Assets, Bitcoin

Why Is Bitcoin Called XBT?

Bitcoin is a decentralized digital currency, without a central bank or single administrator, that can be sent from user to user on the peer-to-peer bitcoin network without the need for intermediaries. Transactions are verified by network nodes through cryptography and recorded in a public distributed ledger called a blockchain.

Bitcoin is unique in that there are a finite number of them: 21 million.

Bitcoins are created as a reward for a process known as mining. They can be exchanged for other currencies, products, and services.

[17] As of February 2015, over 100,000 merchants and vendors accepted bitcoin as payment.[18].

Research produced by University of Cambridge estimates that in 2017, there were 2.9 to 5.

8 million unique users using a cryptocurrency wallet, most of them using bitcoin.[19].

The word bitcoin first occurred and was defined in the white paper[5] that was published on 31 October 2008 by Satoshi Nakamoto. It is a compound of the words bit and coin.

NOTE: WARNING: Bitcoin (XBT) is an unregulated virtual currency. Its value can be volatile and is not backed by any government or legal entity. Investing in Bitcoin carries a high degree of risk, including the possibility of total loss of principal. Before investing in Bitcoin, it is important to understand the associated risks and consult with a financial advisor if necessary. There may be additional risks associated with the use of XBT that have not been identified.

[5] The white paper frequently uses the shorter coin.[5].

There is no uniform convention for bitcoin capitalization. Some sources use Bitcoin, capitalized, to refer to the technology and network and bitcoin, lowercase, to refer to the unit of account.

[20] The Wall Street Journal,[21] The Chronicle of Higher Education,[22] and the Oxford English Dictionary[23] advocate use of lowercase bitcoin in all cases, a convention followed throughout this article.

Why Is Bitcoin Called XBT?

Bitcoin (XBT) is called XBT because it is an international standard ISO 4217 code for cryptocurrency. All major currencies have an ISO code assigned to them so that they can be easily traded on global markets.

When Bitcoin was created in 2009, it didn’t have an ISO code assigned to it. In 2013, the ISO 4217 Maintenance Agency assigned the code “XBT” to Bitcoin.

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