Author: Gary Rowe 2012-01-31 14:53:57
Published on: 2012-01-31T14:53:57+00:00
In a discussion regarding the use of decimal vs satoshi notation, several issues were brought up in favor of using decimals. One issue is readability, as humans reading the URI would expect it to accurately reflect what is being displayed. For example, amount=1.234 is more human readable than amount=123400000. Additionally, existing software already uses the decimal notation, making it compatible with backwards compatibility concerns. While Bitcoin needs to move beyond the satoshi to 20 dps for some reason, this remains okay within the existing schema, but forces decimals into the satoshi scheme and discourages dual decimal/satoshi variants under the "single representation" approach. The idea of using satoshis instead of decimal bitcoin was proposed, but it was noted that there are pains associated with proper handling decimal numbers across all implementations, and it's not just about json-rpc. BIP 20 was also deemed problematic because it is incompatible with about every standard on the web, as all the HTML, URI, and everything else uses decimal numbers alone. There is no reason to break with tradition, and there is a consensus forming on most parts. However, the send private key is contentious, and there is a topic of adding a time to expire field for merchants, which is considered a very good idea.
Updated on: 2023-06-05T02:18:24.350949+00:00