5 ms·
That's as arbitrary as the idea that only a nation-state can support a currency.
by cturner 14y ago
That'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
- TazeTSchnitzel 14y agoIt'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).
- smackfu 14y agoThe Afghani is another case of revaluation. It was AFA before 2003.