What Is a Symbol?

A symbol is an abbreviated name for a crypto asset. For example, Bitcoin’s symbol is BTC, while Ether’s is ETH. Then you have the likes of Build N' Build (known as BNB for short) and Dogecoin (DOGE).

Symbols are also used in the stock market for well-known public companies — turning Apple into AAPL, and Facebook into FB.

You may be wondering why symbols are necessary. In essence, they can help investors distinguish between digital assets that might have similar names. Thanks to a seemingly endless number of hard forks, there are a number of cryptocurrencies that have Bitcoin in the title — Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin SV among them. Symbols help traders distinguish between these coins — turning them into BTC, BCH and BSC. If assets are also being displayed on a fast-moving screen, these symbols also ensure that information can be understood quickly.

The number of letters in a symbol can vary — some only have one character, while others may have four or five.

CoinMarketCap provides information about the symbols of each cryptocurrency on its coin-detail page.