Bitcoin Forum

I suggest a character representative of symbol for Bitcoin currency be submitted to http://unicode.org/pending/proposals.html

฿ doesn't seem to be worthy considering it already is well established as Thai baht (currency).

What's wrong with BTC or BTC$?
Still, no harm in it I guess. Any idea on a cool character? Perhaps the omega character?

Thats a great idea! Anyone can think of a image representing independence?

The omega would be interesting, but maybe that's just cause I remember it from an old game... Was it Populous? ;)

Perhaps we can come up with something representing the digital nature of the currency; perhaps a play on the word "bit" or something similar.

Maybe a circled B, kind of like the favicon here?

A B with two lines through it without the circle may be a bit confusing or too similar to the Thai currency considering the US$ symbol is sometimes used with one or two lines.  So additionally a circle around it like the icon used with the client and also the favicon used at this site seems like a good idea.

http://unicode.org/pending/proposals.html#Interim_Solutions

There are ways for programmers and scholarly organizations to make use of Unicode character encoding, even if the script they want to use or transmit is not yet (or may never be) part of the Unicode Standard. Individual groups that make use of rare scripts or special characters can reach a private agreement about interchange and set aside part of the Private Use Area to encode their private set of characters. Individuals with interests in rare scripts or materials relating to them may sometimes be contacted through an electronic mail list which the Consortium maintains.  For information about these mail lists, please contact the Unicode office.

My vote is still for ฿ ;D Bitcoins are worth more than the Thai baht! :o Considering how many people use $, we certainly deserve to be able to use ฿.

You cannot and should not just steal symbol from existing official currency of independent country.
I vote for omega 

Since this is an open source project, would it be acceptable for individuals to take initiative amongst themselves to develop a kind of committee to put forth effort into deciding upon how to officially represent Bitcoins with a particular symbol or should we instead rely on Satoshi Nakamoto as authority over determining this type of establishment within Bitcoin?

It's only stealing if you're depriving the other person of their possession. It's sharing and sharing is caring. Seriously, who's it hurting? If anything, it promotes Thailand and the Thai baht. I certainly had never heard of the baht before I chose it as the symbol for bitcoins. Does a baby in Thailand go hungry every time I use the baht symbol to represent bitcoins? Is the Thailand government going to sue me for using "their" symbol? Bring it!

I believe the Baht symbol is the best option for Bitcoin denotation however would recommend a small change, ฿C for BitCoin instead of just ฿.

This would allow for differentiation of the two easily should they ever be listed side by side and is the same setup as the Nicaraguan córdoba which uses the US $ in its currency symbolism written as C$

For long hand (eg. those who can't type the Baht symbol for some reason) the use of BTC can be used in place of the ฿C as no currency in place currently makes use of BTC as the long hand for their currency (eg. USD for US Dollar, GBP for British Pound, etc...).

Examples:

50฿C/month
50 BTC/month

I propose something along these lines:


http://img829.imageshack.us/img829/8840/bitcoinlogodraft.png          http://img836.imageshack.us/img836/6006/bitcoinlogodraftii.png

A C (or stylized C) with something representing a bit inside.  At some point an actual fontist / graphic designer would need to work on it, though.

How about the number 8 with a slash through it?Like this

http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x128/davehollis69/character.png




8 bits=1 byte
UTF-8 (which uses one byte)  
8 is the luckiest number with the chinese population.
8 is an infinite closed loop like bitcoins.


It is similar enough to a B but it differs from the baht symbol.

Also $ symbolises a broken monetary system while a closed 8 is  not broken.

My only concern with the slashed-8 is that at first glance it looks a lot like slash-S $.  S and 8 are only one small line apart, and putting the line down the middle makes them look even closer.  That, and an 8 would work better for Bytecoins than Bitcoins.

How about a power symbol rotated 90 degrees clockwise?
http://img841.imageshack.us/img841/5372/177pxiec5009standbysymb.png

Apple might sue you for that  :D

Apple uses the power symbol frequently, but it's an internationally recognized symbol, not an Apple symbol. It's defined as 'Standby' under IEC 5009 and 'Power' under IEEE 1621.

Bytecoins could be bundles of 8 bitcoins . :)

Perhaps with the vertical line at an angle instead?

The strike across 8 seems easier to write.It also doesnt resemble the dollar sign.

double lines?

https://i.imgur.com/MHofY.png

That looks like a butterfly.Bitcoin gives you wings?

Is it just me or does that thing look like a badass snowman with a quarterstaff?  ;D

<3

The last one also looks like a sideways lemma, the symbol for infinity.

I am quite partial to something like this, actually. It really captures the digital nature of the currency.

If we can't have ฿, then that's my vote. I see no reason why we can't just steal the Baht's symbol - lots of people use the $, and usually without much trouble. We could also consider a more "open" symbol, like £ and €.

I like the C with the dots better than the one with the one and zero, I think it translates to teeny tiny size better.

Hi guys, I know I am late to the conversation but could you please not use the Thai baht symbol as it's very confusing for someone like me who actually lives in Thailand. You'd be making it extremely confusing to use BitCoins over here.

Also, why would you want to use an existing symbol rather then create your own cool new one? ;D All it does is dilute the meaning of both BitCoins and Thai Baht. These days you can load up true type fonts via css so it's not like you wouldn't be able to use the symbol anywhere on the site. At least choose a symbol that's not already a currency somewhere in the world.

couple more

http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x128/davehollis69/Untitled-1.png


http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x128/davehollis69/cbt.png

I kinda like my rotated power symbol, but honestly I like the baht symbol better and I'm gonna keep using it. I'm sure the United States government would love to have exclusive rights to the dollar symbol, but they don't, so they share. If Bitcoin was named something different and and started with an S, then I would not get confused by using the $ symbol just like I'm not confused by other currencies that use the $ symbol. If two $ currencies are being compared or if someone thinks it will be unclear, then they use the three letter currency codes for clarity. My use of the BITCOIN ฿ symbol may confuse ??? you and your countrymen right now, but I'm sure if you keep at, you'll get it straight in no time. It's not calculus after all. ;) ;)

Edit: If everyone else is dead set on using another character, you should seriously consider this character. It's soooo cool. ☃

snowfight

There's also the possibility of using the Combining diacritical marks (http://www.alanwood.net/unicode/combining_diacritical_marks.html) to cobble something together. I did this with the D in my user name, but haven't found something that'd really work as Bitcoin symbol, mostly because the symbols don't seem to line up properly:

B ̳     B ̶     B ⃦     B ⃝


Edit: Found a regular Unicode character that may work, although it doesn't look that good at small sizes:

Ⓑ    Ⓑ    Ⓑ
ⓑ    ⓑ    ⓑ

Interesting, though it doesn't seem to work with your user name? Is the star burst supposed to appear over the D? For me, it appears after the D; I'm using Google Chrome on Windows.

This ᴃ was pretty high on my list before I discovered ฿. It is pretty cool, but has to be written pretty big since you're adding a fourth horizontal line as opposed to a second vertical line.

Hm. I've tested it under Linux with Firefox and Chrome. Let me check... yeah it does look different on Windows. And neither Firefox nor Chrome display my example diacritics at all.   :-[

The starburst character is a combining diacritical, so yes, it's supposed to surround the D. Then again, I kinda like how it comes out on Windows.

For the record, this is what it looks like to me:

http://img830.imageshack.us/img830/5489/bildschirmfoto1.png

http://img819.imageshack.us/img819/1558/bildschirmfoto3.png


I guess using combining diacriticals is out then, if they're not displaying correctly (everywhere).

It looks fine for me on Ubuntu in Firefox and Chrome, but the D is centered slightly down and to the left for me, but it's not really noticeable.

It looks the same to me also, however, I made certain to configure support for all characters to appear in my environment.  Many computer users do not.

