Bitcoin Forum

Bitcoin needs an officially recognized currency code to get traction as a valid investment available within mainstream finance. Major benefits would result, which include an even stronger fx rate and a much harder target for central banks to try to kill off.

BTC is fine for an unofficial code, and it may become official if Bhutan registers it on Bitcoin's behalf. This will not be easy, but is do-able in theory. Further investigation shows their minor currency unit is the Chhertum, which means they are very unlikely to give up BTC.

Because Bitcoin is a world currency ideally it should have an X-code to reflect this.
Consider existing ones: XAG (Silver), XAU (Gold), XPD (Palladium) XPT (Platinum). If Bitcoin is "virtual gold" then it needs a code like the other precious metals.

Mainstream financial systems expect to settle with a valid ISO code, and would want to use it in the API with Mt Gox and other exchanges. BTC can run alongside an x-code, because two codes could be treated as valid for Bitcoin, although only the X-code would facilitate inter-system settlement. Ripple are further down the mainstream road in this respect as they have XRP defined which could be forced upon the standards authorities through pressure of widespread usage.

The poll above supports up to three votes per person, so a better ranked list can result, which is ideal as an official letter (from the Bitcoin Foundation perhaps) could offer several alternative codes to the standards authorities.

Background reading:

http://www.xe.com/iso4217.php

Campaign for XBT. A new ISO Currency Code is required for Bitcoin
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=148229.0

X-ISO4217-A3 (revised draft) Published
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=127604.0

You have our support for BTC (if we can find someone to talk to in Bhutan) or XBT/XTC. Other names are not much representative of Bitcoin.

Wow. Thanks for the fast feedback on this!
I do think this is very important as it is a pawn takes queen quality move in the chess game with central banks...

There are several advantages to XBT:

1. Clearly indicates Bitcoin's non-governmental and decentralized nature.
2. Backwards-compatible with the current symbol. Applications can simply look for BT to detect the Bitcoin currency code during the transaction period.

To use on the forums, you can add an invisible X before the currency symbol:

This may be a silly question, but is BIT not possible?

Not sure, I'm thinking "is worldwide, isn't a metal". And any counter-arguments about sharing price dynamics with metals don't quite work for me: all the known Bitcoins in the universe will be produced here on earth. Not so precious metals. This planet likely only has a minute fraction of the universes reserves of metals. I'm fairly sure the Russian Central Bank would have people out to that meteorite crash recently pretty damn quick, as any significant tonnage of gold or silver would quickly disappear one way or another.

BTC upvote, Bhutan don't own sequences of letters, plus, bitcoin might become a little more significant than the Bhutanese currency. Basically already is, in reality.

Country code "BI" identifies the African state of Burundi, which means BIA through BIZ currency codes are reserved for them. It represents the same problem as Bhutan.

X-codes are for any worldwide currency, not just precious metals, although in practice PMs are the main type of these.

ISO 3166-1 defines "BC" prefix as free, if ISO 3166/MA was to assign "BC" to the Bitcoin Community, it could open other possibilites too (BCX?). It is however unheard that an ISO entity assigns a prefix to a community.

I'm a fan of BTC for obvious reasons, but alternatively XBC/XBT would be best.

Indeed. Even the EU country code which makes EUR a valid currency code was reluctantly assigned as an "exceptional code" and the EU represents over 500 million people!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166-1_alpha-2#Current_codes

The path of least resistance is with an unused X-code...

If BTC is an issue, XBT has my vote, or XBC is just as good.

X-codes are reserved for not only metals. XDR (Special Drawing Rights) is one example. Bitcoin should not have a local code because Bitcoin is decentralized and not local to a country. Assigning a Bhutan code is counterproductive to that goal.

XTC sounds bad for obvious reasons. BTC is most familiar to us but it hardly matters for mainstream adoption. XBT sounds best. Or BIT if we can buy that one away.

XBT is my favourite. I would pronounce as "EcksBit" which is easier to say and identify with "bitcoin" than XBC "EcksBeeSee".

It's true that XBT echoes nice but XBC is far more according. My vote goes for XBC.

http://cdn.memegenerator.net/instances/400x/35757310.jpg
But maybe that's just me.

