Ƀ — Universal Bitcoin Logo Alternative | Hacker News Reader

Ƀ — Universal Bitcoin Logo Alternative

ecogex.com

319 pointsbpierre194 comments

That is Unicode U+0243 "Latin Capital Letter B with stroke". It is in the Latin Extended-B block, which contains among other mysteries, about half of the latin letters with strokes.

I'd love to see a "Unicode: What where they thinking?" page that documents why they thought a particular codepoint should be in the standard. I mean, capital A, B, and C with a stroke, but not capital D? A and C have their stroke diagonal, B has its horizontal, U also gets a horizontal stroke, but it is named a "bar". All very mysterious.

Capital D does have a "with stroke" character, Ð. Code point U+00D0. In actuality, it's a capital eth (ð), which is a bona fide letter by itself rather than an existing letter with an extra mark in it.

> Capital D does have a "with stroke" character, Ð. Code point U+00D0. In actuality, it's a capital eth (ð), which is a bona fide letter by itself rather than an existing letter with an extra mark in it.

Actually Unicode has two D with strokes, the "LATIN CAPITAL LETTER ETH" Ð (U+00D0) and "LATIN CAPITAL LETTER D WITH STROKE" Đ (U+0110). The uppercase letters are basically indistinguishable, but they have different lowercase letters: đ and ð.

There is a capital D with stroke: Đ

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

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar_(diacritic)

Michael Kaplan's "Every Character Has a Story" is kind of like that, but it looks like he's adding to it slower than the Unicode folks are adding characters.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/michkap/archive/tags/every+character...

The Unicode people don’t sit around and invent characters – nor do they systematically determine the complete list of characters that should be in the standard.

Instead, they consider proposals from people who want their already-in-use character sets to included in the standard. So if someone proposes SINGING OCTOPUS, DANCING OCTOPUS, and SINGING SQUID, but not DANCING SQUID, well, DANCING SQUID won’t be in Unicode. There are lots of gaps like this.

The dancing octopus will have to wait for the next version.

The unicode consortium is currently only adding the SMILING OCTOPUS: http://codepoints.net/U+1F419

Probably not supported by your browser's font just yet: 🐙🐙🐙

It is in my Firefox Aurora. :D

Thanks for sharing codepoints.net, I didn't know about it before. I wish the campfire :metal: emoji was in 'actual emoji'...

I haven't looked at the Supplementary Multilingual Plane: Miscellaneous Symbols And Pictographs [1F300...1F5FF] in a while. My favorite characters are 👹 (Japanese Ogre)👺(Japanese Goblin)👻(Ghost) and 👽(Extra Terrestrial).

The symbol 💣 (Bomb, 1F4A3) is useful for reviewing movies using Leonard Maltin's notation.

Since we're picking favorites, why not the happy pile of poo? 💩

It's not officially supposed to be happy, but Apple seems to have decided eyes and a smile would give it more character.

http://codepoints.net/U+1F4A9

Works on Opera too.

And IE10. (!)

My IE10 octopus is missing 3 arms and a mouth, resulting in something that looks more like a 3-legged grey alien trying to surrender than an octopus who is smiling.

🐙🐙🐙 Yes!

Interestingly enough, the octopus shows up but the proposed Bitcoin symbol doesn't (iOS 6)

Interesting. I'm also on iOS 6 and both show up for me. I wonder why.

Edit: in safari, the symbol shows correctly in the window header, but not the page itself. In news:yc, a hacker news app, the symbol shows up fine. It also shows up in the WebView in news:yc.

Firefox Nightly reporting in 🐙🐙🐙

Interestingly, works on chrome android, but not chrome OSX. If it's copy and pasted elsewhere in OSX though it comes up as a red octopus

Got it in ios 5, which came out a while ago. Title character is still just a square. Weird.

The word "smiling" does not appear on the linked page.

It works in Firefox 19.0.2 and Safari 6.0.3 but not in Chrome 26.0.1410.43.

There are three capital D letters with strokes within the Latin range: U+00D0 (capital Eth - old English, Icelandic), U+0110 (capital D with stroke - south Slavic, Vietnamese), U+0189 (capital African D - African languages).

