Plain text for the Bitcoin symbol

Question

It seems that the most widely used symbol for Bitcoin is a B with two vertical lines through it1. It makes sense, as a single letter with a line or two through it is common for many currencies. Is there a plain text printing for this symbol, or perhaps a font that can insert it into documents and the like? What about a hex code or something for HTML printing? I'm looking for other ways to denote the currency without using an image.

With the symbols found here, it looks like a circle around it might become part of the official symbol as well. Maybe I should ask that separately.

Besir Kurtulmus · Accepted Answer

Like Murch said, there isn't a current text based symbol for it, but if you're going to use it on a web application, you can always use Font Awesome.

After you include the fontawesome library, you use the bitcoin symbol like this:

<i class="fa fa-btc"></i> fa-btc

Example output of the code above would be:

Example output would be like this

You can find more information regarding fontawesome bitcoin symbol documentation here.

jastako · Answer

Here is the unicode for '₿'. paste in any symbol you want the code for. Then hold CTRL+Shift & press 'u' followed by the code it gives. ₿ is 20bf.

Ken Shirriff · Answer

I got the common Bitcoin symbol (B with two lines) approved for addition to Unicode as U+20BF last year. It will hopefully become part of the next Unicode standard in June and then it can be used in text. The character (₿) is already supported by iOS and macOS.

Answered by Ken Shirriff on February 18, 2021

Arshid KK · Answer

I've made a custom font with Bitcoin, Litecoin, and Dogecoin symbols. There's a download link in .otf format in this bitcointalk thread. (It's labeled "Download.")

If this font file doesn't include a cryptocurrency symbol that you need, I'm willing to add it.

Murch · Answer

Update in 2020: The Unicode 10.0 release included the Bitcoin symbol ₿ as U+20BF. For your computer to show the symbol in text, you may need to install a font that includes it. For Linux, one such font is GNU Unifont Glyphs.

To my knowledge there doesn't yet exist a single symbol font representation of the B with two vertical lines, although it seems to be possible to compose it by combining a B and a double vertical stroke overlay: B⃦. However, this doesn't display properly for me.
Some people have been using ฿ instead, however, this is actually the symbol for another currency, the Thai Baht. There has also been some discussion that a B with two vertical lines doesn't distinguish well enough from the Baht symbol.
One could also see Ƀ being used, but its usage doesn't seem to be widespread.
On Bitcoin.it one can find a comprehensive wikipage about the Bitcoin-Symbol. Unfortunately, it has not been updated since August 2013.
Until a proper unicode symbol is introduced, the best option for a disambiguous textual representations for Bitcoin might be one of either of the following.

BTC: A common abbreviation for Bitcoin.
XBT: Proposed as standard currency representation in ISO 4217, also see CoinDesk: Bitcoin gaining market-based legitimacy as XBT

Plain text for the Bitcoin symbol

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