I think the lower case "b" in a circle is perfect since bytes use a capital "B" (i.e. 23 MB) and bits use a lowercase "b" (1024 Mbps). So the lowercase "b" would be the "bit" and the circle would be a coin.  ;D

Both of them do kinda look like coins. :)

Ⓑ looks nice

I agree I also like newliberty's one lol

Oh, oh! This, ฿, in a circle!!! :o  Then it's not a baht, it's a bitcoin!!!

Are these also diacreticals? They appear normal.

No, there's a whole set of letters and numbers with circles around them in the Unicode standard.  I honestly have no idea why they're there, but I guess they're coming in handy for us.

http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U2460.pdf

The "8 with a line through" variations just make it look like the price of whatever it is you're selling used to cost 8 but now costs something else.
I like the unicode capital B with the circle around it. Ⓑ

If it looks bad it's just because the font designer probably didn't put a lot of effort into that one particular character.

I'm chiming in with the "quit using the Bhat" crowd.  There's no reason to confuse the issue by appropriating the Thai symbol for our own, when "BTC" is a perfectly good option, and easy to type on a standard keyboard.

I agree that we should not use the Bhat symbol as the bit coin symbol. I do like the b in the circle ⓑ as it is fairly easy to read at normal font sizes. I prefer ⒝ ⒝ ⒝ which easier to read at small sizes (down to 8pt font)  ⒝ . The nice thing about using the ⒝ is it can be mimicked without Unicode by (b). I think it would be nice to use a symbol that could otherwise be "drawn" on my every pc with or without Unicode.

Sounds like "BTC" to me. :P
But seriously, the (b) character seems alright since its fallback is easy to type in ASCII

I vote ฿ for myself and others who want to promote Thai culture.  :D
Example: ฿10.00

I vote β for people who want a character that looks like a currency symbol but actually isn't a currency symbol and for who are opposed to the promotion of Thai culture. ;) It's easy to write and lower case to boot.
Example: β10.00

I vote ¤ for people who want want a real currency symbol but who are opposed to the promotion of Thai culture. ;)
Example: ¤10.00

While ⓑ Ⓑ and ⒝ look nice, they're not currency characters and they don't look like currency symbols. The character ᴃ isn't a currency character but it looks like a currency symbol when it's two fonts larger than the number next to it.
Examples

ⓑ10.00

Ⓑ10.00

⒝10.00

ᴃ10.00

ᴃ10.00

Ƅ  Latin capital letter tone six (simple and cool looking)
∄  There does not exist (my ironic favorite, because bitcoins do not exist)
ℬ  Script Capital B  (since you are documenting all the cool things that look like a B)

The first anonymous currency should be called

/b/


of course!
 :D

(inside joke)

Send me some bitcoins and ill explain it further....for those who dont know. :-X

It would certainly draw more attention to Bitcoin. :P

Hmm... Sure, I'll play.

here's mine

http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=369.0;attach=187

Yeah, mine doesn't scale down well.

For use in ASCII text copy.... (when the png logo is not appropriate)....  I vote for using    ฿

As in...

฿25.50

or....

BC฿25.50


If you notice on this page, http://www.xe.com/symbols.php ....the $ and the € and the £ and the ¥ ....are all used many times... by many DIFFERENT countries' currencies.   If there is any potential for confusion between the US $ and the Canadian $, we simply say, US$ or CA$.   It's simple.

Why not just reuse:    ฿   

This way we won't need to add an entirely new unicode character to every font type existing inside every computer on the planet!

I propose we agree to use   ฿      .....or its more specific version....   BC฿     

....until such time as we DO GET an entirely new unicode character added to every font type existing inside every computer on the planet.   :)

Like, why reinvent the wheel?    Especially when everyone on Earth already has two cars and five bicycles.    :)     It's like reinventing the primary "smiley face" symbol.   :)

It seems like a fun project for a character-geek to take on....

But, in the meantime, what's really important is that we all agree on a STANDARD way to type it, and express it in print, for NOW...   so we don't confuse new people.

( I think the Thai people will be very gracious about sharing their currency symbol anyway.  The average income of an ENTIRE FAMILY is about US$20 per month.  I, for one, would LOVE to see some very DIRECT aid organizations --- I mean really grass-roots change-makers on the ground in places like this, and Tanzania, etc., etc., etc. --- able to accept donations by Bitcoin!  WAIT!  This totally reminded me...  A friend of my started http://EpicChange.org   I am so calling her RIGHT NOW.  You email her too.  Tell her you wanna make a donation via Bitcoin.   All they need to do is create an account a http://MyBitcoin.com or download the app at http://Bitcoin.org )

BC฿ looks weird. It's better to use ฿TC instead.

I'm guessing that is the 'blink' tag in html 1.

Not all currencies use a special symbol, some just use letters. For example, the South African Rand (ZAR) is just R.

Two rand and 45 cents is just R2.45.

Two bitcoins and 45 centibits could be B2.45.

Anyway, what's the plan for subdividing bitcoins? Do we go in thousands like the metric system (millibits, microbits, nanobits)?

Or do we have names for subdivisions? A hundredth of a bitcoin could be a Satoshi, a thousandth of that could be a Molyneau, and a thousandth of that could be an Austrian.

Have we arrived at any conclusion ?

A poll perhaps, somebody ?

Or perhaps just wait until someone comes up with a solution good enough that everyone starts using it.

If somebody makes something better, another poll can be added.
People should know what is the most popular option - that will make decision easier.

I'll send you a couple bytecoins for a wordcoin.

So many variants. We definitely should make a poll and vote. I even can't choose one because I like both ⓑ and ᴃ.

I like those.

This has been the most sensible suggestion so far.  ฿  is the natural symbol for bitcon... just like $ is used in many places also.

I agree with you 100%.  You are such a smart guy. 

Agreed.  Simple.

And it's analogous to $. "S" referring to State currency.  "B" referring to digital currency.  In case people don't know the story of the origin of $, here it is: $ is derived from U crossed over an S for "United States".  Then the U slowly morphed into two verticals lines over the S.  Eventaully, only one vertical line was used.

I prefer ⓑ ('b in a circle' for whom Unicode won't display properly). It combines the notions of bits with the lower case b and coins with the circle. Furthermore, I find it simple, distinct, and easy to write by hand. Although the Bhat symbol, ฿, is also simple and easy to write, it is neither distinct nor clever. Bitcoin deserves a trademark befitting of its characteristics.

Keep in mind, the use of such a symbol will not preclude the use of the currency code BTC.

I like ⓑ. It looks like the bitcoin logo.
฿ isn't bad but it looks too much like $ I think. 

I like ⓑ a lot.

The funny thing is that "BTC" has been working fine for now!  I don't even know if a symbol will ever catch ok...  ;D

/b/tards everywhere love ⓑ.

shooh, you are being a newfag!

fap fap fap

On my computer running Ubuntu at home, ⓑ displays just fine. However, on my Windows computer at work, it looks like a box with "24D1" inside. The information at alanwood.net is a little confusing. Does anyone have a quick guide to get ⓑ to display properly?

Folks at Microsoft are square.

I'm actually liking the looks of ⓑ more than ฿.  But the deeper and more philosophical question is: why should a decentralized peer-to-peer currency have an official, centrally planned symbol?   :D.  Isn't competing standards the way to go?   ;). Shouldn't we let the market decide?   :P.  (if course I'm joking around...ofcourse it is important to have a standardized, commonly agreed-upon and recognized symbol).

Also, ⓑ is unique.  Anyone know of other uses of ⓑ?

Personally, I just use BTC.

That's exactly what it looks like to me right now, and I'm using an Ubuntu derivitive.

The only standard we can reasonably hope for is a de facto one.

vistafag here /ⓑ/ looks like a good idea. My vote goes to it

It seems like a considerable drawback if all computers / fonts cannot display it.  :(

Yeah :(. I just really don't like the Bhat symbol.

ⓑ25.50           or          ฿25.50



subliminally...  one of these looks like money...  the other one looks like a copyright notice....

bopyright?

Amen, Father McGruder!

+ 1.

Let's just wait and see which one will become most popular and simply use it.