I had my "What are they thinking?" moment when I found out about snowman.

http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/2603/index.htm

After that the only one to shock me was "Pile of poo"

http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/1f4a9/index.htm

Is 'PILE OF POO' (U+1F4A9) more shocking than 'LOVE HOTEL' (U+1F3E9)?

http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/1f3e9/index.htm

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_hotel

Both were readily in common use on Japanese phones. Most of Unicode is existing character sets being incorporated.

Looks like they're part of the Emoji set

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emoji#Emoji_in_the_Unicode_stan...

Well, exactly. Emoji are the pictographic emoticons that were in common use on Japanese phones in proprietary encodings.

Well sure, but since when is emoji part of unicode?

Emoji is a lot more mainstream now, too. Both Android and iOS support them, not just 'Japanese phones'.

Uh, what?

>since when is emoji part of unicode?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emoji#Emoji_in_the_Unicode_stan...

>Emoji is a lot more mainstream now, too. Both Android and iOS support them, not just 'Japanese phones'.

Um, yes. I said "that were". I realise it is now mainstream now because it is now in Unicode.

You may be interested in this wonderful article [1] about how these and many other unusual symbols ended up in Unicode. I personally had never considered how much of an issue including flags could be. Quite an interesting discussion around it on HN as well. [2]

[1] - http://www.reigndesign.com/blog/love-hotels-and-unicode/ [2] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3792247

Theres not anything seedy about a love hotel. In Japan sometimes it's nicer for couples to go there rather than try and have a romantic evening in a tiny 1 room flat on a futon.

the diversity in font implementation is interesting to see: http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/2603/fontsuppor...

The snowman is an old meteorological symbol for snow. Predates Unicode by decades. I assume it's because a snowman is easier to render by hand than an actual snowflake. (Or like how rain is symbolized not by trying to draw recognizable rain itself, but by an umbrella.)

The OP suggests that U+0243 B with stroke is a "capitalized alternate symbol for the voiced bilabial fricative in Americanist phonetic notation"

I would suspect that the other stroke capitals that are present were used in specific actual alphabets (and probably represented in some existing pre-unicode font or code block), whether 'Americanist phonetic alphabet', or other -- and the stroke capitals that are not present, were not.

In general, unicode codepoints are justified by actually existing use.

(There is an interesting metaphysical problem that arises as our lives become increasingly digitized -- things that are not present in unicode _won't_ be used, because they won't be _able_ to be used online... so how will new things be added justified by use, once all the existing pre-digital glyphs have been added? I dunno.)

> In general, unicode codepoints are justified by actually existing use.

I vaguely remember something about Klingon and unicode related to that... ah, there we go:

"In September 1997, Michael Everson made a proposal for encoding this in Unicode.[2] The Unicode Technical Committee rejected the Klingon proposal in May 2001 on the grounds that research showed almost no use of the script for communication, and the vast majority of the people who did use Klingon employed the Latin alphabet by preference.[3] Everson created a mapping of pIqaD into the Private Use Area of Unicode, which he listed in the ConScript Unicode Registry (U+F8D0 to U+F8FF[4][5])"

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

Everson did manage to get J.R.R. Tolkien's Cirth and Tengwar tentatively included; see http://www.unicode.org/roadmaps/smp/

Interesting! (The proposals themselves, for anyone else interested: http://std.dkuug.dk/JTC1/SC2/WG2/docs/n1641/n1641.htm, http://std.dkuug.dk/JTC1/SC2/WG2/docs/n1642/n1642.htm)

No. The roadmap indicates that they are formally proposed for inclusion and yet to be accepted (and nor rejected either, as in [1]). From the bottom of the roadmap:

> (Text between parentheses) indicates scripts for which proposals have been formally submitted to the UTC or to WG2. There is generally a link to the formal proposal.

[1] http://www.unicode.org/roadmaps/not-the-roadmap/

According to the phrasing on the bottom of the page I linked to, the blocks are "tentatively allocated." I'm not sure how this is substantially different from the phrasing I used, which was "tentatively included."

In a related vein, I suspect ligatures, small caps, and non-lining figures already look weird to "digital natives" because they were dropped during the age of DTP and generally have only been reintroduced as typographic novelties.

It would be interesting to do a study, I would suspect those forms are still seen as 'classy', 'elegant' and 'better' -- non-lining figures and the like. But maybe that's just my own preference/hope, and in fact they are just seen as 'weird'.

