The issue here is that most people are producing prices in BTC by just multiplying through the spot rate with full precision. Obviously if you converted dollar prices to Euro prices with the same technique, you'd also end up with lots of numbers after the decimal point, but in the real world nobody actually does this. They always "prettify" the price.

This practice often annoys people because they feel like they get short changed. The most notorious example is Apple which likes (liked?) to charge 99 cents per iTunes song in the USA, and 99 pennies per song in the UK, despite that the British pound is worth a lot more than the dollar. It should be more like 60 pence.

Nothing stops BitPay rounding the mBTC price to look more natural, but right now it's not common practice.


On Fri, Mar 14, 2014 at 4:02 PM, Andreas Schildbach <andreas@schildbach.de> wrote:
By that definition 3.56 is a price. Maybe I misunderstood you and you're
lobbying for mBTC?


On 03/14/2014 03:57 PM, Tamas Blummer wrote:
> you miss the point Andreas. It is not about the magnitude but about
> the form of a price.
>
> A number with no decimals or with two decimals is percieved as a
> price in some currency.
>
> A number with more than two decimals is just not percieved as a price
> but as a geeky something that you rather convert to local currency.
>
> Tamas Blummer
> Bits of Proof
>
> On 14.03.2014, at 15:49, Andreas Schildbach <andreas@schildbach.de
> <mailto:andreas@schildbach.de>> 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
>>> <mailto: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>
>>>>>> <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>
>>>>>> <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.



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