Are XBT and BTC the same?

XBT and BTC are both abbreviations and recognised tickers for Bitcoin, but XBT was given by the International Standards Organisation (ISO), who keeps track of all internationally recognised currencies in circulation. 

A ticker is a unique combination of letters that denotes a stock or currency. USD is the ticker for the US Dollar, for example, and ZAR represents the South African rand. The BTC ticker is in line with general practice in trading, where three or four key letters in the names of stocks or currencies are used to form the ticker. The ISO says that tickers for currencies not associated with countries must begin with an X, hence XBT. Gold’s ticker is XAU. 

Whereas most cryptocurrency exchanges simply use BTC to denote Bitcoin, the XBT ticker is often used in institutional investments. The recognition by the ISO of Bitcoin as a currency is seen by many as further confirmation of its legitimacy as a global currency.