But hey, everyone likes an actual em or en dash to two or one hyphen, don't they? No? Say it ain't so! (Not that anyone, including me, bothers to enter them on the keyboard, see above).

They are very easy to use on the mac — shift-option-minus.

For what is worth, the voiced bilabial fricative is a sound similar to English "b" and "v". Languages that use that sound normally write it with "b", "v" or "w". It's common in Spanish but also creeps up in certain words in Portuguese, Japanese and others. [1]

In IPA, the standard phonetic alphabet, that sound is notated by "β" instead. The b-with-a-stroke, as well as barred-b (ᴃ) were used by some linguists before IPA became widespread, but they still kept appearing since they were easier to type in most typewriters (B, backspace, hyphen) and apparently also because some linguists didn't like IPA.

In addition, b-with-a-stroke is part of the Jarai alphabet, a variant of the Vietnamese alphabet used to write the Jarai language. [2]

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_bilabial_fricative [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jarai_language

Everyone can add new things in the PUA, in fact, that's where Emoji were before they were encoded. There is the ConScript Unicode Registry [1], an inofficial effort to map various constructed scripts to the PUA without them clashing. There are lots of pages in Klingon out there that make use of that encoding even though it's not in Unicode. Some of those have been encoded formally by now, so there is a way of creating new characters. It just takes a little longer.

Also, by now with webfonts you can easily create your own font to include characters from the PUA you designed, so you can use them online.

[1] http://www.evertype.com/standards/csur/

There is an interesting metaphysical problem that arises as our lives become increasingly digitized -- things that are not present in unicode _won't_ be used, because they won't be _able_ to be used online...

I remember reading about exactly this problem recently in China: http://www.dnaindia.com/world/report_chinese-villagers-force...

so how will new things be added justified by use, once all the existing pre-digital glyphs have been added?

I see two possible scenarios:

1. They won't be. Instead, existing glyphs will become increasingly overloaded with new meanings.

2. New glyphs will start their life as icons. Once a certain icon becomes wide spread, it may be made into a code point with a glyph.

In practice, it would probably be some combination of the two.

> A and C have their stroke diagonal, B has its horizontal

That's not something specified by Unicode, it's up to font designers how characters actually look.

I don't see a strong need for special symbols for currencies. Currencies can be represented using three letter codes like GBP, USD and BTC. It's ASCII, unambiguous and scales better than having a new custom symbol per character.

Where's the "Upvote with half my karma" button when you need it?

About that: note that in the ISO standard for those 3 letter currency codes, the first two letters represent the country or union that issues the currency. For instance, there will not be another GB* currency that is not british. And BT* correspond to Bhutan, IIRC. So BTC is problematic.

That's as arbitrary as the idea that only a nation-state can support a currency.

Arbitrary or not it's a standard that's worth following. Maybe there should be a prefix for country-less currencies.

XXB maybe?

That prefix already exists, it's a single X. For example, gold is XAU.

XBC is already used for "European Unit of Account 9". XBI, XBO, XBT and XBN are available.

http://www.currency-iso.org/dam/downloads/dl_iso_table_a1.xm...

The ISO 4217 currency codes [1] look pretty arbitrary too. For example, why is the Afghan afghani "AFN" instead of "AFA", or the Japanese yen "JPY" instead of "JAY"?

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_4217#Active_codes

It's JPY because the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 2-letter country code for Japan is JP. Similarly, it is GBP because the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 2-letter country code for the United Kingdom is GB, not UK. ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 is used everywhere, for example on the web for ccTLDs (although the UK is an exception, since it has GB allocated, but for backwards-compatibility with another network, it also got UK, and now disallows registrations on GB).

The Afghani is another case of revaluation. It was AFA before 2003.

So then Bitcoin should adopt ‘EAB’ (Earth Bitcoin)? Or ‘WOB’ (World Bitcoin)? That'd be fun, a Bitcoin penny could be called an Erby or Wobby (that's about USD 0.90 right now).

I'd suggest IAB for International Bitcoin, but it already has meaning in 'Internal Affairs Bureau' ...

I think you'll find that EVERY three letter acronym already stands for something or other. Don't let that deter you.

I believe X is used for non-state stuff. For example, an ounce of gold is XAU, and silver is XAG. So maybe XBC or XBT for bitcoin?

Where does euro fit in?

