How divisible are bitcoins and other market/economic questions
2010 Feb 6
See all posts
How divisible are bitcoins and other market/economic questions @ Satoshi Nakamoto
- Author
-
Satoshi Nakamoto
- Email
-
satoshinakamotonetwork@proton.me
- Site
-
https://satoshinakamoto.network
BlueSky
How divisible are bitcoins and other market/economic questions
February 06, 2010, 09:36:45 AM
How divisible are bitcoins? Can I divide a bitcoin? as in could I
spend 0.5 or 0.01 of a bitcoin?
I ask this question as practically the production of new bitcoins is
finite & will become too expensive in terms of time & power in
the future and if the system becomes more popular there will be more
goods than BC's.
What about dwindling supply?
The current supply will eventually begin to dwindle as people lose their
wallet's(removing coins from the system) & governments attempt to
drain coins out (either by scamming or creating coins themselves and
simply hoarding them)of the system. This is inevitable (government
action against BC) as no government worldwide will allow the existence
of such an anonymous currency system out of their control or
supervision.
What about the need for banks?
Actually I don't think there would be a need for banks to get interest
on savings, simply holding onto BC's they will increase in value as more
users come into the system. So technically you'll get interest just for
keeping them under your bed.
How are BC's valued(this is more of a question for
NewLibertyStandard)?
As I see it(thusfar) the value of bitcoins(as in their exchange rate
or the goods they can buy) is not in how much energy/time it takes to
create them (this simply ensures a limited supply) but that they are
accepted for goods & services.
The more goods & services that can be bought with BC the less
coins it will require per good.
For example there are 2 Million BC in existence, and only one person
accepts BC, & is willing to sell a single t-shirt. Then the BC value
of that shirt is 2Million BC, if it we're 2 t-shirts then each shirt
would cost 1Million and so forth.
Of coarse this may never happen exactly like this, a person would
look at the electricity cost of making 2Million BC's(in lets say US)andthecostofbuyingthet − shirt(againinUS).
If it costs 100ofelectricitytomake2MillionBC′sthenofcoarsethecustomerwilljustuseUS
and pay $10 for the t-shirt.
NewLibertyStandard
February 06, 2010, 12:21:07 PM
Bitcoins are divisible by 100. So when you generate ฿50.00, you are
getting 5000 bitcoin cents.
The New
Liberty Standard Exchange Rate includes an explanation of how it is
calculated. BlueSky, how much are you willing to sell your bitcoins for
and how much are you willing to pay for someone else's bitcoins?
Bitcoins can be lost, but for the foreseeable future there will
continue to be more than enough bitcoins available to keep playing the
game.
Each person is their own bank. Although I suppose that if a friend of
mine wanted to buy some bitcoins and didn't have a computer or Internet,
I wouldn't mind keeping track of their balance.
BlueSky
February 06, 2010, 01:26:39 PM
That is pretty divisible(enough for the moment), which means that ฿
serves all the functions of money- "Money is a matter of functions four,
a medium, a measure, a standard, a store." That is, money functions as a
medium of exchange, a unit of account, a standard of deferred payment,
and a store of value."-wikipedia
I must thank Satoshi for his work (although the groundwork was done
during the 80's, algorythms etc. this is the first useful implementation
and it's effects are profound).
I live in PRChina, combining Freenet, Tor, I2P there is the framework
for free,anonymous discussion and transfer of information(something that
is prevented here, sometimes with serious penalties). Add to this
BitCoin and we now have an underground market free from the tyrany and
scrutinising eye of the state. This will allow an alternative, free
China to develope under the nose of the state machinery.
My understanding is that Bitcoin cannot be suppressed without
suppressing the internet as a whole, is this correct?
I would like to give Satoshi a donation, but sadly R&B(ReminBi,
literally "The Peoples Money") is not a world traded currency and
sending a payment in a foreign currency is expensive & complicated.
If I could give a gift, to a value of R&B500(about $70US)? Or if
wished open a currency exchange for ฿/R&B?
One thing I will do is have some computer science students translate
the application to Chinese, after Spring Festival.
NewLiberty-
The lazy way would be for me to peg my exchange rate to yours and let
you do the calculations. Otherwise I would need to know the total amount
of ฿ in circulation and the amount of goods that can be purchased with
it(this is a Austrian economist view of measuring the value I think?),
just what is the amount in circulation?
What do you mean "keep playing the game"?
Also, what do you sell more, ฿ or $US?
BitcoinFX
February 06, 2010, 03:12:15 PM
Quote from: BlueSky on February 06, 2010, 01:26:39 PM
...Otherwise I would need to know the total amount of ฿ in circulation
and the amount of goods that can be purchased with it(this is a Austrian
economist view of measuring the value I think?), just what is the amount
in circulation? ...
From the FAQ:
How are new Bitcoins created?
New coins are generated by a network node each time it finds the
solution to a certain calculational problem (i.e. creates a new block),
for which an average solution time can be calculated. The difficulty of
the problem is adjusted so that in the first 4 years of the Bitcoin
network, 10,500,000 coins will be created. The amount is halved each 4
years, so it will be 5,250,000 in years 4-8, 2,625,000 in years 8-12 and
so on. Thus the total number of coins will approach 21,000,000 over
time.
