Bitcoin Forum

There is a thread about getting BTC (or possibly some other 3 letter code for Bitcoin) added to the official ISO 4217 list
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=7205.0

Previous attempts to have BTC listed were rejected, but I believe new evidence has emerged during 2012 that contradicts the arguments used to reject BTC in 2011

Can people comment on this?



Here is the submission I have sent requesting registration of the BTC (or equivalent) symbol in ISO 4217:


To: office@currency-iso.org

Dear Sir,

I understand you administer the official ISO 4217 list of currency codes

I understand you have previously received requests to register the
currency code for Bitcoin, BTC, which is in widespread use in the public
domain.

I also understand you have previously denied such requests with the
following statements:



"1. The currency code is not linked to any country code.
2. The currency code is considered a 'private currency' and not used for
tender in any country.
3. There will be no international payments denominated in Bitcoin
therefore an ISO currency code for the Bitcoin is not applicable.
4. The Institution responsible for the Bitcoin does not appear to be
recognized internationally or have any official status. Neither Reuters
or Bloomberg provides market data related to its use. "



I would like to ask you to consider new evidence concerning the status of
Bitcoin:

a) the list ISO 4217 includes the currency codes XAU, XAG, XPD and XPT
for the precious metals.  These are not linked to any country code, so
this contradicts your assertion (1) above.

b) although XAU and XAG are specified in the United States constitution,
XPD and XPT are not widely acknowledged as a currency and have no
significant historic use as a currency.  XPD and XPT are not tender in
any country, yet you have allowed them in ISO 4217, this contradicts
your assertion (2) above.

c) many web sites appear to accept payments denominated in Bitcoin.  As
the world wide web is an international communication network, this
facilitates international payments.  This appears to contradict your
point (3) above.

d) XAU and the other precious metals are backed by physical properties
that distinguish them from other natural elements.  Consequently the
alchemists of yesteryear could never succeed in turning lead into gold,
just as no institution or government could decree that some other
substance was gold.  This demonstrates that the involvement of a
government or institution is not an essential criteria for a currency to
be recognised as such.  Bitcoin is not simply a digital currency or a
digital record of a debt, it is a cryptographic currency, and its
nature is based on the rules of mathematics rather than the good faith
and credit of its inventor or an issuer.  The integrity of the Bitcoin
is based on the integrity of the algorithm alone and the involvement of
any government or institution would be superfluous.  This contradicts
your point (4) above.

e) ETH Zurich, an institute that you are no doubt aware of as your own
organisation is rooted in Switzerland, recently made a comprehensive
study of the security and integrity of the Bitcoin currency.  Their
report is published here and is a clear acknowledgment of the fact that
Bitcoin is in widespread use:
http://www.ethlife.ethz.ch/archive_articles/120924_Neuer_Globe_Bitcoin_fw/index_EN

f) The European Central Bank recently published a study on digital forms
of cash, and Bitcoin was the most significant element of their report,
published here:
http://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/pdf/other/virtualcurrencyschemes201210en.pdf

g) The North American Clearing House Association recently invited the
CEO of BitInstant to speak at their `Annual Global Payments Forum'
http://paritynews.com/web-news/item/322-world-operates-on-an-inferior-monetary-system-says-bitinstant

h) Bitcoin is widely reported in official media outlets, including the
Economist, Financial Times, Wall Street Journal and news reports from
Reuters and Bloomberg.  For these organisations to report market data
for a symbol, it appears the symbol needs to be registered first (for
example, a stock symbol or an ISO currency symbol is not assigned by
Reuters themselves).  This further contradicts your point (4) above.

I hope you will re-examine the status of Bitcoin in greater depth and
come to the conclusion that the registration of the currency code
(either BTC or an equivalent code) is consistent with the registration of other non-fiat currencies
such as XAU and is in the public interest.

Sincerely,

GDP (gross digital product)

Good stuff!

I think this has been very well worded - but I would maybe consider removing the "undermine" part (just sticking to the facts and technicalities should be enough).


Cheers,

Ian.

I've tweaked the conclusion paragraph as you suggested.  Thanks for the feedback.

Yup - that's seems better to me - I've sent a report message to the mods (not sure if that's actually the right protocol though) - hopefully one of them will notice and move this for you (perhaps best to also post a link to this topic in the Whitelist Requests topic).

Whitelisted and moved.

Note that I can't merge topics in Bitcoin Discussion - I'll have to PM theymos about this.

Very intresting, an ISO mark would be taken serious by many sceptics,

Very currious about the out come of it..  ;)

Great research.

Their former reasons have without doubt been proved to be unvalid.
Will be interesting to see what their action will be.

The choice of BTC as the code may not be ideal, as it does not respect the ISO format.  However, the emerging use of this psuedo-symbol which doesn't respect the ISO pattern is one example of why the ISO should have acted preemptively to register a currency symbol.


Actually, what are the official criteria for recognition of a currency on the ISO list?  If the criteria themselves are wrong, then maybe the ISO itself needs to look at it's definition of the word `currency', as SIX may only be able to work within ISO policy guidelines.

Also, I notice someone has now kicked off a petition, great idea:

http://www.change.org/petitions/six-interbank-clearing-include-a-symbol-for-bitcoin-in-iso-4217

ISO would be interesting and give organizations pause to think about its application with this certification. 

Nicely written OP. I too am quite interested to see the how they respond to this.

Well written new peer!

Good post and good initiative!
I might add that Bitcoin is recognized and being displayed at British Museum:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=122274.0

maybe XBT would be bitcoin code compliant with ISO rules?
since BTx is reserved for bhutan ; )
and yes, great OP

OP correction.