It's "EU" (3166-1 value) + "R" (currency identifier):

For practical reasons, the ISO 3166/MA has "reserved the two-letter combination EU for the purpose of identifying the European Union within the framework of ISO 3166-1".

Bitcoin could use XXB or XBT. (XBC is already taken for some EU bond market units.)

Yeah, which is kind of weird when a country revalues their currency. For instance, Mexican Peso was the obvious MXP, then it was revalued so they needed something new, so it's MXN (Mexican Nuevo Peso, I guess). Similarly, Turkish Lyra went from TRL to TRY ("Y" for "Yeni" meaning New.)

According to the Wayback Machine, this exact page has been online for two years[1]. It's also been mentioned on the Wikipedia page for 'Ƀ' since June of 2011[2]. The OP has submitted this link once before, 10 months a go[3].

That's not to say that this isn't an interesting proposal, it just means some ideas take time before they gain any traction.

[1] http://web.archive.org/web/20110815000000*/http://www.ecogex...

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=%C9%83&diff=54...

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3987186

It looks like it was designed in 1977, which is disappointing because a currency symbol should have a timeless design. Use of color is nearly always doomed to failure because others will not be diligent about reproducing the colours faithfully.

The existing Bitcoin symbol is far superior, and that it is identical to the Thai Baht is of no great significance - currency symbols are hardly unique. The horizontal bar looks awkward - it lends a poor balance to the design, and looks more like a rendering glitch in smaller sizes.

Looks terrible. The earlier B+$ blend (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bitcoin.png) works better. Alludes to a dollar sign, but uses the B. I'm not the biggest fan of Bitcoin, but I thought that logo was clever and memorable. This one looks like crap.

1) You are so quick to call this crap. 2) One of its explicit goals is to find an existing character. Your post ironically shows that you can't currently type the B+$ symbol.

Well, without hitting up the Google I have no idea how to type that B-with-a-line-through it, either.

Plus, yeah, I'm standing by my first reaction that it looks, if not like crap, than kind of random. It doesn't really communicate anything on its own. A bystander won't see it and think "this is a currency symbol." Which I would think Bitcoin proponents would want!

The guy you criticize makes it a point that he is trying to use a symbol that doesn't resemble the dollar sign since there is no correspondance between BTC and USD.

There's a very tight similarity: They're both currencies. Any icon for Bitcoin needs to communicate "I am a currency." Taking design elements from the dollar sign and Euro sign (the double bar through the middle) seems like a great way to do that.

Double bar is a great way to indicate currency? Dollar is often used with a single bar, just as pound, franc etc. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Currency-Symbol_Regions_o...

Oh, good lord. Let's just agree to use "💩". Problem solved.

Did you look at other currency signs? The EUR sign is an round E with two horizontal bars. The JPY symbol is a Y with two horizontal bars. The GBP sign is a curved L with one originally, but nowadays, in many fonts, two horizontal bars. The dollar, too had one vertical bar. Nowadays it has two, in many fonts. There is another dozen currencies with symbols following this logic. Do a google image search with "currency symbol" as the term.

Guess why?

Designers of currency symbols have silently agreed to use two bars to mean just that: "this symbol represents a currency". So the B with two bars, for Bitcoin, is perfect.

The real solution (that may need a website too, to advertise it to the masses, least not the peeps @ HN) is obviously to agree on some free unicode slot to occupy and to get font designers to incorporate this two bar 'B' into existing fonts, in this slot.

>The dollar, too had one vertical bar. Nowadays it has two, in many fonts.

That is not correct. There was not a transition from "two vertical bars" to "one vertical bar" [1]. Please document yourself before posting.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollar_sign#Origin

I do not know what you mean by "document". I studied typography and designed digital type, for a while, about 20 years ago. So I know a bit about the design side of things. And the design side is what my post is limited to. I am sorry if this was a tad ambiguous.

I did not talk about the history. I talked about a typographical design trend that pertains to currency symbols. Also not that better typefaces sometimes have both versions on the $ sign. One and two strokes. The default is admittedly still the single bar one though.

Expert discussion re. the one bar/two bar $ sign, that could be an interesting read: http://www.typophile.com/node/17976

So then, this part in the article didn't tell you how to type it?