What's the current total amount of Bitcoins in existence?
The number of blocks times the coin value of a block. The coin value
is 50 bc per block for the first 210,000 blocks, 25 bc for the next
210,000 blocks, then 12.5 bc, 7.25 bc and so on.
As of October 30th 2009, there are about 26,000 blocks in the block
chain, which means 26,000 * 50 bc = 1,300,000 bitcoins in existence. You
can see the up-to-date number of blocks in the status bar of the Bitcoin
main window.
Current Block count as of 06th Feb. 2010 - 3.15 PM - GMT is 38,660
blocks. You can do the math 
Suggester
February 06, 2010, 06:25:15 PM
Quote from: BlueSky on February 06, 2010, 09:36:45 AM
What about dwindling supply? The current supply will eventually begin
to dwindle as people lose their wallet's(removing coins from the system)
& governments attempt to drain coins out (either by scamming or
creating coins themselves and simply hoarding them)of the system. This
is inevitable (government action against BC) as no government worldwide
will allow the existence of such an anonymous currency system out of
their control or supervision.
That's an excellent point. If this occurs, it might be a good idea to
remove or extend the 21M million limit in later versions and freeze the
difficulty of generating new coins (by not making it exceedingly
difficult to make new ones). Granted, BTC will not be an excellent
investment as it is now (because currently we expect its price to
multiply in the future), but then again if it turned out to be that
popular, the "investment" incentive will not be the main reason people
are rushing to use it.
BlueSky
February 06, 2010, 07:08:31 PM
Removing or extending the 21M limit would be a disaster, it's the
finite supply of this digital cash that makes it useful as money.
Allowing for the currency to be further divided would solve that
issue. No one loses the value of any of their currency held(devaluation
or debasing), while at the same time being able to break off smaller
pieces of a ฿ to trade.
Besides, the whole point is that there is no (central)control over
the supply, this would allow it to be extinguished by governments or
abused by a central authority (like today's central banks &
governments)
I am wondering Satoshi, what would be the technical difficulty of
implementing ฿ as 0.000(or more zeroes) instead of 0.00?
This is not a request since there is no need for it yet, but may wish
to acommadate a larger user base in the future.
Satoshi Nakamoto
February 06, 2010, 11:25:53 PM
Eventually at most only 21 million coins for 6.8 billion people in
the world if it really gets huge.
But don't worry, there are another 6 decimal places that aren't
shown, for a total of 8 decimal places internally. It shows 1.00 but
internally it's 1.00000000. If there's massive deflation in the future,
the software could show more decimal places.
If it gets tiresome working with small numbers, we could change where
the display shows the decimal point. Same amount of money, just
different convention for where the ","'s and "."'s go. e.g. moving the
decimal place 3 places would mean if you had 1.00000 before, now it
shows it as 1,000.00.
BlueSky
February 07, 2010, 08:20:48 AM
Future proof.
All my concerns answered. What files in the source version control are
the labels for the interface(So that I can translate)?
Please point me to any page you would like to have translated to
Chinese for the project.
Perhaps having a Chinese howto and explanation would be
usefull(manual/helpfile?)
Also what would you like for a gift?
How divisible are bitcoins and other market/economic questions
2010 Feb 6 See all postsSatoshi Nakamoto
satoshinakamotonetwork@proton.me
https://satoshinakamoto.network
How divisible are bitcoins? Can I divide a bitcoin? as in could I spend 0.5 or 0.01 of a bitcoin?
I ask this question as practically the production of new bitcoins is finite & will become too expensive in terms of time & power in the future and if the system becomes more popular there will be more goods than BC's.
What about dwindling supply?
The current supply will eventually begin to dwindle as people lose their wallet's(removing coins from the system) & governments attempt to drain coins out (either by scamming or creating coins themselves and simply hoarding them)of the system. This is inevitable (government action against BC) as no government worldwide will allow the existence of such an anonymous currency system out of their control or supervision.
What about the need for banks?
Actually I don't think there would be a need for banks to get interest on savings, simply holding onto BC's they will increase in value as more users come into the system. So technically you'll get interest just for keeping them under your bed.
How are BC's valued(this is more of a question for NewLibertyStandard)?
As I see it(thusfar) the value of bitcoins(as in their exchange rate or the goods they can buy) is not in how much energy/time it takes to create them (this simply ensures a limited supply) but that they are accepted for goods & services.
The more goods & services that can be bought with BC the less coins it will require per good.
For example there are 2 Million BC in existence, and only one person accepts BC, & is willing to sell a single t-shirt. Then the BC value of that shirt is 2Million BC, if it we're 2 t-shirts then each shirt would cost 1Million and so forth.
Of coarse this may never happen exactly like this, a person would look at the electricity cost of making 2Million BC's(in lets say US)andthecostofbuyingthet − shirt(againinUS). If it costs 100ofelectricitytomake2MillionBC′sthenofcoarsethecustomerwilljustuseUS and pay $10 for the t-shirt.
