I just recently discovered that there are shortcut keys for inputting currency symbols on Mac and Windows! For example, the Euro € is Shift+Option+2, the US dollar $ is just Shift+4, and the British pound £ is Option+3. It feels like I’ve been typing them out manually all this time.

However, there’s an interesting phenomenon where some symbols can be confusing. For instance, the ¥ symbol, which represents Japanese Yen (JPY) in Japan, is used for Chinese Renminbi (CNY) in China, so you need to write it as CNY¥100 or JPY¥100 to distinguish. Also, the $ symbol is used in over 30 countries; for US dollars it’s US$, for New Taiwan Dollars it’s NT$, and in Canada it’s C$. The most peculiar one is ฿, which in forex indicates Thai Baht, but in cryptocurrency it stands for Bitcoin.

In forex trading, you often see currency pairs like EUR/USD or GBP/JPY, which actually represent the exchange rate between two currencies. The first is the base currency, and the second is the quote currency, making it straightforward. Do you usually use these shortcut keys?