You da man!

Looks like XBT is winning, I will start using XBT from now on.

What is the ECB? Is it European Central Bank?

If so, is XBC an obsolete old code from back before Europe got assigned the EU country-code?

If XBC is actually a European Bond, how is that a world currency? Isn't a US Bond, a Bhutan bond, etc etc equally much a world wide currency? How come all countries don't get an X code for their bonds?

Is maybe XBC being wrongly squatted by the EU?

-MarkM-

yes.


I agree it is possible that XBC is "squatted" today, however bonds often have very long maturity dates and Bitcoin just can't wait years for existing issuance in these to hit expiry. A new X-code is the answer, with BTC retained for informal use.

3 Letter ISO codes are a bit 20th century.  That said, it's better to have one than NOT have one, but I'm not sure it's worth paying too much for ...

The 21st century way to do things is to give the currency a URL.  At the W3C Payments group we are going to add all the 3 letter ISOs to https://w3id.org/ and we'd probably be happy to add BTC (or other 3 letter code) to that list if you wanted a permanent ID there.

The principle here is that the web plays a role in removing gatekeepers, squatters and high barriers to entry like the ISO system...

I vote to keep BTC and use XBT for millibitcoin so that 1000 XBT = 1 BTC. The ISO currency code will be XBT and the mainstream financial markets can use XBT. Early adopters and other Bitcoin users can of course continue to use BTC, if they so wish. There are many examples where an ISO currency code has been changed due to inflation so in reality this is not that new. The only difference is that in this case it is changed among other things due to deflation.

^^ That's a pretty smart move...

1 XBT ~= 5 US cents

I think going for BTC is a stupid move which will only delay in getting an ISO Currency Code. I can imagine people voting for BTC since we are so used to it, but this shouldn't be taken seriously.

So now what, is the Bitcoin Foundation going to lobby for XBT? Seems like an excellent job for them.

Edit: It would be smart to assign XBT to 100 satoshi, so we have the split discussion out the way for good and retain the name for the change using magnitudes people are used to e.g. 1 $ = 100 cents.

We would have ca. 1 USD = 20,000 XBT or 1,000 XBT = 5 USD cents

Or using the FX codes standards:

USDXBT = 20,000
1000 XBTUSD = 0.05


Using USDXBT as standard reference would express USD weakening as XBT gets stronger, that would be a better message than XBT getting ever more expensive.

Yes, indeed, I will ask them. A letter from the Bitcoin Foundation would carry more weight than from anyone else. However, I now understand that last year SIX rejected a request to give Bitcoin an ISO code, but I don't know where the request came from or the code(s) suggested.

The poll has only been going 8 days yet there is a consensus that an X-code is warranted and XBT is the front-runner of those.

There are several fronts in this war of attrition.

1. Bitcoin's monetary base (in USD) is now over $500 million which can't be ignored, and may even get to 10 figures this year, so a new request to SIX can point this out.

2. Mainstream partner banks of bitcoin firms could be asked to write a letter of support for a Bitcoin ISO code. These letters would be submitted with a new application to SIX, and they would help a lot, as these are the firms which the standards agency is meant to represent.

3. MagicalTux has indicated that Mt.Gox would consider supporting a new ISO code in addition to the existing BTC. If other major Bitcoin firms were to also support XBT as an alternate code then it would have a snowball effect. Every time a mainstream financial company decides to look at using Bitcoin they could be given XBT and told the official application is pending. This would be good enough to get some of them using it anyway,

If enough firms used XBT then the pressure for it to be officially recognized would be overwhelming.

This is excellent!  If you would check, and hopefully register these for Bitcoin that would be a great start.

XBT Bitcoin ISO currency code (application pending)
BTC Bitcoin currency code (informal use)

Please let us know if they would be accepted.



ArticMine, BitPirate and grau

Informal ISO codes can be assigned for minor units. USX and GBX are sometimes used for cents and pence, Sometimes USc and GBp, it depends on the data vendors and banks.
XBS could be used for 1 satoshi. However 1 XBT needs to equal 1 BTC.

I think the purpose of this initiative to open for mainstream.

