OCR-Bitcoin is based on the OCR-B typeface. It adds Bitcoin symbols and is designed for displaying currency amounts and numeric values with clarity.

Fonts have aesthetics, and when used for specific purposes their functional design gains cultural meaning. OCR fonts became tied to balances, serial numbers, values, and money.

By the late 1960s, machines were processing financial documents at scale. OCR-A was introduced in 1966 for machine reading. It worked but was clunky to read. OCR-B followed in 1968, refined for precision and designed to be clear for both machines and humans.

Computer History: IBM OCR World 1966 // https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SC1mVe7isIA

OCR-Bitcoin’s first real-world use is in the Bitcoin Knots logo. It is also integrated into the node client for wallet addresses, currency amounts, and other readouts.

The mock-ups below show how OCR-Bitcoin works as a display font for balances, fees, and transaction data across Bitcoin applications.

OCR-Bitcoin is open source under the MIT license.

Available on GitHub: https://github.com/KurtisStirling/OCR-Bitcoin