"Ƀ (U+0243) is a unicode character used as a "capitalized alternate symbol for the voiced bilabial fricative in Americanist phonetic notation"

  | Well, without hitting up the Google I
  | have no idea how to type that B-with-a-line-through
  | it, either.

I guess the first question would be, "Without hitting up Google, do you know how to insert any Unicode character?"

Technically, ASCII characters are Unicode characters.

Of course. Depends how you interpret the word "any". It's like if someone asks you "can you grow ANY fruit tree?", and you say "I can grow apple trees".

The symbol the GP describing is an existing symbol, ฿, and is used for Thailand's currency, the baht: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thai_baht

I don't find it very aesthetically pleasing either. It's widely accepted that bitcoin is shortened to btc, so I don't think being able to type the symbol is really necessary. I couldn't type the new proposed character either without going back and looking up the alt code or copying it from character map.

... The logo you linked to does not look nice. I'm sorry.

Agreed. It looks like a lame coin you'd see on an online gambling site. The new B actually reminds me of a logo to a financial institution and is far more classy.

Just to note, I chose that image for the actual B+$ symbol, not to gold coin stuff around it. Yeah, that's pretty goofy looking.

Ah, got it. Yeah, I think if the B+$ symbol was given the same modern treatment shown in the original post, I would like it.

The problem is two fold:

1) Despite creating an actual style guide for the logo, including recommended usage, the proposal IMO lacks serious attention to typographic detail, the one thing a currency logo actually needs. None of the examples look particularly great: the type is misaligned, the text dominates the B logo in practically every badge.

2) The Wikimedia-linked B is much better designed as a shape, has the right weight, but the tacky coin presentation completely ruins it.

Someone needs to take approach 1 to proposal 2 and we'll all be better for it.

Edit: nevermind, someone already did: http://forrst.com/posts/Rebranding_of_Bitcoin-Ft5

If it were part of Unicode, I'd prefer the B+$.

I propose that the "B" aspect of Bitcoin should be downplayed (the initial isn't important, see dollar/pound) to instead put more focus on the "Bit" aspect since it is a digital currency. Combining a 1 and a 0, handily gives us the uppercase Phi! Φ

This also has other benefits:

  * Supported by most widely-used fonts.
  * Easy to pronounce, one syllable
  * Has mainstream connotations (bitcoins sounds like a nerd thing)
  * Could use the lowercase phi for a more granular denomination maybe

Precisely my train of thought. Don't see why we need something so obtuse when an obvious, widely recognisable and - as far as I know - an otherwise unused symbol is available.

Plus, aside from the appropriateness of the symbol, it also conveys the digital element of the currency - it'd be more "on brand" if I was in marketing!

I think that the lowercase phi as a lower denomination is an excellent extension of the idea.

Other benefits are that it will get confused with the usual radius symbol (because it's exactly the same), and may be used to name an angle.

If I end up being able to purchase things with angles, I would not complain! Measuring angles with Bitcoins may be less desirable though ;)

Phi is used in a lot of other places, so there's some ambiguity inherent in using that. $ is used in programming, but that's something that came after the symbol was assigned. ¥, £, € are not used for anything else that's common.

I don't agree. Whilst it is used for other things, it wouldn't be ambiguous for currency, as it is not an overloaded symbol in that context. The current symbol, a struck-through 'B', is the symbol for Thai currency - now that's ambiguous!

And while we're at it, why don't those thieving Canadians get their own currency symbol!

¥ is/was the directory seperator on some DOS and Windows based Japanese and Korean computers.

Awesome fact! If this ever come sup in a pub quiz, I am prepared haha

Why do dollar signs matter? Is this not a currency outside the usual system? It has absolutely no relationship to dollars except for exchange. It's as closely aligned to Yen (¥) or Philippine Pesos (₱) which both have horizontal bars.

Additionally, the sign you suggest is closer to a Cifrão than a dollar sign as it has two vertical bars. Unfortunately it's common for people to arbitrarily use two vertical strokes on a dollar. If this were to happen with the Bitcoin, then there would be confusion with the Thai Baht (฿).

Instead, use a horizontal stroke and the ambiguity is removed. The symbol doesn't have any close matches in current use or in Wikipedia's 'historical' section.

Not enough bling. It should be " ҉в҉ " for maximum currency power.

Personally, I like it.

One request: someone should declare that the Comic Sans version should have an eye: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euro_sign .

