People seem to be asking for a convention that meets these criteria:
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It can be scaled downwards as far as needed
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It is based on divisions of 1000 like the SI system
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It uses the familiarity of 100 “subcoins” per “coin”.
Here’s how we can do it.
For now, we use Bitcoins as the “main” unit. For convenience and familiarity, we “usually” use two decimal places (e.g. 0.15 or 2.63) which gives us a resolution of one bitcent.
If bitcoins become significantly more valuable, we can start expressing prices in milli-bitcoins (nickname “mills”) and milli-bitcents (nickname “millicents”). So 0.02 bitcoins would be 20.00 mills, and 0.15 mills would be 15 millicents.
If bitcoins become even more valuable, we start expressing prices in micro-bitcoins (nickname “mikes”) and micro-bitcents (nickname “satoshis”). So 0.02 mills would be 20.00 mikes, and 0.15 mikes would be 15 satoshis.
This caters for everything down to the current base unit, but if ever a finer resolution is needed we just continue the pattern: nano-bitcoins, pico-bitcoins etc.
