Well, without hitting up the Google I have no idea how to type that B-with-a-line-through it, either.

Plus, yeah, I'm standing by my first reaction that it looks, if not like crap, than kind of random. It doesn't really communicate anything on its own. A bystander won't see it and think "this is a currency symbol." Which I would think Bitcoin proponents would want!

  | Well, without hitting up the Google I
  | have no idea how to type that B-with-a-line-through
  | it, either.

I guess the first question would be, "Without hitting up Google, do you know how to insert any Unicode character?"

Technically, ASCII characters are Unicode characters.

Of course. Depends how you interpret the word "any". It's like if someone asks you "can you grow ANY fruit tree?", and you say "I can grow apple trees".

The guy you criticize makes it a point that he is trying to use a symbol that doesn't resemble the dollar sign since there is no correspondance between BTC and USD.

Did you look at other currency signs? The EUR sign is an round E with two horizontal bars. The JPY symbol is a Y with two horizontal bars. The GBP sign is a curved L with one originally, but nowadays, in many fonts, two horizontal bars. The dollar, too had one vertical bar. Nowadays it has two, in many fonts. There is another dozen currencies with symbols following this logic. Do a google image search with "currency symbol" as the term.

Guess why?

Designers of currency symbols have silently agreed to use two bars to mean just that: "this symbol represents a currency". So the B with two bars, for Bitcoin, is perfect.

The real solution (that may need a website too, to advertise it to the masses, least not the peeps @ HN) is obviously to agree on some free unicode slot to occupy and to get font designers to incorporate this two bar 'B' into existing fonts, in this slot.

>The dollar, too had one vertical bar. Nowadays it has two, in many fonts.

That is not correct. There was not a transition from "two vertical bars" to "one vertical bar" [1]. Please document yourself before posting.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollar_sign#Origin

I do not know what you mean by "document". I studied typography and designed digital type, for a while, about 20 years ago. So I know a bit about the design side of things. And the design side is what my post is limited to. I am sorry if this was a tad ambiguous.

I did not talk about the history. I talked about a typographical design trend that pertains to currency symbols. Also not that better typefaces sometimes have both versions on the $ sign. One and two strokes. The default is admittedly still the single bar one though.

Expert discussion re. the one bar/two bar $ sign, that could be an interesting read: http://www.typophile.com/node/17976

There's a very tight similarity: They're both currencies. Any icon for Bitcoin needs to communicate "I am a currency." Taking design elements from the dollar sign and Euro sign (the double bar through the middle) seems like a great way to do that.

Double bar is a great way to indicate currency? Dollar is often used with a single bar, just as pound, franc etc. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Currency-Symbol_Regions_o...

Oh, good lord. Let's just agree to use "💩". Problem solved.

So then, this part in the article didn't tell you how to type it?

"Ƀ (U+0243) is a unicode character used as a "capitalized alternate symbol for the voiced bilabial fricative in Americanist phonetic notation"

The symbol the GP describing is an existing symbol, ฿, and is used for Thailand's currency, the baht: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thai_baht

I don't find it very aesthetically pleasing either. It's widely accepted that bitcoin is shortened to btc, so I don't think being able to type the symbol is really necessary. I couldn't type the new proposed character either without going back and looking up the alt code or copying it from character map.