Maybe I just did.

Swap your []s and ()s.

That still doesn't work, because this site doesn't use the same formatting as (reddit)[http://www.reddit.com]

AKA "basically markdown." Oh well.

Crap. I have shamed my family, my ancestors, my culture, and myself.

Better than "Shame. I have crapped my family, my ancestors, my culture, and myself"

I think ฿ is becoming de-facto bitcoin sign quickly.

And sincerely it looks more appealing as a currency sign either.

Except ฿ is already the sign of the Thai baht (currency of Thailand), which is pretty confusing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thai_baht

Not a fatal issue. A plain $ sign is very often used to mean a non-U.S.-dollar currency, with minimal confusion due to context.

Well, according to Wikipedia it started out as the Spanish Peso (pre-dating the US Dollar), so it's no wonder that countries that use the Peso (like mine) use that sign.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollar_sign#Origin

BTW the character intending to be the Bitcoin Logo shows up as a box for me, I could only see it on the original link's page.

I generally find this to be extremely confusing.

Really? Why?

If you're in a country where a dollar is used, and you see $, you assume it's the local dollar. If it's not, they'll use something to denote the currency. If it's the internet, same thing, you see if the company is Canadian, or American, or whathaveyou.

And what should they use in Thailand for Bitcoin?

Why not ฿ and ฿BTC much like we do $ and $USD here in Canada?

That has any significance to my comment... how?

My comment was very specifically showing how using the dollar sign in a country where a local currency which is also a dollar (ie. Canada) but not USD is not confusing, because you have local context. You know you're not talking about the US Dollar, because the local currency takes precedence.

And, as winthrowe replied, what would happen is you add a currency denotation after the value, such as CAD, USD, AUD, etc. It's already done all over the world.

My experience (from living in such countries) is that indeed people prefix with the country to make it unambiguous. I.e. AU$, CA$, etc.

Wikipedia already has a disambiguation page for it linking to bitcoin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%B8%BF_(disambiguation)

Actually, I propose we just submit a new symbol for the next Unicode release later this year:

http://www.unicode.org/mail-arch/unicode-ml/y2012-m12/0037.h...

That's a horrible idea if you want the mark to be used across the internet. It will take plenty of time for new systems to use newer version of Unicode, and some systems will never support it at this point.

I disagree. All major browsers will support it within a couple months and any Bitcoin related software would just build the symbol in. Where else is it going to get much use? Microsoft Word?

Anyone using outdated browsers due to company requirements? Anyone using, for example, XP, which is fast losing browser support?

And yes, Word. Software people actually use. If you want your currency to succeed, you better hope that its symbol can be quickly and easily viewed by everyone.

And "a few months" is not really correct. Chrome 25 still doesn't support parts or all of the January 2012 version, released over a year ago.

Browsers are arguably the easiest to support. Include an .eot, .ttf, and @font-face and you've covered a huge portion of browsers.

Now you've just added another requirement for any site that wants to advertise Bitcoin acceptance using a symbol. Add in a @font-face, and you're all good to go.

That's not going to fly.

How is this different than "add in <bitcoin image>"? It could be shortened to "include this script and it'll do it for you" - there are plenty of cases of that working. Google Analytics, for instance.

This symbol isn't bad, but I like the current Bitcoin symbol. Further I think the Bitcoin symbol should be ADDED to unicode. It's a new currency, it's a new symbol. it's in the vernacular. It should be added to unicode. Rather than co-opt another symbol that might have other uses.

I can understand the reticence to add a symbol because some group of people have begun using it for their nomenclature. That kind of thing happens all the time, after all, bitcoin could go away. I understand that, but exactly how much traction does one need to get? Does 10% of the planet need to know? Does 30%? 50%? When's the tipping point?

Then again. If our new little currency has 3 different symbols and no one can agree on what it should look like. THEN I'd understand not putting it in unicode.

   *cough*

One of the nice features of Bitcoin is that it's supposed to retain its value better than fiat currencies, which are designed to lose value over time.

Keeping that in mind, you could put a non-spacing unicode equals sign under the B like this: B͇. Looks quite nice also.

If you wanted to keep the double slashed dollar/euro/yen theme, you could also use non-spacing unicode to make something like B⃦ or B⃒.

Bitcoin is actually designed to be very deflationary, not stable.