I can tell from long experience with banking software, that dealing with fractions less than 1/100 for money is a challenge to them!
It is however not to deal with billions.

If we do this change to open for mainstream, then let us define XBT as 100 satoshi. This would fit perfectly with existing infrastructure and familiar to people. 

USDXBT (again using FX market standard conventions) would be about 20,000 now and declining as XBT strengthens expressing nicely that USD falls.

No, we shouldn't complicate things by defining arbitrary standards. One bitcoin should be one XBT.

Solex, compliments for your efforts! I believe that everything that will make Bitcoin more mainstream will significantly strengthen the project and improve the chance that we will be using it fifty years from now.

I see where you are coming from. I too have long experience with banking software and I agree a lot of them are limited in this respect, but mostly the 3GL mainframe systems. Newer (21st century) systems are more flexible. In FX trading it is common to quote in pips to 5dp or 6dp, check out oanda.com for example: http://fxtrade.oanda.co.uk/?&stop-geo-ip=yes&country=united%20kingdom&division=fxtrade.oanda.co.uk

They should be able to cope with Bitcoin's decimals.
It would just be too weird to have an ISO code for a value (1/100) which did not equal either the major or minor currency unit.



Thanks!  I agree this is the way forward to help cement Bitcoin's future.

As you are proposing to fit to a 20th century standard, therefore you have to accept its limits.

Yes, FX markets that usually have 1/10000 BUT the accounting and bookkeeping software of banks and others do not.
I guarantee you, since had been working in biggest banks for decades, that they mostly can not deal with money fraction below 1/100, they can however deal with billions.

Please read again, I suggested to use the iso code XBT to be equal 100 satoshi, that means satoshi is the "cent" that does not need a code. 1 BTC would be 1 million XBT.

Neither is XTC. That is: it's only going to be understood by a small minorty.

But Bitcoins are made from bitium. That's a metal.

You are right that an ISO code is needed for accounting systems which only support 1/100, because precision cannot be lost through rounding on Bitcoin amounts. However, this needs yet another code, like XBH for 100 satoshi.
There is too much inertia in the marketplace for quoting the fx rate between Bitcoin and fiat currencies as 1:1 and I can't see people changing that. So front-office systems will need to translate the ISO code on executions for back-office accounting systems.

So for Bitcoin to be acceptable in all computer systems then it seems that these are needed:

XBT = 1 BTC
XBH = 100 satoshi

And IT teams just need to work with those depending on the systems they have.  Sounds reasonable?

Introducing a new code is already a big change. Having two new codes is probably too much.

Since you recognized that accounting systems require divisibility by not more than 100, it is straightforward that such unit should be the main unit carrying the only ISO code.

It is however usual to prepare financial reports in thousand scale of the currency unit such as thousand USD or million USD.
In the Bitcoin economy that would be thousand XBT or million XBT, the later happens to equal BTC.

Honors to your initiative, that I believe fosters adoption. Please do not stop half-way, but define it in a way that makes adaption to existing systems and market conventions really easy. Remember it has to be easy for the rest of the world not us who are already used to Bitcoin's oddities.

grau, your input has been invaluable, thanks!

You have the identified the crucial factor which prevents Bitcoin from becoming integrated into mainstream finance, and that is the 8 decimal places of precision required which is beyond 99.9% of the world's accounting systems.
The debate about numerical representation of dollar amounts is interesting reading:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/61872/use-float-or-decimal-for-accounting-application-dollar-amount

Further, because over 80% of the world's financial transactions are processed in COBOL systems the inertia of maximum 2dp currency amounts is impossible to overcome in the next 20 years, at least. This explains it well: http://www.itworldcanada.com/news/programmings-second-oldest-profession/144636

So, I concur, XBT alone would be sufficient as an ISO code for Bitcoin if it defines 100 satoshi or one millionth of a BTC. This means that Bitcoin amounts and transactions can be easily and quickly supported in the world's mainstream financial systems.

BTC is fine as an informal code for customer-facing usage, just as YEN is used instead of JPY. However, the extra step of multiplying/dividing by 10^6 will need doing as well for conversion to/from XBT by these systems for subsequent processing.

I believe this is the essential part of the next proposal to SIX to get Bitcoin its ISO recognition.