Any copyrights still in effect from the year twenty five and a half?

That ⓑ doesn't show properly for everyone bugs me, but for what it's worth, the symbol displays fine on four out of the five of the computers I use, although three of those run Ubuntu and one runs OS X. Anyone come up for a quick fix for getting unicode symbols to display properly on Windows computers?

Edit: Apparently, the issue only affects those who use fonts that don't support such characters. According to this page (http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/questions/766381?s=unicode+characters&as=s), that's basically anyone running Windows XP or earlier. Here's a list of fonts (http://www.alanwood.net/unicode/enclosed_alphanumerics.html) that support the enclosed alphanumeric range. I'll tell my browser on the offending computer to use one of them. Hopefully ⓑ will start displaying properly.

I quite like the C with dots which Hepatizon proposed. Plus, I agree that Bitcoin is more important than the Baht.
Maybe also something like that can be nicely processed by a typographer:
100 http://img828.imageshack.us/img828/5741/bitcoin16.png
It might have good scaling properties...

Although I love some of the creative designs people have come up with here...   The problem is, if the character doesn't already exist in standard-issue fonts...   What are we going to do?   Insert a JPG image next to a numeric value every time we want to type a Bitcoin amount...?

I think it is time for a straw poll to determine the relative popularity of the competing designs proposed.  Of course, this will not be an official vote...

Let's say that ⓑ takes off. Websites wishing to display can host the necessary fonts for browsers. Typesetting programs should accommodate the symbol without much trouble for formal documents. For informal documents, people will get by with simply b or (b), as they do with the copyright symbol. One can easily tell Word to turn (b) into ⓑ on the fly as well.

I suppose that when there can be no ambiguity, people will default to a currency code (BTC) as they do with every other currency.

For those running Firefox on Windows XP for whom ⓑ, the unicode character 24D1, doesn't display properly, I have an easy fix:
1.   Download the Quivira font from this page (http://www.quivira-font.com/).
2.   Extract the file and install the font according to this guide (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314960).
3.   In Firefox, select Tools --> Options and then the Content tab. Under Fonts & Colors, click the Advanced button.
4.   Select 'Other Languages' in the Fonts for drop down field.
5.   Select 'Serif' in the Proportional field.
6.   Select 'Quivira' in both the Serif and Sans-serif fields.
7.   Select 'Western (ISO-8859-1)' in the Default Character Encoding field.
8.   Click the 'OK' button in the current window, and then again the next window.

ⓑ should now display properly in your browser. If you have another font in mind that supports ⓑ, feel free to swap it for the one I suggested.

Hey! One thing anoying me with ฿ - is the fact it's for right2left text and browsers behaive funky with it )

I am looking through http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unicode_characters

What's about - ઘ?

Or: ϭ

Can you share a screen shot?

Both of your suggestions seem a little random. The best suggestions try to incorporate some sort of association with bitcoins or the Bitcoin system.

You’re seriously advising people to change their default character set to non-Unicode? EUGH. That’s just soo wrong. Don’t do that.
Find a good font that will fill in your fallback characters (Everson Mono is a good choice), and default to Unicode UTF-8.

Unsurprisingly, #bitcoin-dev has had another debate around the character for BTC
http://veritas.maximilianeum.ch/bitcoin/irc/logs/2010/12/15#l3479

So I read this thread, and surprised community hasn’t done a poll or anything to get opinions.
Seems people have contributed (Posts that didn’t get many +1s were ignored):

• just use BTC
• ⓑ (U+24D1) a circled latin small letter b
• Ⓑ (U+24B7) a circled latin capital letter b
• http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x128/davehollis69/bcoin.png a circled, struck-through B
• ฿ (U+0E3F) the Bhat currency symbol
• http://img841.imageshack.us/img841/5372/177pxiec5009standbysymb.png a rotated power symbol
• ␢ (U+2422) blank symbol
• ᴃ (U+1D03) small latin capital barred b
• 8 with a vertical strike-through

Predominately people have put it before the number, is that de facto enough to say it should be from now on?
Anyone else want to suggest things I missed or they want to add/remove?

Without wanting to curry things, I really dislike overloading the Bhat currency. If BTC ever becomes popular globally, how will Thai peeps know difference between ฿3 and ฿3?

Any new symbol needs a unicode number in the private use area (see Apple logo at U+F8FF ) until accepted into UCS, a font made, and people have to start using it… it’s a very hard choice.
But, it’s imo better than co-opting something like ⓑ, even if it is awesome, because semantically it means nothing. its just a glyph in front of a number to computers.
It would make more sense to have BTC or (b) in common use and then, in the distant future, propose something more stylish to unicode c.

I 100% agree. No point in adopting a symbol that wasn't designed to represent Bitcoin. Bitcoin deserves better.

IMHO none of these look good, with the exception of the Bhat symbol, which is, unfortunately, already taken.

Nope. Those were just the defaults in my browser. It'll probably work either way.

Ⓑ I think is the nicest and looks good for a Bit Coin coins being circular.

Something to consider is character code 164 (hex 00A4) which will display on virtually every computer even if there is no Unicode font installed.

The name of this character is "currency symbol", and it was intended for use with any new currency. It was never used much because new currencies such as the Euro designed a new character.

Here's the symbol: ¤.

I don't like the look of the symbol myself, but I'm throwing it in for discussion.

Let's consider the long-term, where we will need a smaller unit. I think it's best to have a separate name for this, rather than messing with long decimals like 0.00000247. For the purpose of this discussion, suppose a millionth of a bitcoin is called a satoshi. Then it makes sense to choose a letter symbol that comes in a "B" form and an "S" form.

Here's how it would look for large-to-small transactions, using circled-letter symbols. It might be worth seeing how other schemes would deal with the huge range of transaction sizes.

ⓑ24700 (twenty-four thousand seven hundred bitcoins)
ⓑ2470 (two thousand four hundred and seventy bitcoins)
ⓑ247 (two hundred and forty-seven bitcoins) [omit "and" in the USA]
ⓑ24.7 (twenty-four point seven bitcoins)
ⓑ2.47 (two point four seven bitcoins)
ⓢ247000 (two hundred and forty-seven thousand satoshis)
ⓢ24700 (twenty-four thousand seven hundred satoshis)
ⓢ2470 (two thousand four hundred and seventy satoshis)
ⓢ247 (two hundred and forty-seven satoshis)
ⓢ24.7 (twenty-four point seven satoshis)
ⓢ2.47 (two point four seven satoshis)

Mhm, I mentioned it in IRC, though as b¤.

@ribuck

they look way to similar.  But I like the concept.  I still like the ฿ symbol.  It is easy to read, and people instantly understand that it is money.

The ⓑ looks too much like the copywrite symbol; something that I don't like.

Hi,
I tried getting all the suggestions so far for a bitcoin symbol and have listed them there:
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Bitcoin_symbol

May be easier to add pros and cons there until the choice becomes obvious (or not). I didn't add all the possibilities listed in this thread (missing the 8-based ones), however you are free to.

I vote for this:

U+0243    
Ƀ
   &#579;    Latin Capital Letter B with stroke

Dont believe it is in use by another currency and is already in the charset :)

Example:

Ƀ12.00 Monthly
Ƀ24.00 Quarterly
Ƀ46.00 Semi-Annually
Ƀ88.00 Annually

+ 1.

It would be really nice if the OP created a poll btw.

just an idea that I'd like to share:

We could create a pitch for creative agencies to create this symbol.

The benefit for an agency would be that they could be the first and one and only creator of this symbol for this groundbreaking digital invention. Having worked with many agencies in the past years  I sense that some of them may be very excited because it would create buzz for them.
they would likely issue a press release.

The benefit for bitcoin would be that we would profit from this buzz and dont need to pay anything (while we can still donate them some coins)
as a client, we could still chose whichever symbol we want from the agencys proposals.

That's a great idea, but how would you incorporate that symbol into Unicode?

