₿ Turns 8: Celebrating Bitcoin’s Unicode Symbol Milestone
Eight years ago, Bitcoin got its official stamp of approval—not from regulators, but from the Unicode Consortium. The ₿ symbol became more than code; it became a cultural icon.
How a single character conquered keyboards
Before 2017, Bitcoin lacked a standardized symbol. The Unicode 10.0 update changed everything—embedding ₿ into every major operating system. No more awkward 'BTC' substitutions or wingding-font workarounds.
Why this matters beyond typography
Unicode adoption signaled Bitcoin's transition from internet oddity to financial infrastructure. Meanwhile, traditional finance still struggles with emoji compliance—but sure, keep worrying about 'blockchain, not Bitcoin.'
The ₿ symbol now appears in everything from POS systems to rap lyrics. Not bad for an eight-year-old that's never once apologized for its volatility.
₿ was already found in Wikipedia and Wired magazine years before the 2015 proposal, and was community used in bitcoin wallet and payment apps.
Bitcoiners had organized to push for an official symbol in June 2014, when the Bitcoin Foundation formed a volunteer Standards Committee to decide how it should look. Informal discussions had started in 2013, but the currency symbol had been a recurring topic since as early as February 2010.
Shirriff’s proposal had support of the Bitcoin Foundation and its Standards Committee, as well as Peter Todd, Eric Martindale, Justin Drake, Theo Chino, Michael Marquart (under theymos) and a string of early Bitcoin startups.
Unicode accepted the pitch after only one month, in November 2015, leaving the Bitcoin community to wait for half a halving epoch to really celebrate. It was the first new currency symbol in 24 years, since the Korean won (₩) was included in Unicode 1.1, released in June 1993.
Loading Tweet..Before all this, the community was somewhat split over how they should represent bitcoin. The Thai baht (฿) was a common suggestion, but didn’t go down well with everybody. “You cannot and should not just steal [a] symbol from [an] existing official currency of [an] independent country,” one Bitcointalk user wrote. Ƀ was another.
However, ₿ is the closest to resembling the symbol that Satoshi had designed as the icon for their original Bitcoin client, making it the obvious choice once the proposal was finalized.
₿ represents a whole bitcoin, with the symbol for an individual satoshi still up for debate (as is the term “satoshi” every now and then.)
While Unicode may recognize bitcoin, the International Organization of Standardization (ISO) doesn’t.
The organization is yet to include BTC or XBT in its ISO 4217 list of active currency codes. Bitcoin’s official code cannot start with a “B” because it clashes with Bhutan’s country code, BT.
A Bitcoin Foundation working group had been tasked with applying for ISO approval in October 2014, but apparently never succeeded.
No better time to revive those efforts than now.
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