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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.

  1. 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.
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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.

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    That's neat, however, isn't that an image? The asker said "I'm looking for other ways to denote the currency without using an image.".
    – Murch ♦
    Commented Jan 30, 2014 at 17:08
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    Yes you are correct, but he also mentioned being able to print it through HTML. Plus when you use it like in the example, it behaves like text, not an image.
    – Besir Kurtulmus
    Commented Jan 30, 2014 at 17:12
  • Very cool. I will look into that.
    – user4276
    Commented Jan 30, 2014 at 18:37
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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.

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  • Apparently that character is not approved for windows ... I can't see it.
    – user4276
    Commented Dec 19, 2016 at 22:58
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    @fredsbend: currently iOS and macOS support the ₿ character even though it's not "official" yet. Presumably Windows is waiting for it to be officially part of the standard. I thought Android was going to include it by now, but I guess they decided to wait.
    – Ken Shirriff
    Commented Dec 19, 2016 at 23:02
  • How to get it on android? They are dragging feet. What's the work-around? It needs to be a text-based solution. Thanks.
    – toddmo
    Commented Jun 9, 2018 at 20:44
  • Embedding in HTML: &#8383;
    – MCCCS
    Commented Sep 24, 2018 at 15:42
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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.

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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.

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  • Thank you for the link. I do agree that the current symbol is too similar to the Thai Baht (which may turn out to be a widely used currency in Asia over the next few decades). BTC is perhaps best for now, if I want to avoid using images. It seems to be used enough that Google has it as the 1st listing. Someone on the site preferred a different symbol with a half horizontal line through the bottom left side of the B. I think that is pretty distinct.
    – user4276
    Commented Jan 30, 2014 at 18:35
  • I personally think that some combination of a B and a C would be best. Maybe the B and the C can be on top of each other in some aesthetically pleasing way.
    – user4276
    Commented Jan 30, 2014 at 18:38
  • I just tried it, but the ideas I came up with didn't look particularly like a currency symbol to me. ;)
    – Murch ♦
    Commented Jan 30, 2014 at 18:55
  • I came up with this a few minutes ago.
    – user4276
    Commented Jan 30, 2014 at 19:00
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    For historical reasons, the US dollar and the Mexican peso both share the $ symbol (they both took it from their common ancestor, the Spanish dollar of course). As long as it's clear by context which currency a text is talking about, no one gets confused. When both are talked about, in Mexican media at least practice is to use "US$" for dollars and "MX$" or "MXP$" for pesos. A similar convention could arise should the Baht symbol starts getting used for the Bitcoin as well...
    – Joe Pineda
    Commented Jan 30, 2014 at 19:07
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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.

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  • I think that will only work in some operating systems. Could you clarify what the prerequisites for your instructions are?
    – Murch ♦
    Commented Aug 2, 2020 at 4:27

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