I don't like the idea of having the dollar symbol in there, first off I'm not an American, and I've no interest in being made to feel like I'm using American money, no offense. Besides bitcoin has no more reasonh to be associated with the US dollar than it does the Thai Bhat.

Secondly, why associate bitcoin with something inferior, so no BTPound either.

Great question, but to be honest, I am a non-IT person, so it would even be difficult for me to understand what unicode exactly is..
If not feasible, discard my idea.

Done.

Wiao... I created a poll!


It was the first poll I created without doing anything. ^_^
/me wonders why there are strings attached

Was that the first poll in Your life or what ? :P

http://lh3.ggpht.com/_NU9z3cb0dHY/TSUtZQr4rCI/AAAAAAAAAMI/cIerKVcqabA/btc.JPG
-- it's like a B, it's binary, it's a diamond, it's a compass...

Or, this existing unicode: U+25EA   ◪   

I probably wouldn't use any such symbol as long as it didn't belong to the public domain. I definitely wouldn't if it came with a license more restrictive than CC-BY-SA. See the Flag of New England (http://www.midcoast.com/~martucci/flags/NEFlag.html), as copyrighted by some douche named K. Albert Ebinger.

FYI, they won't accept it until there is significant real-world adoption of the symbol.

Of the current options I like this one the most.

But I also agree that what we should aim for is a new symbol — I imagine a blocky thing that looks something between a B and 8 would be nice.

quickly bodged up:

Indeed. As I noted on another thread, it took a year and a half for the euro currency symbol € to be put into Unicode, and that was an "official" government currency. Piggyback on stuff that already exists.

Like I said in the other symbol thread, Ⓑ seems superior (and it is somewhat disappointing that it received so few votes :( )

it is relatively easy to read and not yet used for any other currency.

ⓑ would be my second personal favorite, but it seems a bit harder to read on small screens

Since both Ⓑ and ⓑ were listed as separate choices, unfortunately, that means that votes by people who supported a "b" or "B" inside a circle were split.  A better voting system would have used multiple stages (whereby the choice with the least number of votes was removed between each stage), or would have allowed people to rank their votes first and then automatically perform multi-stage voting.  The results of the above poll should by no means be taken as any sort of formal decision by the bitcoin community.

I believe this election was rigged.

However, even if you add up both of the circled-characters, they still didn't beat the ฿

;)

To me, the fact that the ฿ is already an existing unicode character, adds about 20 brownie points to that choice.

Once we grow big enough, we will just push on the Thai government to change their symbol. :)

Agree to Bruce and many others.
I think we all could re-focus on other cool and promising projects and just take this character.. and move on..

I also like the fun behind creativity and discussion, but after a couiple of weeks, we should be able to lock this and move on (just my personal POV, feel free to continue debating as this is an open forum)

A great man once said,

"The only real standard is a defacto standard."

I live in Mexico, where the symbol for MXN (Mexican pesos) is $, same as USD. In everydaylife, this causes no problem, since there's no ambiguity: everything is written in pesos, you pay in pesos, you charge in pesos. From time to time, though, there's an ambiguity about whether the price is in USD or in MXN, especially in "international" zones (airports, touristic places, a whole big part of the Internet, etc.). When I first arrived at the airport, I found the price for losing one's "forma migratoria" ($80 or $100 IIRC) very high, until I realized it was Mexican pesos. Also, on an art website I'm doing (http://plaztika.com), prices are in Mexican pesos, and I can't use the $ symbol because it would be ambiguous. Some French artists will join the website soon and will have prices in EUR, and in that case I'll be able to use €, but for prices in pesos, I'll have to stick to "MXN", which means concretely that the $ symbol cannot be used. Same for any future artwork sold in American dollars, I'll need to use "USD" or "dollars". Sad but true. I've been hating this long before I heard about Bitcoins, so this is not a tweaked argument.

The same situation could happen if ฿ were used for both BTC and THB (Thai Bath): it will work as long as there's no ambiguity (e.g. here on this forum), but for example on that art website I won't be able to use it ever.

So it's fine by me if people start using ฿, but it will be only a partial feature. While it's still time to choose, let's be more clever than that.

Meh. I'm sticking with ⓑ and BTC until I see something better.

I think ⓑ could cause confusion in Boston...   as it could be mistaken for the logo for the Boston Bruins (see http://www.sportslogos.net/logo.php?id=27 )

And since 1.00 THB = 0.0329327 USD, I think the beautiful wonderful Buddhist people of Thailand will be very happy indeed if you pay them in BTC instead of THB.   :)

You'd rather borrow a symbol used by an entire country than one used by a Boston sports team ?

The confusion of residents in Boston is even less material to what we do than the confusion of residents of an entire nation, or several.

Besides sports team logo is used in other context than currency symbols, so you can't really confuse it.
If I would have to choose already existing symbol, I would probably choose Ⓑ because it looks similar to the unofficial logo.

I just found this thread. :) What about B⃦? It is Unicode 6.0 - so you need supported typeface like GNU FreeFont (https://web.archive.org/web/2011/http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/freefont/?C=M;O=D).
Just set FreeMono as a fixed-width typeface, FreeSans as a sans-serif typeface and FreeSerif as a serif typeface.

https://cloudflare-ipfs.com/ipns/lzsaver.eth/share/pics/004220e6.png

Yeah. Like it. I especially like the "B⃦TC" form, since it kind of degrades to "BTC" when the COMBINING DOUBLE VERTICAL STROKE OVERLAY (a.k.a. U+20E6) character cannot be interpreted.

There's also room for a dedicated character (range U+20b9 to U+20CF, see http://www.utf8-zeichentabelle.de/unicode-utf8-table.pl?start=8320). I think that should be the goal. Does anybody know what the criteria for insertion into Unicode are?

Pretty sure this thread has covered the question.

What about placement of the symbol. I prefer it after the price. For example, 20.11ⓑ. And that, actually, has me leaning more towards not bothering with a symbol and just sticking with BTC. Eventually, deflation will have us using centi, milli, and micro bitcoins. Denoting them as cBTC, mBTC, and uBTC respectively. Doing so with any currency symbol just doesn't look right.

Personally I'd like to use the symbol instead of the decimal point. You can see this sometimes on electronic circuit diagrams where a 4.7k ohm resistor is labelled 4k7 so that there's no confusion due to missed decimal points.

That solution also covers the situation of very large units being needed. So, if we used "m" for a milli-bitcoin and "u" for a micro-bitcoin, we could have denominations such as 2m50, 7504b25 or 400u.

Of course this notation will never fly with the average Joe, so I'm not proposing it seriously.

In France, I've often seen prices in euros written this way, e.g. 12€50.

2ⓑ|!2ⓑ, that is the question!

ROFL!   :D :D :D

฿TC are exellent in my opinion the $ symbol is very simillar but we need a common symbol for example tree letter for U$S are USD bitcoin have a tree letters BTC but not have a unicode symbol just adopt ฿ =)

My argument is that it should be represented by a character that everyone can understand. If for example I told my grandmother that I was going to send her a bitcoin then I'd like her to understand the currency when it comes to her in [character]1 where [character] is whatever is being used to represent bitcoin.

I live in Thailand and it would confuse the hell out of me if websites started offering services using the Thai baht symbol, you'd have no idea if they're talking about BitCoin or Baht.

Why not make your own symbol instead of taking someone else's? Do you really have no imagination yourself that you can't come up with your own symbol? Why do some of you care so much that bitcoin has to use this symbol?

By the way, trading 1 ฿ for 30 ฿ if you're interested.

I don't like the ฿ from the beginning. It looks like a crossed out (because of error) B. And the fact that it is already being used for the Thai currency puts me off.

The $ sign is being used by many currencies, but I guess these countries adopted the sign before the age of globalization.

Since we are creating a new sign from scratch, we should really try to avoid something that is ready in used.

In the long run, bitcoin might become the global internet currency, so exchanges between other currencies will become very common. So we need to avoid the possible confusion 1฿ = 2฿, and not knowing which is Thai, which is bitcoin. We can never assume people will also make things clear. Some mistakes are totally unintentional.

