XBT don't control BTC.
XBT is for the bankster.
BTC is for people.

simple.

Some background

BitcoinXT is just another client. XBT and BTC are quite the same, "BT" in "BTC" is used by Bhutan as their country code and is hence unable to be used as an ISO code. XBT is a ISO 4217 Currency code.

I can explain this.

BTC is prefered by many, because it sounds more like bitcoin, it just seems like a natural acronym.

But there's a problem.

In ISO standard, all 3 letter abbreviations for currencies have their first two letters be the country code (or region code), and the 3rd letter specifies which currency it is.

Some examples (some are old currencies):
NLG (Netherlands Guilder)
DEM (Deutsche Mark)
FRF (French Frank)
CHF (Swiss Frank) (country code for swiss is CH, don't ask me why)
CNY (Chinese Yuan)
JPY (Japanese Yen)
USD (United States Dollar)
CND (Canadian Dollar)
BRL (Brasilian Lire)
EUR (European Union Euro) (This one is a bit weird because it should be EUE, but this follows more like the 'BTC rule' of sounding cool)
And so on

So what do we do with currencies that aren't tied to a country?

Those get an X, like

XAU (Gold ounce (Au is gold on the periodic table))
XAG (Silver ounce)
and of course XBT (XBC was also suggested but lost out in popularity to XBT, (there's also already a currency using XBC))

BT is the country code for Bhutan, so BTC would be "Bhutan Coin"


Edit: It has been proposed by some to have XBT be the official tag for 1 µBTC (0.000001 bitcoin, or 100 satoshi) because this would be more compatible with most monetary standards that deal in currency and cents. (as there are 100 cents to an XBT). And the fear that some of those standards would break if they had to deal with tons of decimals.

As others mentioned XBT means a currency not officially recognized by any country
X currencies get that abbreviation.
BTC is well the name we use

This is the reason XE.com uses XBT:

"Bitcoin Currency Code
 
Bitcoin is not recognized by the ISO and therefore does not have an official ISO 4217 code. A currency code is generally built from the two-digit ISO 3316 country code and a third letter for the currency. Although "BTC" is often used in the Bitcoin community, BT is the country code of Bhutan. An X-code reflects currencies that are used internationally and so, XE has chosen to use XBT to represent Bitcoin."

I don't like XBT and I have never in my life used it. BTC we are and it will stay this way if the community and people using Bitcoin want it this way. Screw governments, obsoleting and all other stuff they are trying to do to us.

It has nothing to do with government ssued or not, it is because of country codes (ISO 3166-1)



EUR is an exception (an exception to ISO 3166-1, not to ISO 4217), the European union filed a request for EU to be added as a "country code" for the European union.

Could bitcoin do the same? No because BT is already taken .

This has nothing to do with government propaganda, it's just following protocol.




this has nothing to do with government, it's an international agreed standard just like the metric system.

it makes for easier communication.


standards are good, otherwise you get shit like having all kinds of diferent chargers (look at how many different chargers there are for phones and laptops for example).

Having one unified standard is a good thing.

is a fight between people and financial system as we know it until now. With practice like XBT the old financial system want to take the control of Bitcoin core.