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From: Moral Agent <ethan.scruples@gmail.com>
To: Marcel Jamin <marcel@jamin.net>,
	 Bitcoin Protocol Discussion
	<bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org>
Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] BIP Proposal: Utilization of bits denomination
Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2017 13:20:34 -0500	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <CACiOHGwwgQJOPwaH8EKZbzx2QpnujnDe9XV1M72Tz46_u+mcgg@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CAAUq487ijoaWV46YHSS_tRak8gigT7jvfUBQ=mRntkfz9KV57Q@mail.gmail.com>

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>Bitcoin (BTC), Millibitcoin (mBTC) and Microbitcoin (µBTC) is the >correct<
approach. It's tidy, systematic and precise.

The SI system is great, but it's nice if you pick a base unit that is easy
for intuition to comprehend.

It is a fact that I weigh approximately .000,000,000,000,000,000,000,014
Earth masses. If we arrived at rough consensus that this was a cumbersome
way to express the mass of a human, we might then find a group of people
making the superficially sensible proposal that we use SI prefixes and say
I weigh 14 yoctoearths. This would be tidy, systematic and precise, but
that might not be enough to make it the best option. It might be even
better to choose a base unit that human intuition can make sense of, and
THEN add prefixes as needed.

I dislike the name "bits" but I think 100 satoshis does make a nice base
unit. If we cannot crowdsource a more inspiring label we may be stuck with
bits just due to linguistic network effects.

-Ethan



On Fri, Dec 15, 2017 at 1:27 AM, Marcel Jamin via bitcoin-dev <
bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org> wrote:

> I think one could make the argument that the only people who talk
> about and understand 24 bit audio or 256 bit cryptography are the ones
> who can tell the difference very easily.
>
> To me, your example seems to try hard to make the case for a problem
> that won't exist in reality.
>
> Bitcoin (BTC), Millibitcoin (mBTC) and Microbitcoin (µBTC) is the
> >correct< approach. It's tidy, systematic and precise. But that won't
> stop people from using something that's easier to deal with as I just
> had to google the µ character again.
>
> Let's also keep in mind that Coinbase has been using "bits" as the
> default for over 2 years now:
> https://blog.coinbase.com/bits-is-the-new-default-and-
> all-new-users-get-100-bits-for-free-9165f757594b
>
> Just from a linguistic standpoint, chances are we'll end up with bits
> anyway. Why fight it? We don't have a SI prefix educational mandate.
>
> Marcel
>
> On 14 December 2017 at 23:01, Natanael <natanael.l@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Reposting /u/BashCo's post on reddit here, for visibility:
> >
> > ---8<---------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> >> Before anyone says 'bits' are too confusing because it's a computer
> >> science term, here's a list of homonyms
> >> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_true_homonyms] that you use
> every
> >> day. Homonyms are fine because our brains are able to interpret language
> >> based on context, so it's a non-argument.
> >
> >
> > This ignores the fact that there exists multiple meanings of bits *within
> > the same context*, and that beginners likely can't tell them apart.
> >
> > Feel free to try it yourself - talk about Bitcoin "bits" of a particular
> > value with somebody who  doesn't understand Bitcoin. Then explain that
> the
> > cryptography uses 256 bit keys. I would be surprised if you could find
> > somebody who would not be confused by that.
> >
> > Let's say a website says a song is 24 bits. Was that 24 bit audio
> resolution
> > or 24 bit price? Somebody writes about 256 bit keys, are that their size
> or
> > value?
> >
> > You guys here can probably tell the difference. Can everybody...? Bits
> will
> > cause confusion, because plenty of people will not be able to tell these
> > apart. They will not know WHEN to apply one definition or the other.
> >
> > https://www.reddit.com/r/bitcoin/comments/24m3nb/_/ch8gua7
> >
> >
> _______________________________________________
> bitcoin-dev mailing list
> bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org
> https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev
>

