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Ƀ — Universal Bitcoin Logo Alternative
- rdegges 14y agoThis 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.
- drharris 14y agoAgreed, 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.
- watty 14y agoOrange and gray is an extremely popular combo in logos...
- nbashaw 14y agoYikes, the unicode character just looks like a messed up B. Most other currencies look a lot better in unicode: $, £, €, ¥, etc
- mtinkerhess 14y agoArguably, those are messed up S, messed up L, messed up C, and messed up Y.
- Semaphor 14y agoWell, all of those besides the £ have a nice symmetry. But it's nothing really annoying, neither for it not for the Ƀ.
- nbashaw 14y agoI think they all have clearer visual differentiation and generally are more aesthetically pleasing than Ƀ
- Samuel_Michon 14y agoNot to mention that traditionally Ƀ is pronounced as 'v'.
- Narretz 14y agoTraditionally maybe, but only by a small minority (of linguists?)
- Leszek 14y agoArguably, that's actually a messed up E rather than a C.
- WA 14y agoYeah, 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 -.-
- jws 14y agoThat 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.
- BorgHunter 14y agoCapital 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.
- zokier 14y ago> 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.
- fjarlq 14y agoThere is a capital D with stroke: Đ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D_with_stroke http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D_with_stroke http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar_(diacritic) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar_(diacritic)
- jrochkind1 14y agoThe 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.)
- ianstormtaylor 14y agoI 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.
- cturner 14y agoI 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.
- miles 14y agoWhere's the "Upvote with half my karma" button when you need it?
- agravier 14y agoAbout 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.
- cturner 14y agoThat's as arbitrary as the idea that only a nation-state can support a currency.
- dudus 14y agoArbitrary or not it's a standard that's worth following. Maybe there should be a prefix for country-less currencies. XXB maybe?
- wcoenen 14y agoThat 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.xml http://www.currency-iso.org/dam/downloads/dl_iso_table_a1.xm...
- miles 14y agoThe 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 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_4217#Active_codes
- IvyMike 14y agoPersonally, I like it. One request: someone should declare that the Comic Sans version should have an eye: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euro_sign https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euro_sign . Maybe I just did.
- christiangenco 14y agoSwap your []s and ()s.
- corin_ 14y agoThat still doesn't work, because this site doesn't use the same formatting as (reddit)[http://www.reddit.com http://www.reddit.com]
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- calinet6 14y agoAKA "basically markdown." Oh well.
- IvyMike 14y agoCrap. I have shamed my family, my ancestors, my culture, and myself.
- Narretz 14y agoBetter than "Shame. I have crapped my family, my ancestors, my culture, and myself"
- Leynos 14y agoThis doesn't show up in Android (2.3), unfortunately.
- petercooper 14y agoOr the iPad. Just a box.
- nfg 14y agoInterestingly 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!
- gesman 14y agoI think ฿ is becoming de-facto bitcoin sign quickly. And sincerely it looks more appealing as a currency sign either.
- bpierre 14y agoExcept ฿ is already the sign of the Thai baht (currency of Thailand), which is pretty confusing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thai_baht http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thai_baht
- jl6 14y agoNot a fatal issue. A plain $ sign is very often used to mean a non-U.S.-dollar currency, with minimal confusion due to context.
- GFischer 14y agoWell, 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 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.
- brendoncrawford 14y agoI generally find this to be extremely confusing.
- mynameisvlad 14y agoReally? 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.
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- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- bcoates 14y agoNot enough bling. It should be " ҉в҉ " for maximum currency power.
- ctbeiser 14y agoWhy 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.
- nlh 14y agoWell, 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? ;)
- clarkm 14y agoVisa, MasterCard, and PayPal all have color schemes.
- franciscoap 14y agoWell, 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.
- Xcelerate 14y agoActually, 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.html http://www.unicode.org/mail-arch/unicode-ml/y2012-m12/0037.h...
- mynameisvlad 14y agoThat'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.
- Xcelerate 14y agoI 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?
- mynameisvlad 14y agoAnyone 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.
- Groxx 14y agoBrowsers are arguably the easiest to support. Include an .eot, .ttf, and @font-face and you've covered a huge portion of browsers.
- mynameisvlad 14y agoNow 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.
- alenart 14y agoWhat'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.
- namwen 14y agoThe 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.
- Xcelerate 14y agoI 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.
- nwh 14y agoThat's a Thai currency symbol already though.
- duskwuff 14y agoAnd $ can stand for about twenty different currencies. Not all currencies have, or need, unique symbols.
- corin_ 14y agoIt'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".