Bitcoins are divisible by 100. So when you generate ฿50.00, you are getting 5000 bitcoin cents.
The New Liberty Standard Exchange Rate includes an explanation of how it is calculated. BlueSky, how much are you willing to sell your bitcoins for and how much are you willing to pay for someone else's bitcoins?
Bitcoins can be lost, but for the foreseeable future there will continue to be more than enough bitcoins available to keep playing the game.
Each person is their own bank. Although I suppose that if a friend of mine wanted to buy some bitcoins and didn't have a computer or Internet, I wouldn't mind keeping track of their balance.
That is pretty divisible(enough for the moment), which means that ฿ serves all the functions of money- "Money is a matter of functions four, a medium, a measure, a standard, a store." That is, money functions as a medium of exchange, a unit of account, a standard of deferred payment, and a store of value."-wikipedia
I must thank Satoshi for his work (although the groundwork was done during the 80's, algorythms etc. this is the first useful implementation and it's effects are profound).
I live in PRChina, combining Freenet, Tor, I2P there is the framework for free,anonymous discussion and transfer of information(something that is prevented here, sometimes with serious penalties). Add to this BitCoin and we now have an underground market free from the tyrany and scrutinising eye of the state. This will allow an alternative, free China to develope under the nose of the state machinery.
My understanding is that Bitcoin cannot be suppressed without suppressing the internet as a whole, is this correct?
I would like to give Satoshi a donation, but sadly R&B(ReminBi, literally "The Peoples Money") is not a world traded currency and sending a payment in a foreign currency is expensive & complicated. If I could give a gift, to a value of R&B500(about $70US)? Or if wished open a currency exchange for ฿/R&B?
One thing I will do is have some computer science students translate the application to Chinese, after Spring Festival.
NewLiberty-
The lazy way would be for me to peg my exchange rate to yours and let you do the calculations. Otherwise I would need to know the total amount of ฿ in circulation and the amount of goods that can be purchased with it(this is a Austrian economist view of measuring the value I think?), just what is the amount in circulation?
What do you mean "keep playing the game"?
Also, what do you sell more, ฿ or $US?
From the FAQ:
How are new Bitcoins created?
New coins are generated by a network node each time it finds the solution to a certain calculational problem (i.e. creates a new block), for which an average solution time can be calculated. The difficulty of the problem is adjusted so that in the first 4 years of the Bitcoin network, 10,500,000 coins will be created. The amount is halved each 4 years, so it will be 5,250,000 in years 4-8, 2,625,000 in years 8-12 and so on. Thus the total number of coins will approach 21,000,000 over time.
What's the current total amount of Bitcoins in existence?
The number of blocks times the coin value of a block. The coin value is 50 bc per block for the first 210,000 blocks, 25 bc for the next 210,000 blocks, then 12.5 bc, 7.25 bc and so on.
As of October 30th 2009, there are about 26,000 blocks in the block chain, which means 26,000 * 50 bc = 1,300,000 bitcoins in existence. You can see the up-to-date number of blocks in the status bar of the Bitcoin main window.
Current Block count as of 06th Feb. 2010 - 3.15 PM - GMT is 38,660 blocks. You can do the math
That's an excellent point. If this occurs, it might be a good idea to remove or extend the 21M million limit in later versions and freeze the difficulty of generating new coins (by not making it exceedingly difficult to make new ones). Granted, BTC will not be an excellent investment as it is now (because currently we expect its price to multiply in the future), but then again if it turned out to be that popular, the "investment" incentive will not be the main reason people are rushing to use it.
Removing or extending the 21M limit would be a disaster, it's the finite supply of this digital cash that makes it useful as money.
Allowing for the currency to be further divided would solve that issue. No one loses the value of any of their currency held(devaluation or debasing), while at the same time being able to break off smaller pieces of a ฿ to trade.
Besides, the whole point is that there is no (central)control over the supply, this would allow it to be extinguished by governments or abused by a central authority (like today's central banks & governments)
I am wondering Satoshi, what would be the technical difficulty of implementing ฿ as 0.000(or more zeroes) instead of 0.00?
This is not a request since there is no need for it yet, but may wish to acommadate a larger user base in the future.
Eventually at most only 21 million coins for 6.8 billion people in the world if it really gets huge.
But don't worry, there are another 6 decimal places that aren't shown, for a total of 8 decimal places internally. It shows 1.00 but internally it's 1.00000000. If there's massive deflation in the future, the software could show more decimal places.
If it gets tiresome working with small numbers, we could change where the display shows the decimal point. Same amount of money, just different convention for where the ","'s and "."'s go. e.g. moving the decimal place 3 places would mean if you had 1.00000 before, now it shows it as 1,000.00.
Future proof.
All my concerns answered. What files in the source version control are the labels for the interface(So that I can translate)?
Please point me to any page you would like to have translated to Chinese for the project.
Perhaps having a Chinese howto and explanation would be usefull(manual/helpfile?)
Also what would you like for a gift?