By "retain its value" I meant >= not just == as opposed to inflationary fiat currencies which do not retain their value.

I suppose we could do B͐ instead. :)

Why is it that a currency logo now needs a color scheme? Every other major currency in the world is doing fine without a special color. I don't see why Bitcoin is any different.

Well, one might argue that Bitcoin isn't "every other major currency in the world", and that's the point. Extraordinary currencies call for....extraordinary logos? ;)

Visa, MasterCard, and PayPal all have color schemes.

Well, they don't have a color scheme, but some currencies definitely have a color "identity".

The Euro is yellow on blue, like the EU flag.

When you think of the Dollar, you think green (so many popular sayings came from this one!).

I am sure there are more, but I cannot remember any at the moment.

I'm quite a fan of the Forrst proposal http://forrst.com/posts/Rebranding_of_Bitcoin-Ft5.

Both of the symbols shown in the top image are fine by me, the proposed one perhaps a bit better than the original. The OP's proposal just looks ugly and incredibly outdated. This new logo you linked looks like it's new, speedy, and I like the two-color simplicity.

This actually looks really great. I do find it a bit interesting that the colorscheme is also roughly the same as what Hacker News itself uses.

Agreed, I like it. Also noticed the nod at HN, but it might be a coincidence. Really like that it's an existing unicode character; that's something that other currencies get for free, and Bitcoin should be no exception.

Orange and gray is an extremely popular combo in logos...

I have to go with the crowd saying that currency symbols are silly things and should be deprecated. I never liked the euro symbol, it's awkward to write by hand or type with keyboard. And extra awkward with limited/non-standard keyboards such as those found on mobile devices. I usually use just "e", eg. 10e (with or without space depending on context). If I need to be more explicit or formal for some reason then I'd use EUR or just spell out the full name (eg. 10 euros). There is some benefit of having a four-letter name for your currency.

On a related note having your currency symbol as a prefix is also bit awkward as no other units generally are used as prefix. That's why I often prefer to write 10 usd instead of $10.

Relevant regarding standards: http://xkcd.com/927/

I don't like it. It looks stupid. It looks like some text rendering glitched. I much prefer the B that resembles the dollar (or some of the other alternatives) over this one.

That's a Thai currency symbol already though.

And $ can stand for about twenty different currencies. Not all currencies have, or need, unique symbols.

It's not a great solution though. With $ it works because in the majority of cases the context helps, for example in America they know it means USD, when I deal with people here in UK/Europe I know it means USD because of who they are, if I talked to an Australian I would know it means AUD (but would probably check with them).

However with Bitcoin, practically 0% of situations would be "that must mean bitcoins, not USD/other".

When you're in the same article talking about AUDs and USDs, you'd go "A$1000"

e.g.: "Exim Bank to Raise at Least A$100 Million via Bonds" http://blogs.wsj.com/dealjournalindia/2013/03/26/exim-bank-t...

Perhaps with Bitcoin: BC฿50

Just because people are already doing confusing things with currency symbols doesn't mean we have to continue to do confusing things with currency symbols in the future.

Right! Just because a fringe groups like the US and Australia do with an overloaded currency symbol doesn't mean that Bitcoin needs to settle for such nonsense!

so does thailand, arabic and korean... to you . because you're not used to it.

The B inside the mark should be pushed ever so slightly to the left. Because it's center aligned with the strik-through as the left edge, it appears off-center.

I don't know how widespread browser support for Ⓑ is, but it's the most intuitive symbol I can think of. Maybe ⓑ?

Better than the character in the title, apparently.

I like the lowercase b because it translates to bit. And it looks like a coin.

Chrome supports it, but it looks really wonky.

http://i.imgur.com/YB3krUW.png

It's not really dependent on Chrome, it's dependent on your fonts. http://i.imgur.com/o2BIyki.png

Interesting. It doesn't render on an iPad with Chrome, but does render in the header. Weird.

Same in Safari. I don't understand the difference.

What's the Bitcoins to Stanley Nickels conversion rate? What about to Schrute Bucks?

FWIW, I see a B with something that looks like a dirt speck blocking a pixel of my screen.

This doesn't show up in Android (2.3), unfortunately.

Or the iPad. Just a box.

Interestingly for me in both Chrome and Safari on iOS it renders as a box on this page, but a barred-B in the tab/window title!

