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13 years ago Satoshi Nakamoto unveiled Bitcoin icon; See how BTC logo evolved

13 years ago Satoshi Nakamoto unveiled Bitcoin icon; See how BTC logo evolved

As the cryptocurrency industry marks 13 years since the mysterious Bitcoin (BTC) founder Satoshi Nakamoto unveiled the historic “₿” icon and sign, it is time to go down memory lane and look at how many times the iconic Bitcoin logo changed before it received the final form that is widely known and loved today.

Indeed, Satoshi Nakamoto revealed his idea for the redesigned Bitcoin logo, which was to meant to replace its older iteration, showcasing the future images he created in various sizes in a post published on the Bitcointalk forum on February 24, 2010, exactly 13 years to this date.

Satoshi’s original post revealing redesigned Bitcoin icon. Source: Wayback Machine

Plain beginnings

As shown by the Daily Crypto, the redesigned logo was the replacement for the earlier one, released in early 2009, which was also represented in the form of a gold-colored circle but instead of the elaborate “₿” symbol displayed the very plain letters ‘B’ and ‘C’ at its center.

Original Bitcoin symbol from 2009. Source: Bitnovo

New logo, more details

On February 24, 2010, the Bitcoin symbol became today’s letter ‘B’ with two vertical strokes, following the suggestion loosely based on the Thai baht currency symbol (฿) in the discussion about the maiden cryptocurrency’s future symbol at the Bitcointalk forum. The golden circle itself received some more details.

Redesigned Bitcoin symbol from February 2010. Source: Bitnovo

Final design

In November 2010, Bitcoin received its final form that is recognized around the world – the “₿” symbol, rendered in white and tilted clockwise by 14% inside an orange circle. It was suggested by the Bitcointalk user named Bitboy, who took the symbol created by Satoshi and redesigned it using Visa (NYSE: V) and Mastercard (NYSE: MA) as inspiration.

Current Bitcoin symbol from November 2010. Source: Wayback Machine

Design flaws

Interestingly, social media users have recently drawn attention to a couple of minor imperfections in the widely accepted design of the Bitcoin icon, which have been present for over 12 years, although invisible to the naked eye.

As it happens, upon zooming in on the original vector files posted by BitBoy, the image reveals a small orange line from the background seeping into the white ₿ symbol, as well as one of the curvatures of the symbol itself not being perfectly smooth, as Twitter users ben and Skyler pointed out.

That said, the necessity for creating new vectors that would fix these flaws could be argued, as the revelation itself doesn’t impact in any way the operations of the flagship decentralized finance (DeFi) asset, unless the crypto community shows interest in resolving the microscopic design issue.

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