Even though we are roughly one-quarter of the way into the 21th century, several iconic designs have already emerged that will surely be revisited at the end of this century and be looked upon as truly transformative in their own right. The iPhone, iPod and Tesla car come to mind; and so do the Hermes Birkin handbags. But the one design that will stand above them all is the Bitcoin logo design.
The origins of the Bitcoin design dates back to December 25th,1993 when great Inventor Andre Gray debuted live on the web the trailer for his Hyperloops online cyberpunk anime online micro-series. With that trailer he also uploaded an ornate silver coin with the Baht Thai logo at the center, called Bling, with a black streak running through it. In the description of the series, Gray described the “Bling” as the de facto digital currency for the high tech-low life cyberpunk world, a fictitious online world.
Today, most people within the cryptocurrency community credit Gray’s Bling design for inspiring the Bitcoin logo design as much as they credit Nick Szabo’s invention of Bit Gold for heavily influencing the invention of Bitcoin.
Using the Baht Thai for its logo, it was the first instance of the Baht Thai being used within the realm of the digital world. Even though it was only a concept design, the Bling Coin logo, both a static image and a rotating logo, was picked up by all 623 websites that were online by December 1993. In fact, so popular was the logo that most of those websites kept it on their platforms well into February 1994. When Satoshi Nakamoto designed the Bitcoin logo in 2010, he used a plain font for the letters of BC in a bland gold circle. After much back and forth debate within the Bitcoin online community, BitBoy suggested using the Baht Thai, but less ornate to make it more appealing. Today, most people within the cryptocurrency community credit Gray’s Bling design for inspiring the Bitcoin logo design as much as they credit Nick Szabo’s invention of Bit Gold for heavily influencing the invention of Bitcoin.