Yikes, the unicode character just looks like a messed up B. Most other currencies look a lot better in unicode: $, £, €, ¥, etc

Arguably, those are messed up S, messed up L, messed up C, and messed up Y.

Well, all of those besides the £ have a nice symmetry. But it's nothing really annoying, neither for it not for the Ƀ.

I think they all have clearer visual differentiation and generally are more aesthetically pleasing than Ƀ

Not to mention that traditionally Ƀ is pronounced as 'v'.

Traditionally maybe, but only by a small minority (of linguists?)

Arguably, that's actually a messed up E rather than a C.

Yeah, I actually thought there was some dirt on my screen. I tried to clean it and after it didn't go away, I scrolled a bit to see that it belongs to the character itself -.-

I would much rather use the original BTC symbol. I would gander it has something to do with the fact that my mind has an easier time having the vertical bar(s) in "$" be a symbol of monetary value, and that I would have a different opinion if I were born in the UK or Germany and had the "£"/"€" characters on my keyboard.

iPad Unicode is a no-go: http://i.imgur.com/ugqJZre.png

Is that because of the iPad? Notice it exists just fine in the page title bar.

Seems like it, same weird behavior (title bar OK) on chrome ipad: http://i.imgur.com/GnOqBnZ.png

I think having the unicode character is a great idea, you definitely want it to be reproducible in print without include images.

Except there's no reason to directly use the exact same letter outlines for the logo. The outlines could be improved and the general colors, shapes could also use some work.

I anticipate this meeting with similar uptake to Leo Laporte's campaign to rebrand podcasts as "netcasts" about seven years ago. Sure, it makes more sense, it's more flexible, but there's way, way too much inertia to change at this point.

That's lovely, but I can't see it in Chrome or IE8 on Windows XP.

What is wrong with ฿?

There is nothing wrong with the Thai Bhat. Why do you ask?

They won't be needing their fiat anyway. :P

Outrageous. How am I supposed to designate voiced bilabial fricatives and ask for Bitcoin donations on the same page?

How about using two glyphs, with U+00A2 for the second? ฿¢ B¢ b¢ etc.

Not sure if this was recent, but preev.com has this character as its symbol now.

Does not work on android. The letter looks square.

Just another Bitcoin (alternate) identity

http://www.behance.net/gallery/Bitcoin-(alternate-identity)/...

I'm sorry to say it, but, eww. I guess it's just not my style.

Same here, ugh. Looks like programmer art from the early 2000s.

Awfully similar to hacker news colors no?

I see B minus.

This didn't show up on my iphone3g

Good idea.

I like it.

huh

Personally, I am just about okay with it. Have you considered inserting 'c' of (B)it(c)oin instead of the horizontal bar (dash) on the alphabet B?

Even if ฿ is the symbol of Thai currency it could be used for Bitcoin too. Much will depend on the context and besides not many buy online goods in Thai currency. US $ is the de facto currency in most places.

Also a small, really small, horizontal dash on the second leg of B isn't as great as horizontal dashes of £, €, ¥ no?

Have you considered a slant cutting across B? Or the mathematical/Greek beta sign (U+03D0) or its derivatives [1]?

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta

> not many buy online goods in Thai currency

Great idea, there are only 65 million people in Thailand and they will never need to use the Internet.

> need to use the Internet.

Is not the same as purchasing goods online from foreign websites. Purchasing using Bitcoin is but only one use-case.

Besides I have not many (not one, in fact) Thai portals listing its prices in any currency other than US$. Not one.

May be there could be some selling incense sticks in local Thai Baht, but meh that's not meant for 65 MM Thais. However, it may not be a great idea to adopt this symbol because, like you, many Thais would want their currency symbol to remain unique.

What keeps you from saying that?

So when Thai people want to buy something online, how do they know if the price is in Bitcoin or Baht ?

Your attitude appears to be very US-centric: you don't think Thai people buy things online in their own currency or you don't think it's important if Thai people never use Bitcoin ever.

Just because some online stores have detected your IP address originates in the US and shows prices in US$ doesn't mean they don't show THB to Thai IP addresses.

My only concern is that for the sake of choosing an appropriate symbol in the beginning, you are happy to make people suffer confusion.

Doesn't look bad at all. Simple currency symbol.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com