4 ms·
There are 21 million bitcoins and they divide down to 8dp, so you need 16 decimal digits to represent them exactly. Coincidentally (?) double precision floating
by batterseapower 15y ago
There are 21 million bitcoins and they divide down to 8dp, so you need 16 decimal digits to represent them exactly. Coincidentally (?) double precision floating point is capable of precisely representing exactly 16 decimal digits.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_precision http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_precision
So using double is in fact perfectly OK in this case.
- TylerE 15y ago16 digits of precision != 16 digits of accuracy.
- tedunangst 15y agoDoubles are capable of accurately and precisely representing 16 digit decimal numbers.
- JeffL 15y agoNot 10^100 + 0.0000000000000001
- tedunangst 15y agoA 116 digit number is not a 16 digit number.