Bitcoin Forum

I've seen since the early days some exchanges/people using the XBT tag, then I saw a lot of people using BTC. Nowadays i think BTC is the dominant tag. Anyway, whats the deal with this? I think BTC sounds better, XBT is confusing.

It's not an arbitrary choice, they label it XBT for technical reasons. The first letter is a country code or something like that.

It's still BTC the 'B' is just obscured by the X.  8)

XBT don't control BTC.
XBT is for the bankster.
BTC is for people.

simple. http://imagizer.imageshack.us/a/img537/5737/vxQvDa.gif

Mmm, I think you are confusing Ripple, which is XRP, which XBT, which is indeed Bitcoin, it just another way to tag it, but I also prefer BTC, because its sounds more like "Bitcoin", has all the important syllables.

Some background

It's used on Kraken for example. And not it's Bitcoin XT.

BitcoinXT is just another client. XBT and BTC are quite the same, "BT" in "BTC" is used by Bhutan as their country code and is hence unable to be used as an ISO code. XBT is a ISO 4217 Currency code.

ISO set the currency abbreviations. As of yet they haven't done anything for BTC but if a currency isn't associated with a country they start it with an X. Gold is XAU, silver is XAG.

There's an article about it here - http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-gaining-market-based-legitimacy-xbt/

I can explain this.

BTC is prefered by many, because it sounds more like bitcoin, it just seems like a natural acronym.

But there's a problem.

In ISO standard, all 3 letter abbreviations for currencies have their first two letters be the country code (or region code), and the 3rd letter specifies which currency it is.

Some examples (some are old currencies):
NLG (Netherlands Guilder)
DEM (Deutsche Mark)
FRF (French Frank)
CHF (Swiss Frank) (country code for swiss is CH, don't ask me why)
CNY (Chinese Yuan)
JPY (Japanese Yen)
USD (United States Dollar)
CND (Canadian Dollar)
BRL (Brasilian Lire)
EUR (European Union Euro) (This one is a bit weird because it should be EUE, but this follows more like the 'BTC rule' of sounding cool)
And so on

So what do we do with currencies that aren't tied to a country?

Those get an X, like

XAU (Gold ounce (Au is gold on the periodic table))
XAG (Silver ounce)
and of course XBT (XBC was also suggested but lost out in popularity to XBT, (there's also already a currency using XBC))

BT is the country code for Bhutan, so BTC would be "Bhutan Coin"


Edit: It has been proposed by some to have XBT be the official tag for 1 µBTC (0.000001 bitcoin, or 100 satoshi) because this would be more compatible with most monetary standards that deal in currency and cents. (as there are 100 cents to an XBT). And the fear that some of those standards would break if they had to deal with tons of decimals.

A very thorough explanation made by zimmah. I agree with the ISO standards as it was the followed standard in almost everything lol. XBT is bitcoin not related to any country that's why it is marked as X on its first letter on the 3-letter abbreviation for currencies and BT for, well bitcoin.

As others mentioned XBT means a currency not officially recognized by any country
X currencies get that abbreviation.
BTC is well the name we use

CHF is a little confusing from people. The country's name is on all the coins as Confoederatio Helvetica, the Latin name of the Swiss Confederation, or Helvetia specified.

As for the bitcoin abbreviation I feel that BTC is simple, easy to understand and to use. XBT is more scientific and professional term as other commodities (gold, silver etc.) use similar ISO standard.

This is the reason XE.com uses XBT:

"Bitcoin Currency Code
 
Bitcoin is not recognized by the ISO and therefore does not have an official ISO 4217 code. A currency code is generally built from the two-digit ISO 3316 country code and a third letter for the currency. Although "BTC" is often used in the Bitcoin community, BT is the country code of Bhutan. An X-code reflects currencies that are used internationally and so, XE has chosen to use XBT to represent Bitcoin."

No, there isn't.

As I explained here (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=511640.0),


Nobody in that thread was able to provide a reasonable reason. Read it for more info and ideas.

The reasoning seems to boil down to, "I don't mind conforming to the invisible bars of my prison."

I don't like XBT and I have never in my life used it. BTC we are and it will stay this way if the community and people using Bitcoin want it this way. Screw governments, obsoleting and all other stuff they are trying to do to us.

So it seems it's all because in order to comply with that international ISO it needs to be X as the first letter because Bitcoin is not from any country, I get it. XBT sounds cool to be honest, but I dont like the idea of noobs mistaking it for Bitcoin XT.

It has nothing to do with government ssued or not, it is because of country codes (ISO 3166-1)



EUR is an exception (an exception to ISO 3166-1, not to ISO 4217), the European union filed a request for EU to be added as a "country code" for the European union.

Could bitcoin do the same? No because BT is already taken .

This has nothing to do with government propaganda, it's just following protocol.




this has nothing to do with government, it's an international agreed standard just like the metric system.

it makes for easier communication.


standards are good, otherwise you get shit like having all kinds of diferent chargers (look at how many different chargers there are for phones and laptops for example).

Having one unified standard is a good thing.

XBT = nasdaq symbol, BTC = common symbol, bitcoin = common name, btc = abbreviated name
much like
USD = nasdaq symbol, $ =  common symbol, dollar = common name, dosh = abbreviated name

is a fight between people and financial system as we know it until now. With practice like XBT the old financial system want to take the control of Bitcoin core.

No idea about a XBT. Sounds like bitcoin xt, but not really now if it is so.

No non-government-backed currencies are accepted into the ISO 4217 standard (except as X__). Hence, country codes = government codes. "Protocol" = government protocol. LOL, thanks for a great example of "I don't mind conforming to the invisible bars of my prison."


"International" = government-approved.


That completely depends on what kind of standard you are dealing with. How "standardized" do you suppose the people in Soviet Russia or Nazi Germany were? Extremely standardized. Unless you learn to apply discernment (thinking for yourself rather than equating truth with "authoritativeness"), standardization/normalization can be a euphemism for enslavement.

Banks can use whenever they need to fit into their system. For me, it will always be BTC or the BTC symbol. There will never be consensus on abbreviations. We are still debating which system to use for naming fractions of a bitcoin.

This is silly to have as an exchange name.
I saw it and said "What is this new coin and where is the BTC at!?"
 :D

No it is not BitcoinXT. All the currencies usually have their ticker of three letters starting by X. BTC has been used by people because it is more nice-looking.

It's partially to do with ISO standards, but there's also the distinct possibility that the most vocal proponents of the XBT currency code have bought up a load of related domain names and would very much like for them to increase in value.  In a similar way to how "bitcoin" and "btc" related domain names tend to be quite valuable and sought after.  See http://xbt.net/ (http://xbt.net/) as an example:

IIRC XBT was supposed to be something to liken Bitcoin to Gold or Silver via similar stock market tickers, as gold is listed as XAU on most (if not all) exchanges.

I personally prefer just using something like BTC, since we have been using it for a long time now and there aren't any new forms of market ticker restrictions we have to fulfil.

I like BTC but i think that we need to take the XBT to "fit" in the financial terms (aka ISO 4217), remember, right now Bitcoin it's seemed like an asset or like an "supranational currency" like gold (XAU), silver (XAG) or the East Caribbean Dollar (XCD) used in 6 countries in the caribbean sea. Probably it's a 'way' to bring more bitcoin to the financial system.