this debate again when there are actual users.
Countless people are criticising the bip for what they think it says not what it actually says. Again, I don't care either way, but if you follow that bip, then 1 BTC remains 1 BTC, you rename "sats" to "bitcoins"... if you have a problem with that, discuss that. Sats are not anywhere near the status of BTC ... at all. View quoted note β†’
I'm a fan the BIP because it aligns the globally recognizable name with the base unit ("1 bitcoin" equals one base unit) and reduces the amount of things you have to explain to newcomers (what is a sat, why is it named that, etc.) Are there proponents of BIP177 that are arguing we should continue renaming the smallest unit if/when we need ever smaller units in the future? At that point, I think using decimals are fine.
Yes. The other thing is that if Sats take off in a small retail context then it ties the value of Sats to agriculture, to production, to the Panama Canal, to the cost of reprinting a menu in glossy A4β€”to a zillion things that underpin small retail globally, and it will inevitably plateau, given that we aren't going to be adding all that much new fertile land or all that many new Panama canals. Another way to say it is that if your money can all of a sudden buy twice as many omelettes but the number of chickens in the world hasn't changed then something's not right.
Yes. As I said in my original post, BIP 177 is cool because it eliminates the number of thing you need to explain to onboard someone. Them: "I think I'm ready to buy some bitcoin" Me: "Cool, let me help you get set up" Them: <Downloads wallet of choice> Me: "Click the receive button, let me sent you some sats" Them: "What's a sat?" Me: "Well you see, the creator of Bitcoin used the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto and..." It's cool history, but the average consumer doesn't care. They just want bitcoin :)
And anyone who does understand the history just wants ONE of the 21m bitcoin. Look, this is very simple, people are not going to walk away because they now now a sat is a fraction of a bitcoin, are they? Zero people have gotten all the way to pushing the buy button, and then decided to stay away because of the name sats. It has never happened. Let's be honest about what this is - unit bias shitcoinery leaking into the minds of bitcoiners.
My view on simplicity - we are fighting huge Dollar network effects, taxation, slur campaigns from other shitcoins, a decade of being sneered at, a wave of scams every new bitcoin cycle, and on this long long list of things we need to overcome in order for bitcoin to be accepted and used as money, if I were to list them in priority of impact, the term sats wouldn't even be on the list. Next time you reach the point when you say "I will now send you some bitcoin" just do it. No need to explain anything. "You now have X bitcoin, otherwise known as Y sats" My nan used to use Pounds, Shillings and Pence. 20 Shillings to a pound, and 12 pence to a Shilling. This was the global reserve currency at the time. I promise you, it isn't the word 'sats' that is preventing bitcoin becoming the money lol. Having said that, yes, enjoy the rest of the week, Austin.
But why should we care? I can't help thinking this is a non event, or an attack to try to give some third party an ability to manipulate the math of Bitcoin as it is..
Vitor Pamplona's avatar Vitor Pamplona
BIP 177 is terrible. 1. It will happen again: Multiple BTC "stock splits" will be needed over time. We will go much smaller than 1 sat. We can either create a new name for each of them or constantly change what "1 Bitcoin" means by adding or removing zeros like fiat does. To make matters worse, because it is an Ok move to make, each county can decide to redenominate BTC for their people. This is a can of worms we do not want to open. 2. Stock splits force updating the past since what was 1 BTC last year is now 100,000,000 BTC. All accounting records related to BTC must change. Since a lot of systems are stuck in time, it is likely that we will need to add date-and-timezone-dependent rules to adjust units when doing reports over old systems. This is equivalent to the current "daylight saving" problem, where each country has multiple historical tables to adjust time when doing reports. 3. The International System of Units never changes the unit of account. Users are supposed to add a prefix (nano, pico, etc) as things get small or (tera, peta) when they get too big. Keeping things historically sane significantly reduces the work of engineers. I don't need to remind anyone of the multiple mega bugs these types of conversion issues have caused over the years. 1 BTC = 1 BTC.
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