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Bitcoin is Stupid and Does Not Deserve an Emoji (blog post) (thedabbler.patatas.ca)

submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

361 comments fedilink hide all child comments

35 crypto companies got together to make a change dot org petition called "Bitcoin Deserves an Emoji".

F that

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (3 children)

I wouldn't think Bitcoin has, or can, be trademarked or copyrighted, as it is an open-source protocol/technology where even the creator is unknown?

It's still the name of a specific product/service. The issue is partly trademark/copyright, but also partly a matter of neutrality. The Unicode Consortium want to ensure that they're not directly or indirectly endorsing any specific products. If they added a Bitcoin logo, then you'd see every other crypto lining up to get their logos permanently installed on every person's devices, too. Free advertising for life on 99.99% of phones would be hard to pass up.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I mean, we have a symbol for effectively any currency that anyone can or wants to fill out the paperwork for and can demonstrate the basics of "this is a meaningful symbol with more than transient relevance".

They added ₿ in 2016.

https://www.compart.com/en/unicode/category/Sc

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago (1 children)

So, if there's already a symbol in Unicode, the petition doesn't make any sense. They should ask Google and Apple to display the symbol in the emoji list, with a control character to force it as emoji.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

Totally. It's double weird, because it's not a petitionable issue, it's a form where you make your case and a committee decides, and they already have the symbol and they just seem to want it to be usable like 💲, which isn't a thing.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Surely the Tokyo tower is a specific product then? 🗼It costs money to visit, aren't the other towers jealous?

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago (1 children)

https://unicode.org/emoji/proposals.html#Faulty_Comparison

The Tokyo Tower🗼(a specific building) does not justify adding the Eiffel Tower.

Many historical emoji violate current factors for inclusion. Once an emoji is encoded it cannot be removed from the Unicode Standard.

It was added when Unicode Consortium had different guidelines. They don’t accept specific buildings anymore.

Under automatically declined:

Specific buildings, structures, landmarks, or other locations, whether fictional, historic, or modern.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

Thanks for the explanation

[–] [email protected] -1 points 2 months ago

It's a specific type of thing, but it's not a brand. Nobody owns the trademark for Bitcoin. Anyone can buy, sell, or mine Bitcoin. It's no more a specific product than dollars are a specific product.

If they added a Bitcoin logo, then you'd see every other crypto lining up to get their logos permanently installed on every person's devices, too.

Is there a problem with that? This isn't "advertising", these are unicode symbols. There are unicode symbols for all kinds of things. Every currency has unicode symbols, why not cryptocurrencies?