Required Legal Notice: Virtual currencies, real risks. The only guarantee in crypto is risk. Read more

Required Legal Notice: Virtual currencies, real risks. The only guarantee in crypto is risk. Warning: The value of your virtual currencies can rise or fall sharply, and your initial investment may be lost completely; virtual currencies are not covered by the guarantee funds that cover bank deposits; there is no legal mechanism on the virtual currencies market to prevent market manipulation or insider dealing; virtual currencies depend entirely on a specific computer technology and infrastructure, which in certain cases may be very recent and not yet adequately tested; if one loses the identification code or password giving access to the virtual wallet in which the virtual currency is stored, the currency held therein will be irretrievably lost; virtual currencies are currently accepted as a means of payment to a limited extent, and in most countries there is no legal obligation to accept them; for more information about the risks associated with an investment in virtual currencies, we advise you to read the Wikifin page What is a cryptocurrency? | Wikifin.

Bitcoin currency code: XBT vs BTC

Last updated: 31 сакавіка 2025 г.

As of April 26th, 2021, Kraken changed to using "BTC" for most purposes. "XBT" is still used for API, Futures API and logs downloads, OTC desk and History Exports.

Being that Bitcoin is decentralized, there is no standard, nor governing body, to dictate what notation should be used for it. Nonetheless, "BTC" has been the generally accepted abbreviation for Bitcoin stemming from the early days of Bitcoin.

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, "XAU".

Below is a list of Assets currently on Kraken that retain the X and Z Prefixes. Please note that this list is subject to change. We recommend making use of our Asset Info endpoint for the most up to date information.

Bash

XETC: ETC
XETH: ETH
XLTC: LTC
XMLN: MLN
XREP: REP
XXBT: XBT
XXDG: XDG
XXLM: XLM
XXMR: XMR
XXRP: XRP
XZEC: ZEC
ZAUD: AUD
ZCAD: CAD
ZEUR: EUR
ZGBP: GBP
ZJPY: JPY
ZUSD: USD
XBT: BTC
XDG: DOGE

Bitcoin currency code: XBT vs BTC

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