The representation of Byte (B) and bit (b) is a good point, so many people prefer the ⓑ.

However, the Ⓑ is closer to current logo, and it renders better in small fonts.

I'm going to toss my vote in for Ⓑ

Since it really does look like the logo.

QFT

I vote for that as well. I really like the logo as it quickly makes it clear what bitcoin is all about. It communicates the idea of money quickly and easily, without the need for wordy explanations. The Ⓑ recalls the logo, and so would become easily recognizable as the bitcoin symbol.

+1

Let's sum it up:

1) Ⓑ is not like any other currency, so perhaps it should have a different symbol unlike dollar $ / euro € which have lines through the letter.
2) Ⓑ resembles a "coin"
3) Ⓑ looks like the logo (as already said)
4) Ⓑ ?? ??
5) Ⓑ PROFIT !!

;)

How about a b'at, an @ with a "b" instead of an "a" inside? It's round like a coin, got the B for Bitcoin, and borrows an style already widelly associated with computers! :D

soo...

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/146411/bat.png

?

I pictured it with the tail comming out following the curve at the bottom of the b, not straight down and then around, but that's close.

The way i picture it, the tail starts kinda sideways/to the side like with the @.

so, like an @, but backwards?

If this gains approval, I could fix it.

No, not backwards, the tail is almost exactly the same way.

I'm installing Inkscape on my machine right now, in a few moments i should be able to provide a decent representation of what i mean.

Go for it, that was just a 5-minute hack-job in GIMP.. I still like Ⓑ. It's inclusion in the current unicode set, imo, beats the "but it's not perfect" argument. :)

A symbol like this needs to be suitable for handwriting, like the "@" sign, but it's hard to do this with "b". Try it and you'll see what I mean.

well, it wouldn't be tooooo hard, if you did the line as one stroke, and then the two circles as another, but it would definitely take some getting used to, and not flow as naturally as @.

Ok, kinda like this:

http://img830.imageshack.us/img830/1890/batk.png

(i created this using the b and @ of the Comics Sans font, removing the a part, merging the b, and tweaking where the tail meets the b, and a few little distortions of the b itself to fit better inside the tail)



edit: i tried writing both the @ and the b'at on paper a few times, and didn't notice any difference in the dificulty of writing one and the other.

edit2: i would like to suggest that this character be accessed in keyboards by using AltGr+B whenever the layout doesn't have another character there with higher priority.


edit3:am i doing somthing wrong or the forum really has email notifications disabled?

Well, I like ⓑ and Ⓑ so I put together a wiki page on how to make them super easy to type on a Mac. Could somebody donate instructions for Linux and Windows too?

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/How_to_easily_type_the_circled_B_symbol_on_a_Mac

+1 This is the one i like the best so far! Very creative. :)

Here is my one: http://hosting11.imagecross.com/image-hosting-61/5032unicode1.png (http://hosting11.imagecross.com/image-hosting-61/5032unicode1.png)

http://hosting11.imagecross.com/image-hosting-61/2381unicode1s.png

 ;)  ;)

At first i thought you had took some regular symbol and did some sort of inside out  logarithmic transformation in a graphics program, but then i got it! :P

It's an interesting idea, but i think that one works better as a logo than as a symbol, it doesn't look like it would be easy to handwrite, and the details at the top would probably be missed when rendered in smaller sizes...

OK I have made a much better one  ;D  This one is simple, looks like a currency symbol, easy to write, easy to see at small sizes.   :)

http://hosting11.imagecross.com/image-hosting-61/2743bitcoin_uni.png (http://hosting11.imagecross.com/image-hosting-61/2743bitcoin_uni.png)

http://hosting11.imagecross.com/image-hosting-61/162bitcoin_uni_s.png

http://hosting11.imagecross.com/image-hosting-61/7228bitcoin_uni_ss.png

http://hosting11.imagecross.com/image-hosting-61/7813bitcoin_uni_sss.png

What do you think?

Btw,

Already present on Unicode:

☺ u+261A
☻ u+261B

㋡ (that's tsu encircled :P )

Hahaha. Somehow, I like this idea. ☺

The ฿ symbol already has an official Unicode name "THAI CURRENCY SYMBOL BAHT".

Unless bitcoin change its name to "Bahtcoin", we should not mess with other countries currency symbol.

Especially the ฿ symbol is only used exclusively for the Thai Baht now, I am sure they will have a strong attachment and ownership feeling towards this symbol.

If I were Thai, i would not be happy about that.

People using the $ may not have such feelings, because so many other currencies are using the $ symbol.

It takes a long time for Unicode to adopt a new character. Something that is already in Unicode is much more convenient. Once adopted, people all over the world can use it, type it (or at least copy and paste) it immediately.

Bitcoin don't have to have a currency symbol, but a currency is really a logo, an identity. Bitcoin is for the electronic medium. It is international. For example, if shown on a shopping website, people knows straight away that the price shown is in Bitcoin (but not Thai baht!).

For symbols not yet officially in Unicode, there is the private use area, and there is an organisation,  forgot the name, that helps coordinate the use of that area. Even if we haven't decided what it should look like yet, perhaps it might be possible to reserve a codepoint there.


Once we settle on a symbol, we can make a font with it, and webpages can use embeded font to render that character correctly for anyone with a modern browser.

Okay, here's a completely random idea for a thread that's already flooded with ideas.  What about using the Chinese character 币 or some stylized variant thereof?

币

It means "currency", and if you look, the right-hand side looks like a "b", the center part like a "T", and the bottom half like a turned "C".  I'm under the impression that a substantial portion of Bitcoin's early adopters are Chinese.

(This being said, my first instinct would be to try to get a double-stroked B identical to the logo (https://en.bitcoin.it/img/bc_logo_135.png) into Unicode.  By typography-geek standards, it's sufficiently distinct from the Baht symbol.)

What a great idea I love 币 :)

Perfect :D

A couple other thoughts on this.  First of all, I forgot to mention this character is pronounced "bi" (almost identical to the letter B); it seems natural that "B" could become a spoken shorthand for "Bitcoin" the same way "buck" is short for "dollar".  ("A small coffee, two packs of cigarettes, and a cruise missile.  That'll be 37 B.")

If I know anything about the Chinese blogosphere, if Bitcoin weren't to push an official Chinese version of their name, a fairly likely Chinese name to spring up spontaneously would be 网民币 - Wangmin (http://www.google.com/dictionary?aq=f&langpair=zh-CN|en&q=%E7%BD%91%E6%B0%91&hl=en)bi, "The Netizen's Currency", a pun on Renminbi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renminbi), "The People's Currency".

Previously discussed formats for comparison:

币2
币1200
币37.50

2币
1200币
37.50币

37币50

i was fiddling around and i found Alt+0223 to = ß
However i like the lowercase b with the @ symbol loop, almost looks like a c and makes me automatically go "bitcoin" in my head where as $ goes "money"

Based on the idea of TiagoTiago:

http://img593.imageshack.us/img593/180/btclogosent0.pnghttp://img215.imageshack.us/img215/6297/btclogosent1.png http://img219.imageshack.us/img219/8246/btclogosent2.png

Available as SVG. (Needs some more work.)

I like the one on the left but maybe it looks more like a logo than a currency symbol. What do you think?

EDIT: Also, Ⓑ is pretty convenient IMO.
EDIT: Uploaded background transparent versions. I'll work on the SVG on demand.

for anyone who's about to post "how hard Gokhan's smybol is to handwrite" write it first, cause i found it fliud and enjoyable when using a pen

My girlfriend and I like myrkul/Gokhan's idea. We tried it out a few times and it's rather easy to write. Plus we think its reminiscent of the @ symbol, quite apropos for a digi-currency.