- meric 14y agoWhen 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-to-raise-at-least-a100-million-via-bonds/ http://blogs.wsj.com/dealjournalindia/2013/03/26/exim-bank-t... Perhaps with Bitcoin: BC฿50
- homosaur 14y agoJust 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.
- monsterix 14y agoPersonally, 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 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta
- lyndonh 14y ago> 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.
- monsterix 14y ago> 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$. Not one. May be there could be some selling incense sticks in local Thai Baht, but meh that's not meant for 65 MM Thais. However, it may not be a great idea to adopt this symbol because, like you, many Thais would want their currency symbol to remain unique. What keeps you from saying that?
- lyndonh 14y agoSo when Thai people want to buy something online, how do they know if the price is in Bitcoin or Baht ? Your attitude appears to be very US-centric: you don't think Thai people buy things online in their own currency or you don't think it's important if Thai people never use Bitcoin ever. Just because some online stores have detected your IP address originates in the US and shows prices in US$ 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.
- valgaze 14y agoiPad Unicode is a no-go: http://i.imgur.com/ugqJZre.png http://i.imgur.com/ugqJZre.png
- chasing 14y agoLooks terrible. The earlier B+$ blend (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bitcoin.png 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.
- beering 14y ago1) 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.
- chasing 14y agoWell, 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!
- banachtarski 14y agoThe 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.
- chasing 14y agoThere'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.
- cinamonas 14y agoDouble 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_of_the_World_circa_2006.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Currency-Symbol_Regions_o...
- Scryptonite 14y agoI 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.
- Samuel_Michon 14y agoAccording 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.com/bitcoin/ http://web.archive.org/web/20110815000000*/http://www.ecogex... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=%C9%83&diff=547317126&oldid=434428292 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=%C9%83&diff=54... [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3987186 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3987186
- jtchang 14y agoDoesn't look bad at all. Simple currency symbol.
- jahewson 14y agoIt 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.
- APB 14y agoJust another Bitcoin (alternate) identity http://www.behance.net/gallery/Bitcoin-(alternate-identity)/7838525 http://www.behance.net/gallery/Bitcoin-(alternate-identity)/...
- lucb1e 14y agoI'm sorry to say it, but, eww. I guess it's just not my style.
- omegavesko 14y agoSame here, ugh. Looks like programmer art from the early 2000s.
- GhotiFish 14y agoThis 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*
- zokier 14y agoI 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.
- nostromo 14y agoOne 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.
- medell 14y agoI see B minus.
- moreati 14y agoI'm quite a fan of the Forrst proposal http://forrst.com/posts/Rebranding_of_Bitcoin-Ft5 http://forrst.com/posts/Rebranding_of_Bitcoin-Ft5.
- lucb1e 14y agoBoth 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.
- giblfiz 14y agoRelevant regarding standards: http://xkcd.com/927/ http://xkcd.com/927/
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- johngaston 14y agohuh
- mortenjorck 14y agoI 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.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- etjossem 14y agoI don't know how widespread browser support for Ⓑ is, but it's the most intuitive symbol I can think of. Maybe ⓑ?
- zonkey 14y agoI like the lowercase b because it translates to bit. And it looks like a coin.
- stcredzero 14y agoBetter than the character in the title, apparently.
- omegavesko 14y agoChrome supports it, but it looks really wonky. http://i.imgur.com/YB3krUW.png http://i.imgur.com/YB3krUW.png
- iso8859-1 14y agoIt's not really dependent on Chrome, it's dependent on your fonts. http://i.imgur.com/o2BIyki.png http://i.imgur.com/o2BIyki.png
- dfischer 14y agoI like it.
- sturmeh 14y agoThat's lovely, but I can't see it in Chrome or IE8 on Windows XP. What is wrong with ฿?
- lessnonymous 14y agoThere is nothing wrong with the Thai Bhat. Why do you ask?
- sturmeh 14y agoThey won't be needing their fiat anyway. :P
- rileytg 14y agoAwfully similar to hacker news colors no?
- tomrod 14y agoInteresting. It doesn't render on an iPad with Chrome, but does render in the header. Weird.
- nwh 14y agoSame in Safari. I don't understand the difference.
- jessaustin 14y agoHow about using two glyphs, with U+00A2 for the second? ฿¢ B¢ b¢ etc.
- antimora 14y agoDoes not work on android. The letter looks square.
- shmerl 14y agoGood idea.
- barbs 14y agoNot sure if this was recent, but preev.com has this character as its symbol now.
- rickyconnolly 14y agoOutrageous. How am I supposed to designate voiced bilabial fricatives and ask for Bitcoin donations on the same page?
- johnward 14y agoThis didn't show up on my iphone3g