Satoshi Deserves its own Symbol
By: Jaap Coinranking
Tags: Currency, Satoshi, Cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, Symbols

“Iconography, good iconography, strives to convey invisible reality in a visible form.” — Peter Pearson

These words of icon painter Peter Pearson really tell what makes a symbol or an icon good. It’s instantly recognizable and tells something more about the object or idea it represents. This philosophy out of the study of symbolism is useful to be kept in mind while deciding on a symbol.

Deciding for an official symbol for satoshi

What is satoshi? Satoshi is a small fraction of bitcoin, namely 1 satoshi is 0.00000001 bitcoin.

Earlier attempts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Crypto enthusiasts haven’t decided on an official symbol for satoshi yet. Some say that it doesn’t need a symbol and the abbreviations sat and s are good enough, but we think that satoshi is used so often it needs a symbol, that conveys its purpose and is recognizable at a glance.

A satoshi symbol wouldn’t be the first symbol in the crypto space. Litecoin, Ether and Bitcoin already have a symbol. The symbols have been chosen with the Latin alphabet capitals as a basis.

Examples of proposals for a satoshi symbol

There are already some proposals for an official symbol for satoshi, but these proposals were never widely adopted.

These are proposed symbols out of the Japanese language. They all represent sat or s sounds. The problem with these symbols is that the majority of the crypto space is not familiar with the Japanese language.

These proposed symbols are all s-related. The line(s) does make satoshi seem as a currency, which could be misleading. Satoshi is not a currency, but a fragmentation of the currency bitcoin.

Why should you use satoshi?

As you can see on our market overview page, bitcoin is dominating the cryptocurrency market. The price flow of bitcoin is influencing all other coin prices, because most cryptocurrency trading happens against bitcoin. So seeing coin prices in bitcoin value gives you a clear and stable insight concerning the price performance of a coin.

People use satoshi instead of bitcoin, because it is more convenient to calculate with satoshi than with bitcoin.

For example: 1 doge is 0.00000038 btc, which contains a huge amount of useless zeros. But when using satoshi as a unit of measurement 1 doge is just 38 satoshi, which is clearer and more convenient for calculation.

A solution

Our proposal for a new satoshi symbol. The s stands for satoshi and the comma beneath it for its purpose: rather commas than dots

Satoshi has become such a standard unit of the cryptocurrency industry that it requires an official symbol. A symbol that conveys meaning, but is easy to recognize and will not be confused with another symbol.

We’ve come up with a solution. From now on we will be using the Ș from the Romanian alphabet. The s stands for satoshi and the comma beneath it stands for its purpose: To show the prices compared to bitcoin with a clear number organized by commas, instead of a row useless decimals behind a dot.

There some other advantages using this symbol:

Just like most other symbols in the crypto space it originates from the unicode character table. This ensures that it works in every operating system.

There are no lines in the symbol, so it’s clear that satoshi is not a currency itself, but a unit of a currency.

English is the dominant internet language, so most people would instantly recognize the s standing for satoshi.

You can see all cryptocurrency prices in satoshi value with the new symbol on coinranking.com

Read our follow-up article on the satoshi symbol.

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