BTC vs XBT: Bitcoin tickers
In addition to the common BTC, there is a second ticker XBT
Anyone who knows anything about bitcoin (or the crypto industry in general) has seen that BTC is an internationally recognized ticker for the most valuable cryptocurrency in the world. However, not everyone knows that Bitcoin actually has two official tickers.
Contents
You might be asking "why do we need two tickers for the same cryptocurrency"? To answer this reasonable question, we first need to understand what cryptocurrency is.
This may come as a surprise to some, but in reality, cryptocurrency stickers are not protected by copyright law, which means that there is not a single official, governing body, that would register them. There is no standard procedure for naming cryptocurrency tickers yet. Most often, bitcoin is associated with the BTC ticker, which is consonant with the original name -see xbtusd for details in this.
XBT/BTC
So why did XBT appear and what is its purpose?
When Bitcoin`s popularity began to skyrocket, many exchanges and institutions required an official currency code. The problem was that the classic ticker name "BTC" violated the international standard ISO 4217.
The ISO 4217 standard defines the rules for national currencies and their nomenclature, as well as for non-government assets such as gold and silver (codenamed XAU and XAG). The rules dictate that the first two letters of the three-letter character denote the country code, and the last last one should denote the initial letter of the national currency.
Problems with BTC ticker
In reality, the ticker "BTC" conflicts with the currency of Bhutan, its abbreviation is BTN (Bhutan Ngultrum). It is for this reason that an alternative ticker called "XBT" appeared. The "X" code is given to all "super currencies" that act as the global medium of exchange. Another very good example of this is the gold reduction (XAU).
XBT is not popular, but it is used by various crypto exchanges such as Kraken and BitMEX. Interestingly, there is no official consensus between the various cryptocurrency exchanges as to which bitcoin ticker should be considered generally accepted. This may be due to the fact that Bitcoin is so massive that its benefits outweigh the importance of tickers.
Reference: wiki