I am glad to have your support. I believe your proposal helps mainstream adoption.

May I add an other suggestion to bring XBT even closer to conventions of mainstream financial markets:

FX (foreign exchange) markets use the convention XXXYYY (where XXX and YYY are ISO currency codes) to refer to an FX cross. The direction is given by the order.
Example: USDCHF means 1 USD in CHFs - or how many CHF you get for 1 USD. similarly EURUSD is 1 EUR in USD or how many USD you get for 1 EUR.

Since you could either quote USDCHF (currently about 0.94) or CHFUSD (currently about 1.06) this would drive everybody nuts trying to figure what you mean.
Therefore there is a market convention for every currency pair a particular direction is preferred for quoting.

Nearly all currencies are quoted on mainstream markets as USDXXX  (main exception is EURUSD and EURXXX crosses in Europe).

Aligning to that USDXXX majority, market standard quote would be USDXBT that is 1 USD in XBT currently about 20,000.

The beauty of this quote would be that if XBT strengthens it would sink. The message would be USD is falling and not BTC is getting ever more expensive.


Remark:
It would also be simpler for a customer to interpret a price in XBT, it would (currently) be roughly : forget the last 4 digits (likely 0s) and divide by 2 and you have dollars.
I also think that as XBT appreciates it gets cumbersome for customer to deal with prices in decimals below 0.01 but they will have no problems with ten thousands.

grau, I understand the rationale of this suggestion, but here I think we have to agree to disagree.

You are discussing currency rankings for standardized cross-rate quoting, which has an interesting history.

The first properly quoted currency pair was GBPUSD, still known as cable, for which real-time quotes became possible in the 1800s when a telegraph cable was laid across the North Atlantic. Because sterling was the reserve currency at the time this rate was 1 GBP = n USD. Despite the USD becoming reserve currency the rate convention remained the same, and even the Australian and New Zealand dollars were ranked above the USD when they were invented and split off from sterling in the 1960s. GBP remained top ranked until Jan 1st 1999 when the euro became a currency (for financial transactions). The EU wanted EURXXX so that all currencies were quoted to 1 euro. Some banks in London rebelled, led by RBS, tried to make an exception for GBPEUR, but the market won out and they failed. So the euro elbowed sterling off the top rank.

Enter Bitcoin. In 2009 Bitcoin was first issued and the convention of BTCXXX has resulted, the market always quotes other currencies to 1 BTC. So Bitcoin has elbowed the euro off the top rank. I think this is how it should be as Bitcoin has gone from the world's weakest to strongest currency (per unit purchasing power) on its own merits!

This means that the XBTUSD rate would be .000047 at present, which is unwieldy today, but they may be 1:1 in 20 or 30 years time!

I vote for no 'mainstream acceptance' then we don't end up taken over by wallstreet speculators.
Bitcoin will get where it wants to go eventually no reason to force it at every chance you get and wind up with everything crushed by regulators and gigantic banks. There's also a copyright on "X coin" so XBT might have problems

YOUR CRAZY THEY LAST THING YOU WANT IT BTC RECONIZED AS AN OFFICAL CURRENCY< MAKES YOU SUBJECT TO A WHOLE RAFT OF LAWS>>>>

BITCOIN WILL SURVIVE AND THRIVE ON MERIT

YOU WANT TO MAKE IT GOV FIAT

It's called beating them at their own game. You can't beat them if you just lurk in the sidelines.


We can't all live off-grid like you and John Connor.

You are right, that market conventions usually reflect views of the dominant player. Realistically, Bitcoin is not a dominant player in the area of mainstream finance that we want to enter, therefore XBTUSD would be exerted. It would also be problematic in magnitude as you already noted FX trading systems work with 4 decimals. Again, the goal is to not be unwieldy (as you put it), but accommodating to the rest of the world. We will arrive at 1:1 either way on the long run.

May I add an other psychological argument in favor of USDXBT (or YYYXBT if your fiat currency is YYY):

With YYYXBT you know how many XBTs you will get for 1 fiat YYY.
With XBTYYY you know how many fiat YYYs you will get for 1 XBT.

