On Mon, 7 Sep 2015 09:26:59 -0700 Ken Shirriff <ken.shirr...@gmail.com> wrote:
> The bitcoin sign is unrelated to the baht in origin. The bitcoin sign > was first used in an icon replacing > <https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/commit/3ca507a6eb1cecbf40a907a52c27128efb666ec0#diff-2563c1b5d707ccd97d7b2cfe66606d43> > the software's "BC" logo with the bitcoin sign logo, showing the > roots of the bitcoin sign are the letter B. There's no historical > connection to the baht, unlike the multiple uses of $ which are > historically related. The bitcoin sign and the baht sign are very closely related. Both are a combination of 'B' and the vertical strokes of the dollar symbol. Indeed, if you look at the first picture at http://www.goabroad.com/articles/study-abroad/thai-cuisine-the-spicy-truth , you can see a plain 'B' on the left and in the middle what looks like a B with two strokes below. A lot of handwritten baht signs end with a rightward flourish from the centre. It would seem that the preferred visible currency sign in Thailand is actually the two-character string ".-"! In a lot of cases, there's either no indicator of currency, or the word is written out in full. Perhaps a saving argument is the two forms of the pound sign - U+00A3 POUND SIGN and U+20A4 LIRA SIGN. Proper blue five pound notes had the two-barred form U+20A4 (which is how I learnt to write the pound sign); as the notes became greener, their lesser value was indicated by the use of the one-barred form U+00A3. The code chart notes that the preferred form for the lira is POUND SIGN, and I can tell you that my preferred form for the pound sterling is the so-called LIRA SIGN. Richard.