[VOTE] ISO Currency Code bringing Bitcoin into the mainstream financial markets

[solex]

..Bitcoin will get where it wants to go eventually no reason to force it at every chance you get and wind up with everything crushed by regulators and gigantic banks.

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

..< MAKES YOU SUBJECT TO A WHOLE RAFT OF LAWS>>>>

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

[grau]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[thezerg]

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

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

[commonancestor]

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

[miner2049]

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

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

[Piper67]

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

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

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

[The-Real-Link]

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

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

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

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

[DataPlumber]

Apparently XBC is a "basket of currencies":

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

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

[MiracleRiver]

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


Thanks for the info.

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

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

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

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

Thank you for your interest in our company and services.

Sincerely,


XE Currency Services Team


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

[Zomdifros]

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


Thanks for the info.

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

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

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

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

Thank you for your interest in our company and services.

Sincerely,


XE Currency Services Team


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

That's why we should use XBT.

[Frozenlock]

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

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

[John Kirk]

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

[Dabs]

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

[solex]

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

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

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

[DataPlumber]

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

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

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

There. Fixed it for you.

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

[Peter Lambert]

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


Thanks for the info.

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

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

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

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

Thank you for your interest in our company and services.

Sincerely,


XE Currency Services Team


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

That's why we should use XBT.

I suggested this back in 2011.

[molecular]

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

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

[Peter Lambert]

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

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

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

[herzmeister]

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

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

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

wha, u didn't learn how 2 internet? 

[DataPlumber]

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

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

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

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