So the other day I decided to visit Kraken exchange
to place a limit order. I've been a member for
over a year now and I just thought I'd start getting
active on their trading platform. Especially after hearing
news about them establishing the first fungible Crypto Bank.
After logging in I noticed that their exchange is a bit different
from what I'm used to. I started looking for the "BTC" ticker
so I can access the BTC wallet address so I could send some
Bitcoin over but for the love of me could I find the BTC Ticker?
I searched high and low even typing BTC in the search bar over
and over again out of denial and unbelief. What the heck
kind of exchange is this? I thought to myself. They seem
to have every "peasant coin" except the "King Coin" and to
make things worst they had this "XBT" coin at the top in
number one spot where Bitcoin should be. so after seeing
this darn XBT coin too many times I decided to google it and
see why they think it should have number one spot in the
search bar. Well, you can imagine my surprise when I find
out that it was at number one because it actually was number
one, but posing under a different name.
Apparently "XBT" is a new abbreviation for Bitcoin that
reflects its growing legitimacy as an international currency.
The abbreviation "XBT" comes from the International
Standards Organization (ISO) that maintains a list of
internationally recognized currencies. The standard
dictates that if a currency is not associated with a particular
country, it should begin with an “X”, hence "XBT".
Another example of this is the abbreviation for gold,
which is "XAU". Am I the only Crypto Fan who never
knew this? if not rest assured next time you visit your
nearest Kraken exchange and want to send or receive
some Bitcoin just look for XBT for it stands for and is
exactly the same as BTC.