Moving to 2 decimal places is both logical and necessary

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When it comes to ‘developments’, we so often talk about the code, or the eco-system, that we don’t see the very simple things right before our eyes, which could have significant impact.

Admittedly, when I first heard rumours of various people in the BCH community discussing the shift of standard from 1 BCH to 1000000.00 Bit, I was a little apprehensive.

We often get a little too comfortable with what we are used to, and the success of Bitcoin, has in general galvanised and conditioned us perceive “0.5412 BCH” as a completely ‘normal’ number. And within the Bitcoin community, it has certainly ‘become’ the ‘norm’. But step outside of our community and the number is confusing, strangely foreign, and unappealing.

Like Pavlov’s dog, many of us in the community who are apprehensive to change the standard suffer from a conditioned response. We see 0.5412 BCH and we salivate… because we know how many nice meals that can buy us from the uptown restaurant.

In business, adaptation and change are essential for survival. This isn’t to say BCH will die unless we change things – no. But the community’s attitude should never remain stagnant.

There’s an old parable describing a frog being boiled alive. The premise is that a frog will not notice the gradually heating conditions in its environment and will boil to death. In the corporate sector, many businesses fall to the same fate under similar conditions.

When Bitcoin first launched, it cost 10,000 Bitcoins to purchase the first pizza. Today that number would look inverted, as the zeros would be on the other end of the decimal point.

Humans like numbers to be whole, and if they’re not whole, most can appropriately deal with 2 decimal places.

Dr Craig Wright makes the observation by tweeting: “Bits is good. 100 Sats. A level people understand when comparing dollars and cents”.

Now that Bitcoin’s price has exploded, bringing the decimal place to ‘Bits’ (allowing 2 decimal places), is not only practical, but also necessary for further adoption.

In 2010 two pizzas cost 10,000 Bitcoins. That counting that in Sats would be ludicrous, as that number would be 10,000,000,000,000 Sats.

But two large pizzas today would cost 0.006554 BCH… or… 6554 Bits. One of these looks better than the other…

This sort of discussion isn’t new… Wallets such as Jonald Fyookball’s Electron Cash and Electrum already default to displaying Bitcoin values in mBCH/mBTC. This notation shifts the decimal place 2 steps down. However, mBCH is also a temporary measure. At some point, the community needs to adopt a new standard that is forward thinking.

The movement to a two decimal place standard is really just a matter of time. It’s something that was always bound to happen, and the sooner we do it, the better.

Not only does it do a power of good in the fight for global adoption, but it also pushes a psychological envelope further.

If the BCH price is assessed in Bits, then the price of a $10,000 coin becomes $0.01 per Bits. As in the case with Ripple, there is a tendency for some people to view small numbers as being “cheap”. It also accurately portrays the potential. After all, the idea is that at some point, $1 will equal 1 Bit… and that is actually a  1 million dollar Bitcoin.

Eli Afram
@justicemate