We likely want to help reading the quote those willing to buy XBT and not those who want to cash out to fiat.

+1 to the suggestion to make XBT 1 millionth of a BTC... its unfortunately small right now, but we have the colloquial BTM (millibitcoin) to get us there (and I strongly recommend at 100USD/BTC people start switching over b/c psychologically nobody wants to own a tiny fraction of something)

what feels better?  Spend a buck for 10 BTM or .01 BTC

I would propose these currency codes:
XBT for Bitcoin
XBM for milliBitcoin
XBN for microBitcoin
Some may get officially registered by ISO, some may not.
Using smaller denominations makes sense as it is common to use 2 fractional digits in amounts.

http://www.oanda.com/currency/converter/

OANDA already uses BTC in its currency conversion.  Bhutan's symbol is BHN

Wow. When did that happen? I used to check regularly to see if they had added Bitcoin, but up until a couple weeks ago they still hadn't.

Nice!  I watch them for other things lately but never noticed they've added BTC.  Cool!

Apparently XBC is a "basket of currencies":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Unit_of_Account

Hasn't been used since 1979, if the article is accurate.

Just got this email today from www.xe.com.
When I emailed them 2 weeks ago they told me they were not considering it.
Now they have seen the news and their competitors listing Bitcoin :-)


Thanks for the info.

Given the increased interest in Bitcoin over the past couple of weeks we are considering it. Please note that even if we do list the curency, it's unlikely we'll be able to use the popular contraction BTC as there's a specific format to currency codes and this would contravene those properties.

An ISO 4217 currency code is generally built from the two digit ISO 3316 country code and a third letter for the currency. In this globally used format, BT would be the equivalent of the two letter country code. There are two problems caused by this:

a) Bitcoin is not a country
b) BT is already in use as an ISO3316 code for Bhutan

Since the ISO doesn't have a 4217 code for Bitcoin, but BTC would conflict with the existing global standards, it's unlikely that we would that 'code' if we were to list Bitcoins.

Thank you for your interest in our company and services.

Sincerely,


XE Currency Services Team


XE.com Inc. · 1145 Nicholson Rd · Suite 200 · Newmarket · Ontario · L3Y 9C3 · Canada
www.xe.com · +1 416 214-5606 · Fax +1 416 214-5607

That's why we should use XBT.

Even if I applaud the effort to move bitcoins into the 'classical' world, I think we should stick with BTC.

Not as in 'make a deal with Bhutan', but as in: that's the de facto name, deal with it.

Since the media is making bitcoin out to be the currency of the dark underworld, why don't we fully embrace that mystique and lightheartedly adopt XXX as the official code?

XXB ? XX = unknown country or all countries, B = bitcoin. You'd have 25 other letters for the other alt-coins if they gain consideration and value.

I've kicked off a reddit to raise the profile of this.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1c4c0f/bitcoin_needs_your_help_to_get_the_iso_code_xbt/

Bitcoin now has a monetary base bigger than the currencies of 20 countries, and is closing in on palladium metal which has its own code: XPD

There. Fixed it for you.

We'll be back, but it may take a while.  At least now the growth might be real.

I suggested this back in 2011.

Let's just hope they don't accidentally the internet in the process.

Huh? Did you leave out an important word in that sentence? I feel like there should be a verb in there somewhere?

wha, u didn't learn how 2 internet?  8)

You're only allowed to buy vowels, not whole words, silly.

I guess we could just add the ever useful stand-in verb?

"Let's just hope they don't accidentally smurf the internet in the process."

Ooooo, that wouldn't be smurfy at all.  :-/

notice how there's also a verb missing in the text I quoted (bolded above)?

it's a meme

And inside jokes are only funny if you are on the inside. Otherwise they just sound stupid.

true. I'm sorry, I thought this meme was more widespread.

Eh, it may be and I just have never heard of it before. But I also tend to frown on stupid internet memes, so there are probably lots that I have heard of but just make me mad.

Any really would work, Maybe try BIT?

No good, currency code "BIT" is reserved for the African country of Burundi.

I like this idea.

Regarding the 100 satoshis... Ok, I suppose that makes sense.  It'll be a while before we reach parity with the dollar at that level though!   :D