Only two minor concerns with Gokhan's "b'at" symbol:
- Because the @ symbol already has many uses, we must make sure our symbol is sufficiently visually distinctive.  The @ in @37.50, for example, already denotes the concept of "unit price".  However, I think might not be a problem, as nobody complains that $ is not visually distinctive from S.
- Since the circle shape is very "fat" compared to most currency symbols, we'd want to be sure to design it in such a way that the typographic layout would be appealing when it is written with digits next to it.  (IMO @37.50 does not look as "good" and "money-like" as $37.50, 37.50 ฿, etc.)

Other than that, I think the symbol is unique, eye-catching, and very good at communicating "bitcoin".

What you said about it potentially being confused with the @ symbol got me thinking. You're right, that would look rather odd. I came up with another symbol which I've written down on a scrap of paper and photographed. You can see it below. It avoids the problem of looking like any other currency symbol or symbol it is likely to be used in conjunction with and it is easy to write.

http://ryepdx.com/bitcoin.JPG

What do you think?

I have to admit, it looks good!  In a Unicode context, it could be thought of as either a "b" with a vertical line through it, or this upside-down: http://en.decodeunicode.org/en/u+204b

I agree! it's easy to write (although not when using cursive) and would look Great when placed next to cash values

on another note:
I Fucking hate that pilcrow sign, first time i did i typing test i was all like WHERE THE FAWK IS THAT AND WHAT IS IT!
then i learned that it was the Enter key, and smashed my keyboard.

Thanks for the feedback! I came up with two other ideas too. Here they are, along with another rendering of the first one I posted:
http://ryepdx.com/bitcoin2.jpg

These are crude renderings, but they should prove a good basis for any typographers who may come along later. I derived the two new ideas from the symbol for the yen, the currency of Satoshi's ostensible homeland.

Okay, I just finished reading all 10 pages of this discussion. It seems to me we are divided into two camps:

1. Those who want a symbol we can start using right away.
2. Those who want a unique symbol that we won't really be able to use online until we manage to get a character into the unicode set (which could be a few years considering it took the Thai government about a year of lobbying to get their country's currency symbol into that set, a task easier than the one we would face as a mere confederacy of nerds.)

I think we ought to decide which approach would be better for us as a community.

There is, of course, a middle path: we could create a custom symbol and then host it as an image somewhere for the whole community to use as if it were a character.

If we decide path 1 is best, then my votes are for β, Ƀ, or Ⓑ (in order of preference.)
If we decide path 2 or the middle path is best, well, you've seen my suggestions.

What are your thoughts?

Custom fonts can be used in web pages without the users having to install them on their machine, as long as they got an up-to-date webbrowser.

Hmm... not a bad idea. Less compatible than the image idea and a bit harder to implement, but it would at least make for cleaner HTML.

Then, of course, there is the first path mentioned.

Here's yet another idea.  It's very abstract, but kinda captures the "techiness" and the whole "bit" concept of Bitcoin, scales well, and of course is already in Unicode: ◑
U+25D1 CIRCLE WITH RIGHT HALF BLACK

(Also, kind of like a C and a B.)

I was inspired by this icon on britcoin.co.uk: https://britcoin.co.uk/images/btc_flag.png

x2

I really like Ƀ too. ฿ would be my first choice, but since it's already used as a currency symbol for me it's completely off the table.

It also gives a certain sense of a currency and I really prefer capital letters. I don't know, but I think uppercases give the impression of a more valued currency.

1Ƀ2
Ƀ100
Ƀ1.5
19.99Ƀ

All of these look good to me

Hello !

How about this : http://img695.imageshack.us/img695/4756/btc1.png

I like Ⓑ a lot, but I thought it could be great to add the "currency-like" bars. It makes it closer to the logo, too.

I think a circled ฿ would be perfect. Maybe we could adopt the circled B for now while we wait for the new circled ฿ to be inserted into the Unicode standard.

Meh. I personally don't even want to incorporate the baht symbol. I feel like it would cause confusion, even circled.


I like it. The only downsides are that it could be hard to recognize or even write at small sizes due to the level of detail. Plus it seems like it would take a while to write even at normal sizes compared to other currency symbols.

I was persuaded after reading a little in here that ⓑ is a good option.

• It is better readable than the capital version.
• It stands for "bit" rather than "byte", being the correct letter terminology-wise.
• It is not frequently used for other purposes.
• It represents the expression "bitcoin" by having the symbol for bit surrounded by a circle, making it look like a coin.
• It is already present in Unicode.

If 1 ⓑ keeps current value or higher, symbols for the smaller fractions may be required. mⓑ, µⓑ etc. may be an option, but are not single symbols. Not that I would care much, I'd be fine with that.

Makes 100% sense to me. +1

I've made a few proposals on this thread myself, but after some thought my favourite options are this symbol and Ƀ.  Both symbols are elegant, simple, and currency-like, and would be easy to render and read at any size that ordinary text could be rendered.

I'd like to see the B with parallel lines at the top and bottom (though not going through the B), that is in a lot of logos already, get added to the Unicode character set. It looks nice and is easily recognisable as a symbol representing money while still being different enough from the Baht symbol ฿.

http://hammeroftruth.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/bitcoin-logo.jpg

Would the "serifs" and the top bulge being smaller than the bottom one be official parts of the symbol or are you suggesting any capital B with the little horns and feet woud be acceptable?

Do what you like. We're only a sort of confederacy at best and there's nobody here that can force anyone else into anything. The only official documentation we have is the wiki, and most of it (excluding the Bitcoin protocol itself) is the result of collective decision making. As far as I'm concerned, requiring the symbol to look exactly like the logo would be silly. The rule would get ignored as soon as the symbol began to get incorporated into other typefaces, I imagine. But whatever catches on is what will persist and thus become "official."

I'm just hoping it's not that misappropriated "baht" symbol that gets popularized.

Oh, and this option too, of course.   ;)

You guys are talking about a detail in the whole (and messy) Bitcoin graphic identity. This detail must be chosen by following a real design process, I don't mean by a single designer, but certainly not on a forum post.
In my opinion, Bitcoin has a real identity problem and it must be solved quickly by professionals.

Yes across the board. But what is the Alt+command to create the ⓑ? i am currently using alt+0223 to do a ß
Identity problem, Yes, needed to be solved by "professionals" No thanks, im sure that anyone(s) with Photoshop could create a very decent graphic design that the forums could collectivly agree upon via poll to be the best candidate, and Voila ß identity "crysis" solved

Bitcoin is not an organization. Bitcoin is a technology. Saying Bitcoin has a real identity problem is akin to saying the Internet has a real identity problem.

You have been delt a falcon punch.

I am saying that as a Bitcoin noob, maybe design can help to make things clever and more accessible.

You're absolutely right. The guys over at weusecoins.com have started off in the right direction. The need for a "killer app" has been discussed at length here, with terms like "kitten activism" and "Jessica Simpson stupid" often getting trotted out. It all boils down to making well-designed services built on the Bitcoin Network.

I "falcon punched" you on a technicality, which wasn't very nice of me, but I did it to make a point: the bitcoin ecosystem is not monolithic. It's not designed to be. Bitcoins are meant to be the topsoil on which the seeds of our geniuses are nourished, no more than that. The foliage is up to us. If you want to change something, go make it happen. :-)

That being said, one thing we could "change" is to make the Bitcoin ecosystem just a little bit more "monolithic".  A Bitcoin Organization is obviously not strictly necessary, and would have no authority beyond its good name, but likewise there is no authority stopping such an organization from being formed.  I agree with rooofl insofar as I think that Bitcoin's most prolific users, developers and contributors could benefit from being a little bit less anarchistic - organize, vote on leaders and proposals, make press releases, and assert some of the authority that comes with their experience.  If anyone wants to reject that authority, they are more than free to compete with it.  But there is nothing philosophically contradictory (in my opinion) or logistically preventable about the formation of a dominant "Bitcoin Organization".

I am in the second camp. To me, Bitcoin is a new and exciting idea. It's original, so it should have an original symbol that represents it uniquely. It also has potential to become a universal currency that transcends political boundaries, so I really think it should not co-opt an existing currency's symbol.