You all who want the ISO to recognize XBC as a currency / ticker symbol are under the delusion that bringing facts to these people will persuade them.

They rejected it the first time, and their rejection was entirely irrational and their excuses had zero factual basis.

What makes you all think that this time will be any different?

What does it matter to you that you have to beg for strangers' approval?

What does it matter if some strangers say "yes, XBC is a thing"?

cheap promo. there's an audience to the ISO updates, they might not be aware of bitcoin.

This is actually a very good response. I concede.

After reading some stuff in an article on shadowlife.cc http://shadowlife.cc/2012/11/necessary-conditions-for-the-long-term-success-of-bitcoin/ (http://shadowlife.cc/2012/11/necessary-conditions-for-the-long-term-success-of-bitcoin/),
I can only agree with those terms :

""
Three hypotheses for the long-term success of Bitcoin

So what does Bitcoin need to succeed in the long-run? In short, it needs no state, no banks, and OTC. The three hypotheses in more detail:

The Bitcoin community should not try to get legality for Bitcoin, we should not ask the state to resolve conflicts in the community.
The Bitcoin community should not focus on interoperability with the traditional banking system.
Widespread availability of over-the-counter (OTC) Bitcoin exchangers is crucial for Bitcoin to succeed in the long-run and give us more freedom.
""

What do BTC gets for being on this ISO list ?  (IMO, just attention, that could lead to some unwanted regulatoions)

I'm I wrong ?

Any tought ?

the article on shadowlife.cc is highly ideological and its reasoning is flawed.
there are no such things as "the state" or "the banks". there are states and banks, many of them. and each individually might very well have a specific reason to support bitcoin even though it might be detrimental to states or banks as a whole.

It is not necessary to `get legality' for Bitcoin itself.  The use of Bitcoin in a particular jurisdiction may be no different to the use of any particular foreign currency.  So, if you live in Venezuala or Argentina (which have exchange controls) than the use of Bitcoin may be no more or less legal than the use of the US dollar.

If you live in a place without exchange controls, such as an EU country, then Bitcoin itself is probably not much different to using any foreign currency (e.g. taking some British pounds into France is not illegal, even though Sterling has no official status in French law).  If a taxi driver in Paris agrees to accept your Sterling because you have no Euro change, that's completely legal, so wouldn't it be the same for Bitcoin?

What is important is for governments to avoid confusion about Bitcoin.  For example, many other forms of digital currency are a form of debt redeemable for a fiat currency at a specified 1-to-1 exchange rate.  Those currencies are strongly regulated because they could be a ponzi scheme if the issuer produced more tokens than they have in reserve.  As Bitcoin doesn't claim to have any reserve or fixed rate of exchange, it shouldn't fall under such regulations: but it is important to make sure that Governments understand the distinction.


These two points contradict each other.  90% of today's fiat money is purely electronic (tangible coins or notes only exist for 10% of the money supply).  Money changers on the street need a way to deal with surpluses and deficits in any particular currency.  The electronic banking system allows them to do that.

If money changers have to deal with surpluses and deficits in Bitcoin and can't do that electronically, they will presumably start charging higher premiums for Bitcoin, or won't touch them at all.

When the money changer in the street is able to pay his rent and power bills using Bitcoin, then it might be a different story.


Many software vendors will include the currency symbol (e.g. gnucash has said they won't include the symbol if it is not in ISO 4217)

Thanks for replying.. Very interesting..

I agree with two who replied, and you made good points.. Thanks

Sadly, no response to the email sent to SIX.

However, things are looking good on that petition, almost 200 signatures now:

http://www.change.org/petitions/six-interbank-clearing-include-a-symbol-for-bitcoin-in-iso-4217

Maybe change.org should pay people in BTC for clicking?

They can't, because change.org can't make change.

(See what I did there?  ;D )

I signed this, but that site says 100,000 signatures required. That makes me wonder... how many people are using Bitcoin?

Please be advised that an ISO alternate registry of currencies and currency-like commodities has just been proposed via the IETF.

http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-stanish-x-iso4217-a3-00

This approach works around the situation by removing the present effective monopoly of registration via SIX (who it should be noted are closely affiliated with SWIFT, and thus may be reasonably considered to have a possible conflict of interest in this registration).

- Walter / http://ifex-project.org/

Edit it and produce a proper bibliography with reference/citation notes, rather than having external references scattered within your letter.
Consider using one of the accepted citation systems. (Harvard?)

Keep it very factual and if possible cite other sources that have been peer reviewed (do a search for such articles)
HC

Great initiative!

Not such a smart move. Authorised legitimacy is not what Bitcoin needs, and accepting that money does need such authority is what got us into this situation in the first place. The people should agree which money is legitimate, not some committee of self-serving establishment drones.

Carlton does not approve this.  

Edit: Also, I think that creating a trusted and ubiquitous currency WITHOUT authorised legitimacy would help the people of the world to realise how misplaced their trust in established authorities is. I would strongly recommend all who support this action to consider what I am saying. When the tax authorities arrive at your door, and you end up in court when you rightly refuse to submit to having your Bitcoins confiscated, your position will be weakened by a move like this. The prosecution team will have an extra legal argument in their toolkit, and you will wish you never signed the petition.

Please, do not support this measure.

:-)

IF isoificating the BTC symbol is a good idea for publicity reasons, and there are no other drawbacks to doing so, then it might not be a bad idea.

Of course, if we have to do any kind of Faustian bargain, then fuck ISO.

Any response from ISO4217 committee ?! ???

I'm just glad it doesn't matter what these idiots think