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  reply	other threads:[~2017-12-15 18:20 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 11+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2017-12-13 19:46 [bitcoin-dev] BIP Proposal: Utilization of bits denomination Jimmy Song
2017-12-13 21:36 ` David A. Harding
2017-12-14  8:02   ` Marcel Jamin
2017-12-14 22:01     ` Natanael
2017-12-14 23:11       ` Clark Moody
2017-12-15  6:27       ` Marcel Jamin
2017-12-15 18:20         ` Moral Agent [this message]
2017-12-15 18:46           ` Rhavar
2017-12-14 15:52   ` Sjors Provoost
     [not found] <CADPKye1m2_5PaqedMU9nPsmvpW-3S+LSoqt0LnQLXXk=MjDJew@mail.gmail.com>
     [not found] ` <CADPKye39X_QFi_G0we39ZWXAQme=veC1hCfc_fFFwjs15Op=Lw@mail.gmail.com>
     [not found]   ` <CADPKye1FjsjG9gO7oWngx2LDnVqRQT_ia4Ke-wPfCRbXjnfZCg@mail.gmail.com>
     [not found]     ` <CADPKye03UUnJ5T94m8OdBNC5k8wnXGVB-xpbqf363gzTtfN_6A@mail.gmail.com>
     [not found]       ` <CADPKye2H66iZt=uOz765zrVtv_toeAzfoJXaqQvJaUtadqjDwg@mail.gmail.com>
     [not found]         ` <CADPKye35ZxJDcfM2e+pvw+z6eZEyzj1-6VDcpHP6Z5FtX-=GOQ@mail.gmail.com>
     [not found]           ` <CADPKye0JD5kfmsGb-AzO6EfPubOGUXtxaEqizLQUQ3QJmCMLJQ@mail.gmail.com>
     [not found]             ` <CADPKye0_eozpfG35qCmPKX-MX+qYZBLt5peU0_jBOCfVoZfefQ@mail.gmail.com>
     [not found]               ` <CADPKye0PSwH_bMYa9DzRos9SgL4e2Vid1gEKnNtcUKQB-op5UQ@mail.gmail.com>
     [not found]                 ` <CADPKye04MRZkWtZm1mWnjmSe97v0-iZwAdYH6pSrFjpHfzuQ-w@mail.gmail.com>
     [not found]                   ` <CADPKye2Ozj6rqApztKyoeJvekofdaiP1=jbd6buxFTebEantMA@mail.gmail.com>
     [not found]                     ` <CADPKye3hyOH4Z+y_JgJUfEspSt8jL+ZGaU05v_fX3Wiwr2-N9g@mail.gmail.com>
     [not found]                       ` <CADPKye11prrk663bWAatFCkjktJNgemg-ECdZdP07RECWcE6nQ@mail.gmail.com>
     [not found]                         ` <CADPKye1+z2aUBXc3UECvmoNSGO23hXGzGXekFOTPy-rdHFG_Nw@mail.gmail.com>
     [not found]                           ` <CADPKye0i0LaGgS4Hmp086LLCnPEHNYqJ+VbZ2h2DxycTwY2srQ@mail.gmail.com>
     [not found]                             ` <CADPKye0dj5z=hDbooUOY-vhP0N+L=VzhOGn3Wue4tPgY3vnHwA@mail.gmail.com>
     [not found]                               ` <CADPKye3Z8PDe_5D28hcELDurtpr=5wgzazw3RT=Fc3gUDvhcng@mail.gmail.com>
     [not found]                                 ` <CADPKye0-JwfDJruc00XXd55Gm0Ho4c5EKGxqcCqyuFcTY=omYQ@mail.gmail.com>
     [not found]                                   ` <CADPKye27FpEYtO31XjX6KcG59HjfZzaGGW0gayO-xZVbdb7jtg@mail.gmail.com>
     [not found]                                     ` <CADPKye0Kt87cHbuOqphMOPY3TPmO1awH46k17rEoVZ4kAejkxw@mail.gmail.com>
2017-12-13 23:00                                       ` Daniel McNally
2017-12-24  4:26 Tamas Blummer

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