I agree that it could take a long time before Bitcoin is big enough to be represented with its own Unicode character, but I don't think that's a problem we need to worry about at this stage. If Bitcoin is truly a worthwhile and meaningful idea destined for mass recognition, Unicode adoption will eventually follow. Worrying about Unicode representation beforehand is, I think, putting the cart before the horse. Until then, "BTC" is perfectly understandable in the digital realm.

That said, I really like the b'at:

https://en.bitcoin.it/w/images/en/a/ad/Bat.png

Absolutely correct. In fact, I think that the emergence of a dominant "Bitcoin Organization" is inevitable, given enough time. There's always a Google or an IBM or a Microsoft waiting to be made.

I've seen a lot of websites already using the ฿
It seems that this matter is decided, at least for now

Wrong.

Tell it to these guys:

https://en.bitcoin.it/
http://freebitcoins.appspot.com/
https://www.kalyhost.com/?Currency=BTC
https://www.autovps.net/?Currency=BTC

and many others

I don't like that ฿ sign and fortunatelly noone has to use it just because some people do :P
฿TC looks weird, it's like U$D

Agreed!

Having just read through this entire thread I can see that there are some very good arguments for a number of the candidates.  Personally I think that the symbol ought to be an existing UTF-8 symbol so that it can be readily used on most systems or browsers and not require additional fonts to be installed.

I like the ฿ symbol because it is very clear and easy to read, but the arguments against deliberately choosing the symbol of another currency are reasonable (even if that has already been done with $ and ¥).

Of the other already proposed unicode characters I'd then look at Ⓑ.  I think ⓑ is a little too difficult to read in most standard font sizes (10pt or 12pt).

I have, however, considered a couple of other characters.  I looked for characters which were reminiscent of combining a 1 and a 0, since they're what make a bit.  An obvious candidate would be Ø (U+00d8), except that could easily be mistaken for a zero in some fonts.  The other one, which I am a little more in favour of is ɸ (U+0278).

A double stroked B (with or without a circle) would be great, but such a beast is not available in UTF-8 and there's no real point in picking a symbol that may never be able to be added (and if it is wouldn't be for several years).  The copyleft symbol still hasn't been added to unicode and it has far more people pushing for it.  I think that getting creative with the logo is a great way to push Bitcoin, but a recognised symbol should be able to be used straight away in order to push adoption of the currency.

What percentage of webbrowsers used today still can't handle webfonts?

If you only care about "first world" users, then assuming that everyone has a system made in the last seven years is fine.  If you want to spread this far and wide, don't make that assumption.

That's true. And we also must think about an offline use of a bitcoin character. Do you remember paper ? ^^
There is not @fontface anymore whithout a connexion, but BTC don't always need a connexion as far as I understood.

What about one of these?

https://i.imgur.com/Iz4Wu.png

https://i.imgur.com/d3Aqk.png

I prefer the first.

Small examples:

https://i.imgur.com/Qip7P.png 3.45

https://i.imgur.com/FamYJ.png 3.45

http://sharealogo.com/wp-content/uploads/Chanel_ai.png

Jus' sayin'...

Good point.  It's important to allow aspiring economics students to be able to include the relevant character in a thesis.  This means it needs to be available to word processors and editors.  It needs to be reproduced in both e-books and hard copy.

+1

It's sounding like a straight-up unicode character would be the best, these things considered. Although an image would work as well, since most word processors and editors allow image embedding. Still, that would be a pain.

Given the choices, I think I'm just going to type "BTC" when I want to indicate bitcoins.

All this over which "B" symbol to use?  My thought would be to go with something unique, something unused in currency, and lying outside currency symbology:

∆

∆2.33

And the delta symbol relates to the letter "d" - as in Digital...

Of course, the Triforce would be sick, but might not show up well in smaller sizes and obviously does not live in unicode.

Whatcha think?

lol, having the  triforce as symbol would be fun

Yeah, but turn it around such that it has "two horns". Like the pentagram.

We read this entire thread and designed an alternative to the current logo versions.
Have a look to our project (http://www.ecogex.com/bitcoin/), and the dedicated topic on this forum (http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=9562.0;topicseen).

Nice, copy to clipboard button needed!

Is it Ƀ or Ƀ in a circle?

Some more options for including the power symbol:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3105/5752786253_66b6c2b4af_s.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/62851908@N03/5752786253/)http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2471/5752786233_64b6cf66ec_s.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/62851908@N03/5752786233/)

Every week I'm torn between 2 different symbols. This week it's β and Ƀ (http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=9562.0) Right now, I'm leaning towards β because of how easy it is to right, and how it just kind of naturally looks like a currency symbol.

I think one other issue that needs to be considered is how the bitcoin symbol would look when expressing values far smaller than 1 BTC.  I know it hasn't been absolutely established yet that BTC will use SI units, but I think it is highly likely that we will end up using the convention of 0.001 BTC = 1 milli-bitcoin and 0.000001 BTC = 1 micro-bitcoin.  If that's the case, then we will probably end up using "m" for milli and "μ" for micro.

When you set the various symbols next to these prefixes, they look like this:

0.001 ฿ = 1 m฿ = 1000 μ฿
0.001 Ⓑ = 1 mⒷ = 1000 μⒷ
0.001 ⓑ = 1 mⓑ = 1000 μⓑ
0.001 Ƀ = 1 mɃ = 1000 μɃ
0.001 ¤ = 1 m¤ = 1000 μ¤
0.001 β = 1 mβ = 1000 μβ

To me, the Ⓑ and ⓑ symbols look very awkward in these cases, whereas the others are more aesthetically pleasing.  My personal preference is for the ฿ symbol, since it looks like money.  Since that's being used as the Bhat currency symbol already, though, my second choice would be for the β, since it has a nice visual flow when combined with the milli and micro prefixes.

http://img846.imageshack.us/img846/1/btch.png (http://img846.imageshack.us/i/btch.png/)

Voted for Ƀ.
You should remember that ฿ is already in use!

Bitcoin: Ƀ


And see this too: http://www.ecogex.com/bitcoin/

 ;D

I've been feeling the β lately, so here's my mediocre take on the logo:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/23228112/%CE%B2.png
Obviously based on bitboy's work.

I've decided to throw my support behind:

Ƀ

I just changed the currency symbol on SquareWear (when you put the currency selector on bitcoin) and put the new "bitcoin accepted" logo in my footer.  I have a few of the other logos in shirts I sell, but that's okay for now.

I support Ƀ.

β is already used enough in math. (We should avoid any Greek letter in fact)

Ƀ isn't seen so often and consequently an association between the symbol and Bitcoin can easily be made.

i like the 8 with a line through it

Wavering back and forth between Ƀ and β, but either way, I really like bitboy's graphics. So heres bitboy's logo with Ƀ:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/23228112/%C9%83.png

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/23228112/%C9%83rotated.png
Maybe he will eventually become active on the forums once again, and remake it better than I can.

yeah, i like the Ƀ symbol too :D

I still would rather if we managed to get the b'at into the official Unicode standard, but the B with stroke (https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/%C9%83) is definitly growing on me

+1

Dude, it has been almost a month since the last post on May 26, and all you can say is "+1"?   >:(

http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a127/GTRVspec95/EpicThreadRevival_motivator5470661.jpg

lately it's been /b/ xD

I'm curious, anyone see any objection to using ß as the symbol? I've actually been using that for weeks in private conversations with friends regarding bitcoins... And everyone seems to have no trouble with understanding what I mean when I put in, say, ß2.50, while talking about price or mining and stuff like that.

+1, the beta symbol was the first thing that came to mind for me too. I think it works personally

I don't think include any "dot" in the character is a good idea since people will write the character somewhere.

Here is my design, a vertical line with a spiral. and looks like "b" in a circle, and will be very easy to write.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4313621/btcs.png

Gee... that looks familiar... where did I see that... Oh yeah. Back in the first couple of pages:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/146411/bat.png

[facepalm].  Wow.  This brings back memories of July 2010 when this thread was started almost a year ago.  People think they're clever by adding a new curve or slash to a "b" or extending a previous design with an extra loop or rotating.  Wow.  That's all I can say.

