Re: [Bitcoin-development] "bits": Unit of account

[Tamas Blummer <tamas@bitsofproof.com>]

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bit has a lot of meanings to geeks, so what.

bit means for average people:
- something very small, that 100 satoshi is. 
- part of the name Bitcoin
- easy to get conversion 1 coin = 1 million bits = 1 Bitcoin

Regards,

Tamas Blummer
Founder, CEO
http://bitsofproof.com

On 03.05.2014, at 18:02, slush <slush@centrum.cz> wrote:

> Excellent points Christophe!
> 
> Although moving to 1e-6 units is fine for me and I see advantages of doing this, I don't get that people on this mailing list are fine with calling such unit "bit". It's geeky as hell, ambiguous and confusing. 
> 
> slush
> 
> 
> On Sat, May 3, 2014 at 5:48 PM, Christophe Biocca <christophe.biocca@gmail.com> wrote:
> Context as a disambiguator works fine when the interlocutors
> understand the topics they're talking about.
> Not a day goes by without me seeing "neurotypical people" get horribly
> confused between RAM and Hard Drive sizes, because they share the same
> units (not that that can be helped, as the units are supposed to be
> the same, base 1000 vs 1024 notwithstanding).
> 
> Bit (as a unit) is already really confusing for anyone who doesn't
> deal with it on a regular basis. I think people who don't see an issue
> are making an assumption based on their own lack of confusion. We
> understand computer science AND Bitcoin. Most people have zero
> understanding of either.
> 
> Bitcoin already has a ton of issues with terrible names for things:
> 
> - Mining (for transaction validation).
> - Addresses (which are meant to be one-time use, and don't even really
> exist at the network level).
> - Wallets (which don't hold your bitcoins, can be copied, and all
> backups can be stolen from equally).
> 
> I end up having to make the distinctions obvious every time I explain
> Bitcoin to someone new to it. There's an acceptable tradeoff here,
> because there were arguably no better words to assign to these
> concepts (although I'd argue mining is a really awful metaphor, and is
> the one that prompts the most questions from people). Then add to the
> pile a bunch of third parties naming themselves after parts of the
> protocol (Coinbase,Blockchain.info). Not blaming them for it, but I've
> definitiely seen average people get confused between "the blockchain"
> and "blockchain.info" (not so much Coinbase, because that name doesn't
> come up in beginner explanations).
> 
> It seems downright masochistic to add
> yet-another-word-that-doesn't-mean-what-you-think-it-means to the pile
> for no reason other than aesthetics. Are we actively trying to confuse
> people?
> 
> On Sat, May 3, 2014 at 1:41 AM, Aaron Voisine <voisine@gmail.com> wrote:
> > I have to agree with Mike. Human language is surprisingly tolerant of
> > overloading and inference from context. Neurotypical people have no
> > problem with it and perceive a software engineer's aversion to it as
> > being pedantic and strange. Note that "bits" was a term for a unit of
> > money long before the invention of digital computers.
> >
> > Aaron
> >
> > There's no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole
> > government working for you -- Will Rodgers
> >
> >
> > On Fri, May 2, 2014 at 7:06 PM, Gordon Mohr <gojomo@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> [resend - apologies if duplicate]
> >>
> >> Microbitcoin is a good-sized unit, workable for everyday transaction
> >> values, with room-to-grow, and a nice relationship to satoshis as 'cents'.
> >>
> >> But "bits" has problems as a unit name.
> >>
> >> "Bits" will be especially problematic whenever people try to graduate
> >> from informal use to understanding the system internals - that is, when
> >> the real "bits" of key sizes, hash sizes, and storage/bandwidth needs
> >> become important. The "bit" as "binary digit" was important enough that
> >> Satoshi named the system after it; that homage gets lost if the word is
> >> muddied with a new retconned meaning that's quite different.
> >>
> >> Some examples of possible problems:
> >>
> >> * If "bit" equals "100 satoshis", then the natural-language unpacking of
> >> "bit-coin" is "100 satoshi coin", which runs against all prior usage.
> >>
> >> * If people are informed that a "256-bit private key" is what ultimately
> >> controls their balances, it could prompt confusion like, "if each key
> >> has 256-bits, will I need 40 keys to hold 10,000.00 bits?"
> >>
> >> * When people learn that there are 8 bits to a byte, they may think,
> >> "OK, my wallet holding my 80,000.00 bits will then take up 10 kilobytes".
> >>
> >> * When people naturally extend "bit" into "kilobits" to mean "1000
> >> bits", then the new coinage "kilobits" will mean the exact same amount
> >> (100,000 satoshi) as many have already been calling "millibits".
> >>
> >> I believe it'd be best to pick a new made-up single-syllable word as a
> >> synonym for "microbitcoin", and I've laid out the case for "zib" as that
> >> word at <http://zibcoin.org>.
> >>
> >> 'Zib' also lends itself to an expressive unicode symbol, 'Ƶ'
> >> (Z-with-stroke), that remains distinctive even if it loses its stroke or
> >> gets case-reversed. (Comparatively, all 'b'-derived symbols for
> >> data-bits, bitcoins, or '100 satoshi bits' risk collision in contexts
> >> where subtleties of casing/stroking are lost.)
> >>
> >> (There's summary of more problems with "bit" in the zibcoin.org FAQ  at:
> >> <http://zibcoin.org/faq#why-not-bits-to-mean-microbitcoins>.)
> >>
> >> - Gordon
> >>
> >> On 5/1/14, 3:35 PM, Aaron Voisine wrote:
> >>> I'm also a big fan of standardizing on microBTC as the standard unit.
> >>> I didn't like the name "bits" at first, but the more I think about it,
> >>> the more I like it. The main thing going for it is the fact that it's
> >>> part of the name bitcoin. If Bitcoin is the protocol and network, bits
> >>> are an obvious choice for the currency unit.
> >>>
> >>> I would like to propose using Unicode character U+0180, lowercase b
> >>> with stroke, as the symbol to represent the microBTC denomination,
> >>> whether we call bits or something else:
> >>>   http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/0180/index.htm
> >>>
> >>> Another candidate is Unicode character U+2422, the blank symbol, but I
> >>> prefer stroke b.
> >>> http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/2422/index.htm
> >>>
> >>> Aaron
> >>>
> >>> There's no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole
> >>> government working for you -- Will Rodgers
> >>>
> >>>> On Apr 21, 2014 5:41 AM, "Pieter Wuille" <pieter.wuille@gm...> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>> On Apr 21, 2014 3:37 AM, "Un Ix" <slashdevnull@...> wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Something tells me this would be reduced to a single syllable in common
> >>>>> usage I.e. bit.
> >>>>
> >>>> What units will be called colloquially is not something developers will
> >>>> determine. It will vary, depend on language and culture, and is not
> >>>> relevant to this discussion in my opinion.
> >>>>
> >>>> It may well be that people in some geographic or language area will end up
> >>>> (or for a while) calling 1e-06 BTC "bits". That's fine, but using that as
> >>>> "official" name in software would be very strange and potentially confusing
> >>>> in my opinion. As mentioned by others, that would seem to me like calling
> >>>> dollars "bucks" in bank software. Nobody seems to have a problem with
> >>>> having colloquial names, but "US dollar" or "euro" are far less ambiguous
> >>>> than "bit". I think we need a more distinctive name.
> >>>>
> >>>> --
> >>>> Pieter
> >>>
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