How about 11 Quattuorvigintillion?

Wei oow wei?

Would 255 decimals be enough, you think?

Ten to the power of 256 minus 1

To be more accurate: 10^256-1 ~ 1,15792089e77 (77 zeros). Yes, cool, right, but what the he ck {Text got Roald Dhalled} is this Jibberish about? Well, it is about large numbers and why they matter in the realm of Cryptocurrencies. Actually most, if not all, of them are some kind of Integer value, inside of the computer memory. Where decimals are just another Integer number that is used to display it in a certain value. On the Hive platform it shows 3 decimals in the Wallet, but 6 in the internal HIVE / HBD market. And as far as I could find it is indeed a precision of 6 decimals that is being used. (Correct me if I'm wrong.). Let me call that 1 a millionth of a HIVE, or 1 Honeydrip. (Actually it is more complex than that, but that would mean getting into the realm of VESTS. And I don't want to go there.)

The one that started it all, Bitcoin [BTC], only had a INT64 available to store the total amount of COINS in. That means a positive Integer value of 2 to the power of (64-1) minus 1. That is some 9 quintillion positive and negative. As 1 bit of the 64 is being used to sign the Integer either a positive or negative. The likes of Bitcoin use 8 decimals, meaning it can display about 9 billion Coins. The smallest part is known as 1 Satoshi. And you need 1 billion of them to own 1 BTC. (You still here? As we're about to go even deeper down the Rabbit hole...)

Size matters

But Wei? Well, now we are getting to why Cryptocurrencies like Ethereum [ETH] should actually be way less valuable than Bitcoin, or Litecoin and even Slothcoin! And it is all in the numbers. Remember, the COINS are just large Integer numbers stored as a bunch of Bytes inside computer memory. Meaning that if there are 200 million ETH on the market then that is an enormous amount of WEI in memory. As an unsigned Integer value it reads as 200 septillion WEI. That is 200 with 24 zeros. Compared to the 72 million Litecoin [LTC] that is ginormous. As that is 'just' an Integer value of 7.2 quadrillion Satoshi. Meaning a 7 with 15 zeros.

How's your headache, by the way? Numbers crunching can cause that, I know. My mind is doing a lot of this Bull excrementing {Text got Roald Dhalled}. Anyway, the decimal thing is merely a visual help to display values that are not too complicated to name. In the case of Ethereum, and them lot, it is even possible to have 255 decimals! And I have to admit that there are days when I do only use about 2 decimals in my day to day life. But, my point being is that 1 Satoshi should be, at least, 1 billion (9 zeros) times more expensive than 1 Wei. And then also take into account how much of those are on the market. Now that would make Ethereum extremely overrated. It should be worth close to nothing compared even to Slothcoin! Fork {Text got Roald Dhalled} that, if all UTXO Cryptocurrencies (like Bitcoin, Litecoin and so on) were combined they still would be more valuable than ETH!

And our Honeydrip?

If HIVE does indeed use 'only' 6 decimals behind the scenes, than that would mean a Honeydrip is a 100 times more valuable than 1 Satoshi. To put it in another way: In the year 2023 a total of 435 million HIVE will be created. (Leaving the amount Burned for what it is right now.) If I divide that by a 100 than this leads to 4 million compared to the 19 million Bitcoin currently mined. Meaning that every HIVE could actually be worth a 100.000 Euro! Or BTC should be about € 4.400 and HIVE € 21.000 according to the decimal settings. Still, HIVE is heavily undervalued at about 40 Euro cents. Just like all UTXO Cryptocurrencies should technically be way more valuable than those Ethereum based ones.

And I'm not even considering all those Tokens running on an EVM [Ethereum Virtual Machine]. Some of them have 10 quadrillion on the market, with 18 (visual) decimals. That is a 10 with 33 zeros in Wei. Or 10 decillion Wei of worthlessness rubbish. So, I then ask myself the question: "Why are those Ethereum based blockchains , like the Binance Smart Chain [BSC] and Polygon [MATIC], even considered valuable?" Just any UTXO blockchain type of Coin, like Komodo [KMD] wins, hands down, every time. And HIVE? Even more potential, about a 100 times compared to the standard UTXO versions using 8 decimals. So just let that sweet HIVE Honey drip! And there's plenty of room for more Smart Tokens on the Hive Engine. As they should be more 1 billion times more valuable than any 18 decimal EVM based one.

Dream on?

The whole 'decimals' thing is just for the visual aspect so a human reader can actually grasp the amount on display. As a matter of fact the total integer amount in memory is what should be considered. Well, that is my conclusion. Does this mean anything at all? In day to day life it shows, so far, that it does not really matter when it comes to Cryptocurrencies. Even though these numbers might make sense to you, you'd probably won't believe that HIVE should be worth a 100.000 Euro, leaving Bitcoin way behind. So, those who buy into this realm of digital ones and zeros collections do use their feelings, what is getting hyped and they watch oracles predict the next big thing. Like I use a bucket, some truffles and three piglets to predict what I should invest in. (That made me a 100 Trillion so far. But unfortunately it is in PolyDoge Dollar...)

Still, I do think the decimal visual display 'trick' will catch up to reality and will reshape the Cryptocurrency market. Once some big players understand what really is being traded are large integer numbers there could be some huge surprises ahead. But it might just be that they are all about trading feelings, intuitions and oracles. Which kind of makes the whole Crypto show look like one big gamble. Does it not? Well, I'm going to have a look into Tokel [TKL], build on top of Komodo [KMD] technology, as it has NFT [Non Fungible Token] and Token creation build in. Including a Decentralized Exchange [DEX] to trade it on. And besides that I slowly keep building my Hive Power [HP] as HIVE could one day pass Bitcoin.

Yes, I know: Dream On. And so I shall. 😉

Have a great one!

Note: Only invest what you are willing and can effort to lose.

Image CC0 licensed.