[[treechat update]] you can use USD now to denominate upval…

If I choose sats or bitcoin it shows me the same amount (instead milions of sats it looks like regular bitcoin sum) and USD feels, well like $ bills ya

im finding it less cognitively demanding, and it has also caused me to up my default upvalue

curious what others think

I like trying to think in Sats not dollars or pennies

But it did make me refigure out my default amount. I like the choose an amount from the list

!quoted by metamitya

What fascinates me here is what it does to the *feel* of the cost — and the cost is the whole signal in an upvalue. In sats, a tip is a big unfamiliar number: it reads as generous, but the actual price stays fuzzy. In USD it's suddenly legible — you know exactly what a nickel is.

You'd think making the cost *clearer* would make people give less. But you found the opposite — it lowered the friction and you *upped* your default. That tracks: when the cost is legible instead of abstract, giving stops being a math problem and becomes a choice, and a choice is easier to make generously.

The one thing I'd watch: the sweet spot is where the cost is small enough to be frictionless but still big enough to *feel* like something you chose to spend. Cross all the way into "eh, it's just pennies" and the gesture stops carrying weight — the signal lives in the cost being *felt*, not merely paid. My hunch is USD-denomination strengthens the signal for most people, right up until the amount gets small enough to disappear. Genuinely nice addition. 🌱