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Sep 28,2022

How To Denominate In Bitcoin Terms – Bitcoin Magazine

This is a statement from Stephan Livera, host of the "Stephan Livera Podcast" and CEO of Swan Bitcoin International.

Many fiat currencies struggle to maintain their purchasing power in US dollars. The macro conversation in finance on Twitter is now focused on how the overall system is broken and how Ponzi cannot be narrowed down.

Now is a good time to take advantage of Bitcoin: It is not a fiat currency that can be printed on demand. It's time to make face value in bitcoins.

What’s Going On In The World Of Fiat Currency Markets?

As you may know, many fiat currencies are collapsing against the USD.

This also does not necessarily mean that the USD will "rise", but also a decrease in purchasing power, just more slowly.

Year-to-date (YTD) major currencies against USD:

GBP is down from $1.34 to $1.057 — a drop of 21%

JPY is down from 0.0087 to 0.0069 — a drop of 20%

EUR is down from $1.13 to $0.97 — a drop of 15%
The Bank of England is now starting a new wave of bond purchases, in other words, the decline continues. The money printer will continue to destroy the savings of sterling holders and depositors over time.

They are sacrificed on the altar of "financial stability". Since fiat currencies depreciate so fast, it's not such a bad idea that we value things directly in sat or BTC.

While nocoiners hate Bitcoin for not being an all-time high, the reality is that long-term users of Bitcoin have seen dramatic gains in both purchasing power and freedom.

The loss of confidence in fiat currencies fundamentally changes thinking. While our pre-coinist friends were afraid of bitcoin because of its volatility, the difference between the volatility of bitcoin and fiat currencies is narrowing, so it makes sense to start using bitcoin values.

What Does It Mean To Denominate In Bitcoin Terms?

This means evaluating financial costs and benefits in Bitcoin or satoshi terms. This includes a financial valuation of our net worth with the bitcoin/sat ratio. This is really important for the Bitcoin Maximalists in the long run. If you believe that everything will be judged one day, why not start now?

I've been personally defining my net worth in bitcoins for a while now, but I'm struggling with the next part: daily spending. For me, it's mostly due to mental calculation. So my next step is to focus more on estimating the bitcoin cost of income and expenditure of everyday products. If we are serious about bitcoin as a better currency, we should show it.

Practical Tips On Bitcoin Denomination

Start by keeping your finger on the pulse of what the "cents on the dollar" are going for. You can do this using Coinkte's BLOCKCLOCK (aka Moscow time) or maybe a site like Bitbo.io that has it listed. You can also use conversion tools like bitcoin.io or preev.com. Pricedinbitcoin21.com is also a useful site that shows all kinds of prices in bitcoins. Source: pricedinbitcoin21.com Aug 28, 2022 In earlier arithmetic, one tip is to start with cents per dollar. For example, if 1 BTC = $19,067, there are about 5,200 sats per dollar, so $10 is about 52,000 sats, $100 is about 520,000 sats, and $1,000 is about 5.2 million sats.

Another obstacle is simply the constant reset of prices when real world products/services are actually quoted in bitcoins. But be that as it may, this is our proverbial cross-bear, and such behavior benefits the user in the long run.

Of course, there may come a point where the bitcoin price someone got a few years/cycles ago is no longer appropriate, but it just requires readjustment. And frankly, all fiat traders have to do this anyway.

This Isn’t New, We’re Just Bringing It Back

In the early days of Bitcoin, it was more common to talk about the BTC values of things. Perhaps it has become more difficult due to the price increase and dealing with the small fractions of bitcoin in your head.

Remember though that previous services and games from SealsWithClubs to MPOE and SatoshiDice were bitmononomized! Some of the early exchanges on the Bitcoin Talk forums were denominated in bitcoins. So really, it's just a repeat of what Bitcoiners did.

Of course there are some in the Bitcoin space who are already Bitcoin specific even in terms of the service/product they sell. In particular, CoinJoin's services are bitcoin-denominated (for example, see Whirlpool's payment calculator here), and many people in the space operate without fiat bank accounts, so they are clearly better off being bitcoin-denominated.

We should also note that the Lightning Network also helps here. Various flash services, tips and wallets are acceptable for seating.

On The Question Of Amounts: Bitcoin Or Sats?

A long topic in Bitcoiner circles is the unit bias point, which is believed to be behind the pumping of some shitcoins. An incoming nocoiner sees a very low unit price and buys a shitcoin thinking,

"Hey, it's low, so there's more upside." So it stands to reason that if we all just talked about sat (and not BTC terms) then Bitcoin could also take advantage of this effect.

But it doesn't come for free, it comes with goods. It may be that there are high net worth investors (HNWI) who are getting into bitcoin and because they want to buy the "whole coin" they are buying more than they would otherwise.

We could even argue that the buying volume of HNWI is higher, so the influence of HNWI is higher. And now, most people know the oft-quoted statistic that "even if every millionaire on earth wanted all of bitcoin, they couldn't own it."

But perhaps this question of impartiality is neither here nor there. As long as our apps and services have an easy choice or switch between BTC terms and sat terms, it probably won't matter much. In practice I think people just casually refer to the lower value and in BTC terms the higher values.

You Can’t Fully Escape Doing Fiat Conversions

I understand that one criticism here might be that much of our daily spending is still fiat-denominated, and we can't fully avoid that (yet). Nocoiners can also criticize us for still pricing bitcoins in USD, but the process has to start somewhere.

Starting somewhere means we should first try to think in bitcoin or sat terms. So if we talk about the price of things, first read the price of bitcoins. Or perhaps more provocatively, just read the price of bitcoin and let someone else do the math. Let's disrupt the network effect of fiat currency, let's not let fiat currencies rule our lives.

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