All I'm saying is, do your homework. That was my design I posted, and there's another guy who actually uses a much better version as his avatar.

I prefer Ƀ
However when I used that on my website, it wasn't rendering in my compatibility testing on a virtual machine with IE6, Firefox 2 and Chrome - just showed up as a square box or a ?
Firefox 4+ renders it fine.

so I use ฿ on my site because it shows up properly on default installs of all browsers I tested.

Sorry my comment unintentionally came across as belittling you, but I actually liked your design myrkul.  Simple and sleek.  I was actually intending to just make fun of this newbie peak for being so late in the game.

I didn't take it that way, but thanks for apologizing anyway. ;)

How about the three bars? ≡ (alt+240)

It looks like horizontal "bits" or 1's.

≡10.5
≡10.5
≡10.5

I still think we should go with ß! It's more mnemonic, it's readily available even on most systems that aren't Unicode, it's usually not too hard to type even on an English keyboard. :)

I went for Ⓑ. Bitcoins are not bahts.

Hi,
I like the already mentioned @-stile b, but I think it looks better with the circle clockwise.
Something like this:
http://s1.directupload.net/images/110625/frpdlb27.png

But I also like the idea of using the greek beta character because it's already available in fonts.

Regards,
twinpeaks

e...In fact I went through all of 13 pages before post my design. It have some differnece from myrkul's or TiagoTiago's. It's a vertical line with clockwise spiral, not a 'b' in an anti clock open circle. People will be more clear on how to write it at one stroke, isn't it?

https://s3.amazonaws.com/SER/Misc/BitCoinLogo.jpg

How about something like that?

I apologize if that design has already been proposed - I didn't read through all 13 pages.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/SER/Misc/BitCoinLogo2.jpg

Or this?

how about a cursive lower case "b"?

Well, ß isn't lowercase or cursive but it's in pretty much all commonly used character sets and fonts. :)

And it also seems more international (yeah, pretty unscientific comment, I know) which Bitcoin itself is supposed to be.

Instead of ฿ or β, why don't stick with good old B?</irony>

+1

/b/

?

My Idea and explanation:
Done roughly in MS paint:
https://i.imgur.com/vVRc3.jpg

Anyways, I think whatever the symbol is it should be both easy to identify and easy to write on paper, and not overly complex.

My symbol is basically a modified lower-case 'b' with an extension of the vertical line, a slightly more ovular semi-circle than normal which slightly protrudes out of the vertical line (giving it the subtle impression of a reversed 'c').

What do you guys think?

What I'd like to know is, Why this fascination with writing down on paper the symbol of a digital currency?

Since when does dealing with currency digitally make it irrelevant to hand-writing?

Look at the dollar symbol, for example. Excluding all scenarios where money is being moved or transferred, it's still probably the most commonly written on paper in the US.

Children learn to write currency symbols in school, people write of them in journals, on post-it notes, scraps of paper. Most of the world does not have a computer in their home.

Not being able to write down a symbol representing currency easily would serve as a handicap. People need to be able to express themselves how they want on paper and digitally.

Hi all, if you agree, please merge all serious proposals and requirement for Bitcoin sign here: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Bitcoin_symbol#New_Unicode_symbol (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Bitcoin_symbol#New_Unicode_symbol) in order to have a clear and high quality overview in stead of them being distributed over many long posts. Of course the posts remain useful in discussing proposed Bitcoin signs.

I think you missed this project http://www.ecogex.com/bitcoin/
Forum discussion: http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=9562.20

Bump to get more votes, since votes are good.

The votes are pretty much meaningless if not all alternatives are present

I don't understand people who says "We can't use ฿ because is used by Thai Baht".

In Latin America most countries use $ as their own money symbol, same with countries which use "dollars" (not US dollars).

This only has one "con": It's not present on keyboard layouts.

Now that was a long thread to read through.  I want to revive this topic.  What about if we use a B symbol with double vertical lines that only come out of the top and bottom of the B, similar to what are on the casascius coins and the official bitcoin client icon?

https://i.imgur.com/Itz3g.png

How about something liek this?
https://i.imgur.com/deT5g.png

It appears that Unicode has given Bitcoin the finger as far as having a designation for a Bitcoin character included.

Now the question is: which private use area character code do we use? The representation of the symbol is really up to font designers, but with a recommended form of upper-case B with top and bottom double-ticks.

I suggest U+EBC0 (and call it "Latin Capital B with Double Stroke" or simply "Bitcoin Currency Sign"), unless anybody can cite any other software or fonts that use this particular private mapping code. A font can be created with just this additional character, and most OSs will search other fonts for the private character and use it when the current font doesn't include it.

〽 = Unicode Bitcoin exchange rate graph...

ᛔᛠᛈ 🐧

So many people have so many of these box fonts for me.  One box.  Then three boxes, a space, then the fourth box.

I think some people here might just be allergic to bahts.

Was there a proposal that was officially rejected?  I couldn't find one. http://www.unicode.org/pending/proposals.html

Yes, it depends on your OS and what fonts and language support you have installed.  I see:

https://i.imgur.com/9qxNj.png

citation needed (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finger_protocol)

I see:

http://we.lovebitco.in/images/20111101133319_unicode-1.png

The last one is Unicode 6, so not many will have it. A picture of a penguin, but no Bitcoin symbol?


Google site:unicode.org bitcoin (http://tinyurl.com/6apuwz6)

oooh, I don't see the penguin symbol.  Any idea what I need to install or configure in linux environment to see it?  I see the rest.

You can install the Symbola (http://users.teilar.gr/~g1951d/) font (you don't need to specify it on modern OSs for it's characters to be used). It supports most of Unicode 6 and some proposed signs too. Then something like BabelMap (http://www.babelstone.co.uk/Software/BabelMap.html) is a character map replacement that will let you see more characters.

The penguin originates in Japanese emoji (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emoji) characters, which are used in Japanese cel phones for cute text messages (and now work on iPhone4S too).

From what I was able to find in Google, there had been a proposal, and the Unicode Consortium had asked for more details, such as evidence of a plain text symbol being used and research into possible trademark status.  So I don't think it has been rejected, it is waiting for "our" feedback.

I couldn't find anything by searching, but I have seen this version in unicode. Can somebody point me to the code?

Ok, it wasn't unicode, just .ttf html/css magic: use \[BTC\] (remove back-slashes) to enable that on the forum.

I fired off an email to the BitCoin Foundation:


And just for the example, according to XE.COM,  currently $1.00 = BTC0.0101174

i like oandas btc symbol

I also sent an e-mail to Lindsey, suggesting that they create a TeX package that can be used in documents now even before there is an official unicode symbol. e.g.


would then let us do

The item costs 3.45 \bitcoin{}

and it would insert the design by Pander.

Or if we prefer the Wareen design -


The package would use postscript fonts designed by a font designer. It doesn't have to have an actual unicode number to be used in LaTeX.

That would less us play with the different options helping us determine which we prefer. And when there is an official character, the TeX macro package could be updated so that all we have to do is recompile the document and the official character is used.

slightly off-topic but can anyone point me to the exact font which was used for this graphic? Or was it "hand" drawn? Does anyone know the closest font? Bookman Old and Rockwell make a similar B but not exactly like it.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/File:BC_Logo_.png

I prefer standard unicode characters:

ᴃ for bitcoin
ƀ for bit where 1 bit = 10e-6 bitcoins

Interesting... http://graphemica.com/%E1%B4%83 and http://graphemica.com/%E2%90%A2

Release date this month TBD.

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/ca/3a/54/ca3a545b81bf774e1673355d516d900e.jpg

https://twitter.com/TheButterZone/status/876722022222397440

#Bitcoin sign enters Unicode 10.0 (see bottom of page 2): http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/Unicode-10.0/U100-20A0.pdf

If to compare with other world currencies, then it is rational to take B crossed out.