I guess the guys with 10 BTC want to see 1000 BTC on their accounts.

Now thats a good answer, and the only real reason I see for it..  or that remotely makes any sense

So its more about gain then ?  about  moving a decimal for existing coins on hand..  well that sounds greedy..

Hmmm

The point is simply this: as the value of btc climbs, there is a psychological (not rational) barrier to buying at "high prices." It's purely an irrational thing, but my guess is that we all suffer from it a bit. Something called a bitcoin that costs $50 sounds expensive. Something called a bitcoin that costs $5 sounds less so. I suppose there is also a somewhat rational argument that "common goods and services" priced around $1-$10 USD should be purchasable with single units of bitcoins, as opposed to fractions which are awkward for people.

So those people who advocate for this decimal shift are simply trying to minimize the psychological barrier to entry and the validity of that can be argued back and forth. I think it will be reasonable to move the decimal at some stage, but now is not the time. Stability and confidence are important now - no need to move decimals around when most people still think such a thing is inflation (it's not).

From a consumer psychology perspective the push to move the decimal confuses me.

People would much rather pay 0.017 for something than 1.70 even if the underlying value is the same.

Retailers go to great lengths to make prices appear small for a reason.

I quite agree Sukrim.

Personally, I think that no movement of the decimal makes Bitcoin look too expensive and a movement too far back makes it look ridiculous. This is very much psychology/perception that we are dealing with - and that is extremely important.

I believe, at this juncture, 3 decimal places makes the most sense. It suggests a very psychologically affordable buy-in for the average person. And it also reduces the angst for those who may feel threatened by a currency that has become "too powerful".

Bitcoin needs this time to breath and grow stronger. A three decimal place shift will facilitate more popular interest while (hopefully) dropping back down to a 'DEFCON 4 or 5' on the gubberments radar.


 

Of course! That's why aliens keep attacking the US and UFO's only crash in America.

Lol, I so want to make that my sig.. No probe for U!

On topic, why not this,
1 BitCoin = BTC = 1

1 Bitcent = BTc = .01  (to .99)

1 microBitCoin = mBTC = .0001 (to .0099)

1 microBitcent = mBTc = .000001 (to .000099)


Milli sounds so smalllll

i have currently 26.05 BTC in 10 years i hope my btc balance looks like
26.049998761

  lol, truely I know what a 1/1000th is.  But spanx you very much for making me think I went retarded for longer than I usually do whenever I attempt to think.  
I went and edited my post only to remember there is a reason that I did it the way that I did.  I probably should have explained how I had come to those numbers but truely didn't think anyone would care to read it at the time.  My intention and the way I'd assume most people are used to spending their money is to where each divisible denomination has 100 of its lesser counterpart to make up a whole one. So we have 100 bitcents in a bitcoin, 100 microbitcoins in a bitcent and 100 microbitcents in a microbitcoin.  

  I know it seems corny now but when bitcoin does work and will have a much higher dollar value per bitcoin goods and services will be bought and sold for much smaller amounts of bitcoins. At which time it will be a much prettier format for a merchant to say they are selling some fuzzy, pink socks for 12mBTC instead of .0012 BTC.  At which time it is also safe to assume average Joe will not have to go to his client to type in or copy/paste some weird address and then type in .0012 either, since I know thats your next thought. He will likely have the payment address and amount from his shopping cart sent directly to his client for him to confirm. There the client will parse the decimals as well on the gui side to display 12mBTC or 12mBTC(.0012) for ease of Joe's processing it as accurate.  The exact formating of which could be played with I'm sure but I'll leave that to the marketing guys. While .0012 might not be too hard to comprehend and type into a client for every Joe I'd bet that as you had more 0's in between the decimal and the number it grows increasingly likely that some Joes would screw it up. Whereas Joe can definetly understand that 100 bitcents would make 1 whole bitcoin, etc etc.

Cheers

Moving the decimal is just the same as a "stock split" in the stock market. Of course all people would own the same value but it would be represented differently. The idea being that psychologically it allows more agreeable pricing.

If you went back to early Microsoft days and counted the number of splits you would see that original shares would now be trading for huge sums, even far higher than Berkshire Hathaway does today. In the case of BitCoins the effect would be almost entirely irrational since there isn't the same 100 share block size that on the stock market limits small investor entry significantly.

(btw according to my quick check if no splits MSFT would be trading at $7747/share instead of $26.9 today - now say that wouldn't be a mental barrier to buying shares...)

When BitCoins end up trading at $1500 each I think people may prefer to trade in more round amounts than 0.00002143 BTC. for daily small trades. Moving the decimal reduces the friction to reaching such a trading price.